Pump station #3 in St. Bernard Parish near Meraux. Photo dated June 21st 2017.
It's not like those pumps are important or anything.
Showing posts with label Levees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Levees. Show all posts
Saturday, July 1, 2017
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Some Notes about the SELFPA-E
The Wagon Wheel near the mouth of the MS River. Photo by author.
So, the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Agency (split into 2 branches: East and West) was created in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in order to do away with the incompetent, nepotistic, and unprofessional parish-level levee boards who spent more time running casinos than maintaining levees. The history of how corrupt those levee boards were goes back well over 100 years; the original Louisiana State Lottery Company was founded to pay off levee bonds.
The SELFPA-E has fought a drawn-out battle with the Corps of Engineers on how the levees will be armored. They fought the battle on technical merits and won a significant victory by getting the Corps to agree to geotextile armoring of the levees. Make no mistake, that will save lives in the event of a storm.
Recently, SELFPA-E has been in the news over filing a lawsuit and Jindal has sworn to gut the board in retaliation. So says Garrett Graves, "“I don’t see any scenario where this levee district doesn’t get gutted — or, say, ‘reformed’ — in the next legislative session.”
Garrett Graves is the chair of the state Coastal Protection Agency. He is Jindal's point man on coastal issues. For a little background, he doesn't have any technical background (engineering, geology, etc.), although he was a staffer in Washington DC and his father owned a local construction and engineering company. I'd say on the whole he's done a decent job, despite the red flag of not being able to work a partial differential equation if it bit him on the ass. Note that there is a pending public records lawsuit over his correspondence.
John Barry's credentials are impeccable. There's really no other individual in the entire country as qualified to serve on SELFPA-E. If you haven't read "Rising Tide" then you're really missing out on one of the greatest books in Louisiana history. Fun fact: a Tulane donor had a copy FedEx'd to every single incoming freshmen when I went to Tulane. They felt it was the best primer on Southeast Louisiana available. Barry has won the Keck Award and the Abel Wolman distinguished lecturer awards from the National Academy of Sciences.
Here is a Barry OpEd in National Geographic. Here's what could be his farewell address to the SELFPA-E: "This could be my last meeting," Barry said ... "As you know I'm a historian, and I don't believe history happens. People make history," said Barry, author of an award-winning book, "Rising Tide," on the great Mississippi River flood of 1927. "I think this board has really made an effort to make history — and I'm not just talking about the lawsuit."
Who will we replace Barry with? Well, so far there are two names in ring: Hassinger & George Ackel III. Hassinger is a lawyer who already serves as the chairman of the Non-Flood Protection Asset Management Authority (running the casino, Lakefront Airport, etc. that were the Orleans Parish Levee Board legacy assets). His appointment would signal a return to the days where board members are more concerned with lining their pockets than serving public safety.
While it's true George Ackel III ran a small construction company in the immediate aftermath of Katrina (now defunct, as far as I can tell), the first return when Googling him is horse-racing. Yep, horse-racing. His father was a developer in Jefferson Parish. His grandfather was a Jefferson Parish politician who racked up $26,000 in ethics fine, the most ever in Louisiana history.
Frierson, of Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, and Blanco are justifiably horrified with the direction the nomination process is going. It takes a major "Good Government" reform of the post-Katrina era and chucks it out the window. We are still dependent on the Feds for significant actions, from finishing the post-Katrina levee rebuilding (the permanent pump stations are just beginning construction and there's still the Option 1 vs. Option 2 controversy), sediment management from upstream dams, Mississippi River water management, beneficial use of dredge spoils, ... The list goes on and on. The optics of the moves are already terrible ("I'm sure the timing of Chevron's donation was coincidental."). My own opinion is if this is really the direction we're going, I hereby nominate this man to be the next head of SELFPA-E:
UPDATE: James Gill hits one out of the ballpark.
UPDATE 2: In a bizarre meeting, John Barry is sacked. The qualification committee also passed up the head of Tulane's geology department for someone with political links to Ray Nagin and Bobby Jindal. Hmm... Here's another letter to The Advocate by Barry. Clancy DuBos, who endorsed Bobby Jindal for his first term, lays into the qualification committee for betraying the public trust.
While it's true George Ackel III ran a small construction company in the immediate aftermath of Katrina (now defunct, as far as I can tell), the first return when Googling him is horse-racing. Yep, horse-racing. His father was a developer in Jefferson Parish. His grandfather was a Jefferson Parish politician who racked up $26,000 in ethics fine, the most ever in Louisiana history.
