Being well aware that I live a few meters below sea level, I realise more than most what it costs to keep my country, where storms are relatively moderate, safe. We Dutch have been acustomed for centuries to pay about 35 % of our national income to taxes. They are needed to fund militaire defences and lots of other things but a huge chunk goes to sea and river defences. To do the same in a hurricane area, with rising sea levels and water temperatures, these figures must be astronomical. If at all viable. To us it seems like suicide to have so many canals directly linked to open sea coming into the heart of a major city with only crummy levees for protection.

I know a lot of my friends in the city of New Orleans, still have to cope with hourslong powercuts, lack of gas and not reconnected digital services. That is: If they already have been able to return to their homes. Surely, there are other very miserable places on earth, one of them is costing the USA billions to keep it miserable. As US federal authorities feel that is a more urgent case, let is do the right thing. Not to say: why can't a rich country look after their own people, but to support those forgotton guys in the south of one of the nicest countries in the world.

Maybe all this is off topic here, but as I'm pretty concerned with the situation in Nw Orleans, which is now considering not to rebuild half of its lower quarters, and with a heavy delegation under the lead of democratic senator Mary Landrieu, here to investigate how we Dutch approached the danger of storms and the sea, I feel I should delve somewhat deeper into the matter.

here's a translation of an article in Volkskrant, a prime newspaper in NL, from tuesday jan 10th '06 (last lines by me though): The Dutch flood-disaster of 1953 triggered our delta protection program; Louisiana is on a similar treshold now. We Dutch look at the most powerfull country in the world with amazement: their flood protection is on the same tech level as ours was during the middle ages. The amateurism is beyond belief: You see pieces of sea defence there that have the height they should have, but then you walk on another mile and they are 20 feet lower! That is the main reason Katrina could strike as it did.

This week a high delegation of US senators and officials from the state of Louisiana visit here to see how they can protect themselves more seriously. All photo opportunities and most spectacular projects are on the program, including a visit with the crownprince to the Maasland Barrier, which secures the main waterway of Europe and the largest shipping lane of the world from flooding in superstorm situations. The Missisipy may be carrying more water, it does not process more or deeper shipping Such modern water barriers are unknown across the USA, The barriers around Nw Orleans, often made out of steel plate, have not been reviewed for decades. The strongest parts of it are designed to withstand surges occuring once every 250 years. The weakest structure in the Netherlands will breach once every 1250 years. So your weakest defences are five times as secure as our strongest? asks Adam Sharp, spokesperson of senator Mary Landrieu. Bush did nothing but cut down on our sea defence budget, argueing the funds are needed to fight the war on terrorism. in the USA it is also pretty unclear who is responsible for water security. Mostly it is the Corps of Engineers of the army, but in other instances it is a petty landowner, who has dammed in a small lake, or as in Louisiana, a local dikewatch. They all have different security standards. There is no integral aproch.

Here we started the Delta works in 1953 and continued for forty years intil 1997. The state of Louisiana should look for at least a similar project, as the storms are much fiercer there, the sea levels are rising, the sea water is warming up. We are not here telling off the Americans; the city of London has a Thames barrier in place for 2 decedes too, and we are also assisting on sea defences in Bangladesh and Venice and building entire cities in the sea off the coast of Bahrein, the likelyness of a Katrina hurricane hitting here is less than once in 10,000 years. But it does seem weirds that we are spending 1000 times the US budget annually to confront an occurance that is so much less likely. Maybe this can explain to you Americans why we Europeans are so reluctant when it comes to going ahead in unification and a constitution: If Bruxelles would have had a say in budgetting this kind of project, it would still not have been started, but we here know all too well that 75 % of our gross national income is generated below sea level. We cannot, will not gamble with that: We may aproach religion in a completely different way, allowing abortion, gay marriage, coffeeshops, but on this we don't think we can challenge creation or god.