New Orleans might have slipped off the national radar a long, long time ago, but the residents still have to contend with the incompetence of the US Army Corps of Engineers on a daily basis.

Recently released documents show that the Corps and their contractors continue to use - shall we say - "unorthodox" construction methods in their flood protection works around New Orleans...

Those of you that follow such things may remember that last year, the Corps of Engineers tried to shift $1.3 billion around in its work in the New Orleans area rather than just asking for the extra funds. It had the effect of pitting one area against another, and was a craven move to save dollars at the expense of protection.

People at all levels were outraged, and the extra $1.3 billion was eventually appropriated. Senator Landrieu said at the time, "Casting aside the lessons learned from years of underfunded levee protection to devastating results, the administration seeks now to shuffle $1.3 billion from one set of projects to another rather than pay the bill for each."

Believe it or not, they are unapologetically trying the same maneuver again.

How many ways can a city violate its own laws? In a furious confluence of sloppiness, ineptitude and pressure from the Feds, a small committee inside New Orleans' city government appears to be trying to answer that question on its way to demolishing as much of the city as possible.

In the wake of Katrina, there has been far more demolition than rebuilding. The city is now pockmarked with empty lots owned by individuals with no intent of rebuilding. The so-called "jack-o-lantern" effect is happening one house at a time, and a city bent on spending FEMA demolition funds as fast as possible is doing everything it can to speed the process.

Demolition is not a plan. But the city of New Orleans wants to convince everyone, including its own bureaucrats, of the opposite.

Over the past few months, as I've studied the workings of demolitions in New Orleans, I've gotten more and more dispirited. There's no leadership, no direction, just mixed up mountains of paper and growing numbers of confused, scared citizens getting victimized by their own city government. Homeowners discover their nearly restored house is targeted for demolition, and are forced through all nine circles of hell to prove to their own city that the city is wrong. And some only discover this after the home is bulldozed by the city. It's horrible.

I and a few talented individuals have taken upon ourselves to do what the government should be doing: forcing the city to abide by its own laws regarding demolition. This has turned into a herculean struggle, as the degree of intransigence and incompetence in city government has gradually come to light. Against rather long odds, though, there has been progress...

I have been auditing New Orleans city public records in an effort to understand how the building demolition process in the city has gone so haywire. I'm not sure I understand the motivations completely, but I have certainly gotten my arms around a lot more facts. And those facts are disturbing...

This past May, the Army Corps of Engineers released a long-awaited report about the walls along both sides of the 17th Street canal. Through three different methods, the stability of those walls was analyzed and a "Safe Water Elevation" of 6 feet was set. The top of the walls are around 14 feet.

The report is dense, and as such is filled with fascinating factoids which have never been made public.

Buried on page 53 is some very disturbing news. The canal, for around half its length, is almost half full of silt, cutting the drainage capacity significantly.

Read on..

Last November 5-8, about 50 University of Notre Dame civil engineering undergrads, led by a few Notre Dame civil engineering faculty, took a field trip to New Orleans, ostensibly to view flood control works. Their behavior during this trip was unbelievably offensive to the victims of Katrina. In addition, the propriety of the trip itself is questionable, since it appears to be nothing more than a recruiting junket by the New Orleans District of the Corps of Engineers, using professors at Notre Dame who also have deep connections to the Corps to fly in students/potential future Corps employees.

Updated: Notre Dame, in a written response to me, admitted the trip was actually for recruiting purposes. See comment "Notre Dame responds" below

Read on...

An internal Corps of Engineers report from May, 2006 (over 14 months ago, and nine months after Katrina), which I unearthed, shows numerous and varied flaws in the walls and levees along New Orleans' 17th Street canal in areas far away and near the area which breached in Katrina. This canal is in use every day, and these flawed areas are often subjected to loading by water. The Corps apparently did nothing with this report, because I can tell you that almost no repairs have taken place outside of the breach area. Also, the report was not passed along to the local levee boards to allow them to act on the recommendations.