Frierson, of Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans, and Blanco are justifiably horrified with the direction the nomination process is going. It takes a major "Good Government" reform of the post-Katrina era and chucks it out the window. We are still dependent on the Feds for significant actions, from finishing the post-Katrina levee rebuilding (the permanent pump stations are just beginning construction and there's still the Option 1 vs. Option 2 controversy), sediment management from upstream dams, Mississippi River water management, beneficial use of dredge spoils, ... The list goes on and on. The optics of the moves are already terrible ("I'm sure the timing of Chevron's donation was coincidental."). My own opinion is if this is really the direction we're going, I hereby nominate this man to be the next head of SELFPA-E:
UPDATE: James Gill hits one out of the ballpark.
UPDATE 2: In a bizarre meeting, John Barry is sacked. The qualification committee also passed up the head of Tulane's geology department for someone with political links to Ray Nagin and Bobby Jindal. Hmm... Here's another letter to The Advocate by Barry. Clancy DuBos, who endorsed Bobby Jindal for his first term, lays into the qualification committee for betraying the public trust.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Gating the Rigolets?
This was on the cover of the paper recently:
I expected a bit better writeup on this very important project. It's a large levee proposed stretching from New Orleans East to Slidell. It will have gaps in the channels at the Rigolets, but will have options to install gates at a later time.
Note that the gating of the mouth of the lake has been proposed on numerous occasions in the past. Proposals go back at least 40 years. It's back under discussion, partly because of Isaac's LaPlace flooding. Here's a letter to the editor shortly after Isaac calling for the gates.
Putting in the levee along the old St. Bernard birdsfoot is a pretty low-risk, moderate-reward project. In fact, it was even called for in the Corps' original 1962 plan for hurricane protection levees around New Orleans, but was shelved for a variety of reasons including cost. So long as you maintain sufficient gaps for normal inflow and outflow, there's very little impact on the lake, although there's not as much of a mitigation against storm surge. The natural tendency is to want to gate off the final gaps, but that could cause problems.
Gates present problems risk for two main reasons: flow and backside fetch-driven-flooding.
The first issue is flow. Lake Pontchartrain is really more akin to a tidal mudflat than a traditional lake. There are MASSIVE inflows and outflows in that lake on a regular basis. Even without hurricanes, the tidal flows through the Rigolets can reach ~6-8 knots. That's really moving. Any gated structure will mean a choke point which will increase the flowrate much higher. That means the structure will be very, very vulnerable to scour and undermining. Here's an illustration of scour at the Rigolets:
Source:
McCorquodale, J. A., Georgiou, I., Retana, A. G., Barbe, D., & Guillot, M. J. (2007). Hydrodynamic Modeling of the Tidal Prism in the Pontchartrain Basin Estuary. Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA.
This is a trestle bridge that supports the CSX line that runs along the Gulf Coast. The pilings interrupt the flow and cause major scouring in the vicinity. Note that scour very nearly destroyed the Corps-built Old River Control Structure in 1973, partly due to a design flaw:
In 1973, a large flood tested the ORCS to its limits. Huge scour developed underneath the large steel pilings which anchored the structure to the river bottom. The structure was almost swept away, and emergency concrete was poured into the holes as a kind of large Band-Aid.
Any gate structure in the Rigolets would have to cope with similar, powerful scour effects.
The other problem with gating the Rigolets is backside flooding. You'd think that if you just built a giant plug, well, that'd solve all your problems, right? Like putting up a giant dam, no storm surge could enter and no flooding would result, right? Not quite.
A term used in physical oceanography is "Fetch". Fetch describes how wind (even very weak wind) acting over a large enough surface area begins to build up waves and surge. Isaac, despite being barely a Category 1 storm, covered a very large surface area. Despite they eye hitting Port Fourchon, I had friends in Charleston, SC lose power from the outer bands of the storm. Despite weak winds, they were able to act over a large area and build up a pretty impressive surge, as anyone in Braithwait or LaPlace can tell you.
How does this relate to gating the Rigolets? Well, let's suppose you had a continuous, 50' barrier keeping the mouth of the lake plugged up through any and all hurricanes, you still have the surface area of Lake Pontchartrain that the wind can act upon. The lake is ~24 miles wide by at least double that width in the other direction. The surface area of the lake is ~630 square miles. Even if you have a weak wind, it has enough surface area to act upon to still make a significant surge. Even if you have gates, you'll still need levees around the edge of the lake! Gates alone are not enough.
Purely fetch-driven surge in Lake Pontchartrain can pile up to 6 feet+ on the Lake (Source: Ed Fleming at a presentation I attended). Furthermore, that surge can be driven North, South, or West, depending on the direction of where the hurricane hits. For example, a hurricane that hits Morgan City has a north-east quadrant that would drive storm surge to the Northshore. A hurricane that hits Bay St. Louis would push surge southwards onto the lakeside levees of Jefferson and Orleans Parish. Note that there are no Federal flood protection levees anywhere on the Northshore and, while they have been authorized for LaPlace, no funding has ever come forward to actually build them.* Getting around to building more levees, given current rigorous standards, could be pricey.
