Click the link below to hear a podcost of Ivor van Heerden and Sandy Rosenthal interviewed by John “Spud” McConnell on WWL Radio Monday April 13, 2009. We’re discussing what Dr. van Heerden’s firing from Louisiana State University means for the people of south Louisiana.
http://audio.wwl.com/m/audio/22096512/04-13-09-3-00pm-ivor-van-heerden-sandy-rosenthal.htm
Exactly one day after Levees.org held a press conference denouncing the muzzling of experts who speak critically of the Army Corps of Engineers, Ivor van Heerden, frequent critic of the US government, was axed.
Van Heerden, the brave coastal scientist who led the state’s independent Team Louisiana investigation into the levee failures during Katrina, has been given notice by Louisiana State University that he will be terminated as a research professor in one year.
Van Heerden, a true hero, believes he was let go because LSU is concerned that his frank talk with the media has and continues to hurt LSU’s chances of getting federal dollars.
Stay tuned to find out what action you can take in response to the inexplicable firing of Ivor van Heerden.
In the meantime, I highly recommend checking out this blog post by Len Bahr, formerly an LSU coastal science professor, who served between March 1991 and October 2008 as a coastal science and policy advisor in the offices of Louisiana governors Roemer, Edwards, Foster, Blanco and Jindal.
Levees.org held a press conference today in response to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ final results of an internal investigation looking into Dr. Ray Seed’s 42-page ethics complaint.
Eighteen months ago, Dr. Seed co-chair of the Independent Levee Investigation (U of Cal Berkeley) submitted an ethics complaint to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) detailing an early intentional plan by the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Dept of Defense to:
1. hide the mistakes of the Corps of Engineers in the metro New Orleans flooding;
2. sabotage the independent investigations by UCal Berkeley and LSU;
3. intimidate those who tried to intervene;
4. limit the scope of the official Corps-sponsored levee investigation; and
4. delay the release of its findings until the public’s attention had turned elsewhere.
All of this was done with the help and the complicity of some in the ASCE. Dr. Seed, a well known and highly credible source, risked his career to come forward with no expectation of personal gain.
The results of that self investigation were released Monday April 6.
