A member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers examines a breach in a floodwall on the London Canal, New Orleans. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Army Corps.)

So, the Delta continues to sink, sea level continues to rise, and the levee system will simply have to be raised and strengthened. But not just up against Lake Pontchartrain and not just in bits and pieces, because the sinking Delta will bring the water all the way around. So it will take a large levee system, connected by a causeway that will go across open water for twenty, thirty, forty miles. Something like the Interstate across Lake Pontchartrain. But it will effectively be the principle and only access route into a city surrounded by water.

GELLERMAN: Well, are those questions being asked now? Has your idea gotten any traction?

BABBITT: Well I can’t say there’s been a, you know, stampede toward lining up at my door listening for advice. But the comparison that I’ve tried to lay out is what happened in Florida historically. In 1947 there were two huge hurricanes that put 90 percent of South Florida under water. Absolutely devastating. And out of that experience the Florida legislature invented some new institutions. They created an entity called South Florida Water Management District, gave it the powers to plan water management across the entire landscape of South Florida. And they’ve flood-proofed South Florida; there has never been a flood disaster since then. There’s been a lot of hurricanes and, mind you, plenty of damage localized from hurricanes. But the sort of Biblical floods that used to plague South Florida have been eliminated through broad, landscape-scale planning for the management of land and water. That’s what’s missing in South Louisiana right now.

GELLERMAN: Any guesstimate on the cost associated with turning New Orleans essentially into an island?

BABBITT: Well, it won’t be really any more costly than what they’re already talking about to rebuild it. And all I’m saying is we must, before we spend that money to replicate what was there two months ago, we better think about what the landscape and the waterscape is going to look like in 50 years. And then, rebuild the infrastructure of the island, including the internal circulation, the streets, water, sewer, infrastructure and the levy itself and the connection to the levees along the Mississippi River so that the city, if you will, is kind of, think of it as an American Venice. So there’s not vulnerable, ‘cause if it’s done in the same fashion as the past it’ll just be vulnerable from a different direction next time.

GELLERMAN: You know, when you say American Venice, I really like that idea. I must tell you I can just hear the Zydeco music on gondolas. It’s a great idea.

BABBITT: Well, I think jazz is a much richer tradition than those guys playing guitars on gondolas, actually.

GELLERMAN: (Laughs). Secretary Babbitt, thank you very much. It was a real pleasure, sir.

BABBITT: It’s been a pleasure. I enjoyed talking to you.

GELLERMAN: Bruce Babbitt was the Secretary of the Interior in the Clinton administration. His new book is called “Cities in the Wilderness.”