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...
After Katrina, the Corps built three floodgate structures on each of the outfall canals in New Orleans - 17th Street, Orleans Avenue, and London Avenue. Those structures have been in place for over two years now.
The structures are designed to hopefully keep storm surge from Lake Pontchartrain out of the city. They are massive gates that lower into position with hydraulically powered winches. Should the winches fail, the Corps is supposed to have cranes on standby to do the job manually.
Also installed at the gates are pumps to pump rainwater out of the city when the gates are closed. There are not enough pumps at the any of the structures to match the amount of wwater that the city's pumps can place in the canals. There are long delayed plans to place permanent pump stations with adequate capacity at the ends of the canals, though they are in serious flux right now.
Most of the pumps at the structures are hydraulically powered. The water pumps themselves sit in the canals. But they are powered by remotely located engines which push high pressure hydraulic fluid through pipes and hoses to the water pumps. The hydraulic fluid transmits energy to little engines inside the water pumps, and then returns to the main engines.
The pipes through which that hydraulic fluid travels are unpainted and rusted, and they have been since they were installed over two years ago. This is in direct contradiction to the Corps' own engineering standards, as well as common sense. There is no paint on the pipes, and they have been exposed to a salt air marine environment for over two years. There's over 17,000 feet of this pipe installed across all three sites.
There's also thousands of feet of piping which conveys fuel at the sites. Large fuel storage tanks hold enough diesel to keep the pumps going for quite a while in case of a storm. They also power generators meant to provide backup electical power. All the piping in those fuel systems is also unpainted, and has also been left to rust for two years.
The Corps finally decided sometime last winter to fix this minor problem by hiring someone to hydroblast and paint all the pipes. Within the past few weeks, information on their solicitation has been issued publicly.
The solicitation notice is here:
New Coating System for Hydraulic Pipes-Cleaning and coating hydraulic and fuel lines Interim Closure Structures-Orleans Avenue, London Avenue, and 17th Street
https://www.fbo.gov/...
And the supporting documents are here:
Specs: https://www.fbo.gov/...
Drawings: https://www.fbo.gov/...
The specs reveal the massive scope of work. Even piping that conveys the hydraulic fluid to the gate winches at the 17th Street structure needs to be coated. This is quite disturbing, since it means that not only are the pumps at risk of failure due to rust, so are the gates themselves.
Of course, they have those cranes, right? Well, maybe, maybe not. You see, the Corps allowed their crane contract to expire last winter, and they didn't do anything about it until two weeks before this year's hurricane season started. On May 14th, they put out a hurry-up, no-specification solicitation asking for rental cranes starting June 1, 2008 and for every hurricane season through 2012:
https://www.fbo.gov/...
The Corps actually ran two public drills this spring at all the floodgates without the cranes. One is forced to wonder how they would have opened the gates if the unpainted hydraulic piping had failed?
What else could go wrong? How about the fuel systems for the pumps motors not being rated for outdoor service, even though those engines were always intended to be installed in structures with no walls? That's also the basis of a solicitation that calls for the complete reworking of all 40 of the hydraulic pump fuel systems:
https://www.fbo.gov/...
The text of that solicitation actually says the following:
Contractor shall provide all labor, materials and equipment to retrofit the diesel transfer pumps and associated controls on 40 Pryco diesel day tanks with NEMA 4X control panels and IP55 motors as described in this scope.
The Corps of Engineers has 40 diesel day tanks supplying fuel to Caterpillar engine driven hydraulic units located at three locations in the greater New Orleans, LA area that are equipped with inadequately protected motors and controls.
But it gets worse...
Captured inside the Corps' own drawings for the pipe painting package are pictures of the floodgate sites taken this past December.
Those pictures show the following:
- The Corps and its contractors patching hydraulic fluid hoses with duct tape
- The Corps holding hoses out of the water with ordinary rope.
- The Corps using hoses with pressure ratings below the maximum pressures those hoses can see.
For further explanation, check out a newly revised entry on my old blog:
http://fixthepumps.blogspot.com/...
This is not "old news." This is work that is happening right now, and represents what people in New Orleans must contend with every day while attempting to put their lives together. They, and the rest of the country, deserve much, much better.