The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has just announced they’ve convened two ethics panels to review questionable practices within their ranks.
One, an internal committee composed of three past ASCE presidents will review allegations that specific ASCE staffers colluded with the US Army Corps of Engineers to cover up corps mistakes in the Katrina flooding. The other, an even broader task force headed by a retired US Congressman will review how ASCE participates in engineering studies of national significance. Both should be completed in about four months.
The creation of not one but two ethics inquiries into alleged collusion between ASCE and the corps is of huge significance!
The smell of corruption is ripe and the citizens of south Louisiana should not be told to wait four more months. Clearly, the integrity of the corps-sponsored levee investigation has been compromised!
If you haven’t already, please go to www.levees.org and demand the 8/29 Investigation. Don’t we all deserve levees that work?
Sandy Rosenthal
Does anyone have any information about the Corp of Engineer project at Caernarvon? We have been informed that work will begin to elevate and expand levee system and that our homes may be involved; however, we have no solid information and are concerned about rebuilding efforts that will be taken away for new levee systems.
Sandy, your statement that the Corp’s negligence represented the worst engineering failure “since Chernobyl” is great, really terrific rhetoric besides being true, perhaps even an understatement by standard of lives lost, urban community destroyed, end of a unique culture beloved worldwide.
The judge’s reference to the “byzantine” funding mechanisms involved takes us to Bush administration’s cuts in funding levee maintenance for N. O. district going un-protested by our beloved congressman who was busy feathering his own nest, working as a full-time paid lobbyist in D. C. for foreign interests instead of “earmarking” for his district in what must be the safest seat around.
Michael Kopacz