Read on for background...

The Army Corps of Engineers internal investigation into the floodgate pumps is out, and it is a blockbuster. The news is horrible.

I have written about it and linked to a copy of it at my blog, http://fixthepumps.blogspot.com.

New Orleans has been completely screwed over by a small coterie of four COE employees, all of whom are named in my blog post.

Some of you may know that the new head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), General Van Antwerp, is in New Orleans today, and has a press conference scheduled for 4 PM, CDT.

Some of you may also know that the Corps has had an internal investigation of the design, installation and operation of the floodgate pumps underway since last September. In a May 2, 2007 letter letter to Senator David Vitter, now-retired Corps Commander General Strock publicly revealed the existence of this investigation. He said the investigation would be complete sometime during May. He also said the investigation would be turned over to the GAO so that the GAO inquiry into these same matters would be robust.

Today is May 31. The Corps internal investigation has not been released. It has not been turned over to GAO, who issued their findings last week. If GAO had received the Corps internal investigation, they would have mentioned it, but they didn't. They never got it, because the Corps didn't turn it over to them. The Corps ran out the clock on the GAO.

After the revelation regarding the Corps of Engineers' knowing installation of defective pumps at the three floodgates in New Orleans, I promised people there would be more to this story. Yesterday I published "more" on my blog.

As I've written about earlier, the levees and floodwalls along New Orleans' outfall canals which were not breached are still very, very weak. On December 30th, we got a taste of how weak they really are. Ten days later, we got an example of the Corps of Engineers lying in public to hide that information.

While the New Orleans-area rainstorms on December 21, 2006 made a lot of news for localized flooding Uptown and in Jefferson Parish, the real story was happening out in Gentilly, where a levee breach or serious flooding due to turned-off pumps was narrowly avoided by just five inches.

On that day, the water depth in the London Avenue canal came within five inches of what the Corps calls the Safe Water Level. It is the depth of water above which movement or a breach in the canal levee and walls could be imminent. On the London Avenue Canal, that level is four feet above sea level. On that day, it reached 3.6 feet. Corps personnel inside pump station 3, at the southern end of the canal, were attempting to determine which pumps to turn off in consultation with Sewerage & Water Board (the local drainage authority) personnel to keep the level from rising any higher, when the water topped out. I have been told by Corps personnel that the Safe Water Level has been exceeded on other occasions at London Avenue, with the permission of the Corps. And December 21st was not an exception: Corps personnel, including the head of the Hurricane Protection Office, Colonel Jeff Bedey, are in the pump stations during every rainstorm.

In all the craziness of the campaign season, Katrina has dropped off the political map as anything but a mention of one of the Administration's miscues. I'd like to inform you about what has really been going on down here, courtesy of the organization that flooded us, the US Army Corps of Engineers.

I keep a blog called Fix the pumps that helps keep people informed in a nearly real-time manner what is going on with work the Corps is doing (or in most cases, not doing) around town to repair what was trashed by Katrina. It's not a pretty picture. We remain in serious danger of flooding. Do not believe the reassurances the Corps and the Adminstration have issued about the safety of New Orleans and surrounding parishes. They are untrue.

Here's a few of the Corps' greatest hits since the storm:

In all the craziness of the campaign season, Katrina has dropped off the political map as anything but a mention of one of the Administration's miscues. I'd like to inform you about what has really been going on down here, courtesy of the organization that flooded us, the US Army Corps of Engineers.

I keep a blog called Fix the pumps that helps keep people informed in a nearly real-time manner what is going on with work the Corps is doing (or in most cases, not doing) around town to repair what was trashed by Katrina. It's not a pretty picture. We remain in serious danger of flooding. Do not believe the reassurances the Corps and the Adminstration have issued about the safety of New Orleans and surrounding parishes. They are untrue.

Here's a few of the Corps' greatest hits since the storm: