After long delay, the National Academy of Sciences has issued its peer review of the Corps-sponsored Interagency Performance Evaluation Taskforce (IPET) which investigated the levee failures in metro New Orleans post Katrina.

This review, ordered by the Department of Defense was intended to give the American public “confidence in the scientific and engineering quality and independence” of the Army Corps of Engineers self-investigation of the levees.

Levees.org commends the academy for making no mention whatsoever about the Orleans levee boards and therefore not distracting the American public with something irrelevant in the flooding.

We also commend the NAS for urging that Congress pass a law requiring that the Corps of Engineers be briefed and updated when new scientific information emerges.

Regarding NAS’s assertion that 100 year protection is not good enough, we in metro New Orleans, laugh out loud at this statement of the obvious by the nation’s highest body of scientists. Author John Barry, Levees.org, the Corps of Engineers itself and many others have been saying exactly that ever since the levees broke apart in August 2005.

Levees.org’s excoriates the society for three things.

(One) The IPET took almost three years to complete and it is unconscionable to make the citizens of south Louisiana wait three years for a very important document. But NAS’s criticism on this was far too gentle.

(Two) The NAS failed to comment on how IPET might be unsound on an ethical basis. A task force led by Sherwood Boehlert recently faulted the American Society of Civil Engineers (that also peer reviewed the IPET) with major shortcomings including conflict of interest, lack of transparency and questionable funding sources.

(Three) But by far, Levees.org’s biggest criticism for the NAS peer review is the opening sentence of its press release:

“Levees and floodwalls surrounding New Orleans — no matter how large or sturdy — cannot provide absolute protection against overtopping or failure in extreme events…”

The statement is misleading and damaging because it causes people to believe New Orleans and the vicinity cannot economically be protected. And that is nonsense.

Levees.org believes the society has fallen short of its mandate. Without wishing to disparage all members of the civil engineering profession, we do believe the levees are too important, and what happened in metro New Orleans when they failed was too horrible for the citizens to be content with “self-studies.”

The unsatisfactory results of the NAS peer review is yet another reason that the citizens of New Orleans and America deserve the 8/29 Investigation Act, a truly independent analysis of the flood protection failures in metro New Orleans.

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