Join Levees.Org

Dr. Ed Link, top director of the Corps of Engineers’ IPET levee investigation recently opined on the future of New Orleans. But Dr. Link, a senior exec with the Corps for fifteen years (1986 – 2002) over-emphasized the strength of Katrina in New Orleans and understated the negligence of the Army Corps regarding the flood protection.

Dr. Link expounded at length on the storm’s strength, saying “Katrina was a monster…” In Mississippi it was indeed, but not in New Orleans. But then on the Corps’ misdesigned flood protection, Dr. Link said only this: “The system was also incomplete, had little resilience, and in the case of the canal floodwalls, was poorly designed.”

What about that the Corps’ incompetently built flood protection was the overwhelming cause of the horrific flooding in New Orleans?

Leave it to a former Corps employee not to mention that levee and floodwalls were too low, that the Corps knew it, and neither raised nor armored them. Levees protecting eastern New Orleans and St. Bernard were filled with hydrofill (erodable sand) instead of clay. Dr. Link also omits that the Corps ignored information that it was designing for far too weak a storm. And that it constructed a series of projects that, according to its own study, was “a system in name only.”

To ignore the incompetence of the Corps of Engineers does a disservice to New Orleans, to Louisiana and the whole nation. The mistakes of the Corps must not be buried.

Go to www.levees.org and demand the 8/29 Investigation, a truly independent analysis of the flood protection failures in metro New Orleans. Every citizen in the nation deserves it.

Sandy Rosenthal

Click here for Dr. Link’s opinion editorial.

Levees.Org Second Annual Report Card
on the performance of the US Army Corps of Engineers
in previous 12 months

Presented Saturday August 25, 2007
Isidore Newman School, 1903 Jefferson Avenue, New Orleans
by: Sandy Rosenthal, Executive Director and
HJ Bosworth Jr, Reseach Director

Admitting past mistakes: D

The Corps-sponsored Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) and the independent U of California report have documented the fundamental design and engineering flaws that led the catastrophic failures of the levees and floodwalls. But the Corps has given lame and disingenuous excuses and has mostly failed to take responsibility for their flood protection structure and system failures. Nothing has been done to address the organizational problems that brought about this disaster and led to the destruction of a major American city.

Truly independent peer review: D

The existing peer review continues to be internal within the Corps and/or using the Corps’ own contractors. This is not what is meant by independent review. We cannot afford the repetition of prior mistakes.

Transparency: C-

The Corps is sharing more information with the public. However, we await the day when a visit to a Corps website would list the major projects and status.

Treating flood protection as a system: B

The Corps has developed a computer model that now treats the flood protection as a system rather than as a series of projects. The model is being used to guide decisions and is providing citizens with much needed risk assessment. This is a major step forward. However, peer review of the model is needed and we cannot give an “A” grade until such review is permitted.

Interim protection Industrial Canal: F

The protection along the Industrial Canal and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway is the true weak spot of the flood protection system for the East bank of New Orleans. The Corps plans to have 100 year protection completed in 2011. However, no significant steps have been taken to provide interim protection before that date. Time has been wasted. Interim gates have been proposed and can be built within 24 months. The city remains at risk. New Orleans cannot continue to risk major flooding until 2011 or beyond.