La. wants Corps of Engineers to speed up

NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Garret Graves, the Louisiana official in charge of coastal restoration work, said the state is threatened by time-consuming federal procedures.

Graves, chairman of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said at a public meeting in Jefferson Parish that under procedures required by Congress the Army Corps of Engineers sometimes needs 40 years to get work under way for a project, the (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported.

"I don't know of a community in coastal Louisiana that has 40 years, " Graves said. "We can't have the Gulf of Mexico lapping up against our levees and floodwalls."

The Bush administration temporarily suspended some of the approval procedure after Hurricane Katrina, allowing repair work to get done quickly.

Graves and U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., have called for Congress to streamline approval of Corps of Engineers projects. Graves also wants the federal government to upgrade the Corps' New Orleans District office to a division, arguing Louisiana has unique coastal problems.