File photo April 2019. People are 24 feet below sea level at London Ave Canal pump station.  Photo/Sandy Rosenthal

We learned at the board meeting of the Levee Authority East that there’s a problem with the pump station at the London Avenue Canal.

Normally, the pump station––built after the levees broke in 2005––can pump about 9000 cubic feet of water per second (cfs).

We’ve learned that currently, two weeks prior to hurricane season, that the pumping capacity is reduced to 7200 cfs.

This is because the bearing at the bottom of one of the larger pumps was found to be overheating when operating.

This problem was discovered by the Orleans levee district when they performed their routine maintenance as directed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps is the entity that designed and built the pumps. To best of our knowledge, in response to this issue, the Corps is working to figure out what to do next.