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With the anniversary of the worst engineering disaster in US history just around the corner, decorated reporter Jim Schutze has departed from his field of expertise to try his hand at reinforcing myths about why New Orleans and St. Bernard drowned 2 years ago.

In a recent editorial, Schutze, an investigative reporter specializing in racial politics has moved into new territory – engineering. He begins with this false statement,

“. . .by statute and by political reality, the (US Army) Corps can’t come into New Orleans or Dallas and build what it wants to build.”

Oh yes, the Corps can. It has and it still is. Because by federal mandate in the Flood Control Act of 1965, the responsibility for the design and construction of New Orleans’ flood protection belongs to the US Army Corps of Engineers. The historic and the new levee board’s role is maintenance and visual inspections.

This is federal law, public record and you can read it yourself in Government Accountability Office (GAO) testimony before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works on September 29, 2005.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d051050t.pdf

If a building full of people crashed to the ground, you wouldn’t blame the janitor, and you certainly wouldn’t blame the survivors. You would grab the torches and go looking for the architect, the contractor and the engineer. In the case of New Orleans and the levees, the Army Corps is all three.

Please go to www.levees.org and join us. Don’t we all deserve levees that work?

Sandy Rosenthal

Click here for Schutze’s editorial

June 11, 2007

A report just released by the American Society of Civil Engineers says the primary cause of the New Orleans disaster was flawed design of its flood protection structures.

It was bad design – pure and simple.

But here’s the catch: The 84-page report sponsored by the US Army Corps of Engineers never mentions that the Army Corps itself is, by federal law, the agency responsible for design of the flood protection.

The role of the Army Corps as designer and architect for New Orleans’ flood protection is law by Congressional mandate since 1965, and you can read it yourself on Page 2 of the Corps’ testimony before the Government Accountability Office.

More than ever, this shows we need an unbiased analysis of the federal flood protection failures on August 29, 2005. We need an independent, congressionally ordered study with experts who don’t work for the Corps and aren’t paid by the Corps.

Click here to demand the 8/29 Commission.

Senator Mary Landrieu D-La and Senator David Vitter R-La are working together to pass the 8/29 Commission legislation this summer (in conferencing for the Water Resources Development Act). And the state of Louisiana is united behind this effort as shown by the Louisiana Legislature’s unanimous passage of a concurrent resolution requesting Congress to authorize the 8/29 Commission.

Sandy Rosenthal
Executive Director, Levees.Org
www.levees.org

Click here for the ASCE report.

Click here for the ASCE’s press release.

A report just released by the American Society of Civil Engineers draws a simple conclusion on why 80% of New Orleans flooded on August 29, 2005.

Corruption, cronyism and construction was negligible in the failure of the flood protection. Money constraints from Congress contributed, but the primary cause of the New Orleans disaster was flawed design of its protective structures.

This report gives the technical data on what Louisiana citizens have known all along; that metro New Orleans was destroyed due to engineering failures, not a natural disaster. And since the US Army Corps of Engineers is (by federal mandate since 1965), the sole organization responsible for the design of the flood protection, then the Army Corps is primarily responsible for the flooding of metro New Orleans.

Vincenzo Pasquantonio, Legislative Director for Levees.Org and I will be on Garland Robinette’s radio show Monday June 11 at 2:10p CST, FM 105.3. Tune in!

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.Org
www.levees.org

Link to the article

Link to the ASCE report