The Hurricane Protection Decision Chronology, a report financed by the US Army Corps of Engineers was released this week detailing all the decisions leading to the flimsy flood protection that New Orleans depended on when Katrina came ashore. The Chronology report proves yet again that the citizens of New Orleans and the nation’s taxpayers deserve the 8/29 Commission, the brainchild of Levees.Org. Here’s why:

1. The Corps of Engineers financed this study. Since the Corps is the sole agency responsible for the design and the construction of the Greater New Orleans’ flood protection, this means the Corps was intimately involved in the investigation of their own work. If you investigate yourself, what do you think you’re going to find?

2. The Corps’ press release stated that the Corps of Engineers was allowed to review the report before it was released for “errors in logic!” You call that independent?

3. Most interesting to me is a sub-report “Local Sponsor Roles” which apparently had been withheld since August 2006, had conclusions which contradicted the main report (found on the last page of Appendix E). The report on Local Sponsor Roles wasn’t nearly so critical of the historic Orleans Levee District as the main report. And besides, why had the report been withheld until now?

The citizens of Louisiana and the nation deserve better. Please click on this link and send a letter to your Members of Congress demanding the 8/29 Commission, an independent analysis of the flood protection failures in Greater New Orleans.

Sandy Rosenthal
www.levees.org