My main point is this is a levee project to pay particular attention to. Especially if the gates are added later as an option. Gates will have some tricky design challenges and are not a panacea.
More background here from the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation.
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* There was a letter to the editor by David Vitter (note: dead link) where Vitter slammed the Corps for not building the LaPlace levee that was authorized after extensive study in ~1992. Umm... The Corps is a creature of Congress. It does what Congress funds. The LaPlace levee was authorized in ~1992, but wasn't funded. Who was in charge of securing that funding? Maybe a politician that's been there representing Louisiana for a decade plus as a Representative and Senator?
Another sidenote: We also need to kill the whole "blame New Orleans levees for Braitwhite/LaPlace flooding" thing. This was studied and debunked before the levees were built. They've gone back and double checked it, and sure enough, the New Orleans levee improvements had negligible effect on levees in LaPlace/Braithwhite. UPDATE- This is the link to the Corps study stating the NOLA Levee improvements had no effect. More here: New Orleans Levees Hold, and Outsiders Want In.
UPDATE 2- I'll just add the recent Bob Marshall Op-Ed about updating the bird's foot to save the coast and help the port here. Worth a read.
UPDATE 2- I'll just add the recent Bob Marshall Op-Ed about updating the bird's foot to save the coast and help the port here. Worth a read.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
West Bay Diversion to close?
West Bay Diversion Project to End. Or at least, that was the headline in early 2010.
Backing up, West Bay was the first diversion project optimized for sediment diversion. It's also WAY larger than either Canarvon or Davis Pond (ea. ab. 10,000 CFS vs. 50k+ for W. Bay). Canarvon and Davis Pond are sometimes called failures, but that isn't really fair, since they were optimized to fight saltwater intrusion only and NOT to carry sediment.
West Bay is located near Head of Passes (scroll down on the link for the maps). Planning started in 1991 and it was the first diversion optimized for sediment diversion. It was opened and petered along for a while, but was considered a disappointment. The Corps, who hated the project from the start (they believed it would be a hazard to navigation or would just plug up), trumpeted the failure and pushed for its closure.
Here's a quote from Dr. Len Bahr about the Corps and West Bay:
Despite its recent construction in 2003, bathymetric surveys in 2009 showed that sediment accretion from the West Bay Sediment Diversion project had exceeded subsidence in parts of the project receiving area for the first time in almost a century. Nevertheless, the public was told that a lack of significant wetland accretion contributed to a decision to shut down this ‘youthful’ sediment diversion project.
They also forced CWPPRA to pay for the dredging of the Pilot Town anchorage, despite modeling that proved West Bay was responsible for 20% (or less) of the shoaling and that the anchorage was built in an area that was prone to shoaling anyway. Here's a presentation from a past Tulane Engineering Forum describing the sediment transport modeling [PDF]. Furthermore, the port people weren't really complaining because the anchorage is hardly ever used (pilots are almost 100% available within a few hours notice at Head of Passes; the anchorage is almost a vestige of the old sailing days).
Enter the 2008 and 2011 Mississippi River floods (both of which were BIG, especially 2011 which was at least a 100-year event). West Bay, which wasn't a total failure like the Corps was making out, but also wasn't lighting the world on fire, explodes in activity and they figure out the missing ingredient: sand and gravel. The normal river flow has almost no sands in it; it's all mud and fine sediment (good for nourishing plants, but not enough of a base for land-creation). In flood events, there's a totally different dynamic. During flood events, sediment load per unit volume of water is at least 50 times larger, with much coarser sediment mobilized. The Corps continues to call West Bay a failure.
There was also an interesting side story that happened about this time: CWPPRA was investigating barging sediment from one area to another and asked the Corps about shortcutting through the West Bay diversion instead of going all the way around to SW pass. The Corps said, 'bah, it'll be too shallow and you'll just get stuck on a sandbar and we know everything there is to know about river dynamics because we've been studying it for 100+ years.' Well, the barging project was shelved because of cost, but they did to a hydrographic survey and the depth of the West Bay channel: 84' (barges draw ~20' or less).
More and more, the science community wants to study West Bay (being wrong in science is a good thing; you learn something new). The Corps is doing what a bureaucratic organization does to something it sees as embarrassing them: kill it with fire. The Corps had finally blackmailed CWPPRA into closing West Bay in 2010 when 2 monkey wrenches were thrown into the mix: the 2011 floods and the shipping people 'stabbed the Corps in the back' (or so that's how the Corps felt, so I'm told). Note that that link is dated October 13th.
My theory behind the objection: the port people know SW Pass is hydraulically inefficient and a pain to keep dredged. They're looking into a new, deeper pass much closer to Venice and see West Bay as an interim solution to accommodate New Panamax-class ships (Panamax=39.5' draft, New=49.9' draft) in a cost effective manner (as opposed to Miami's expensive Deep Dredge Project that's caught up in Tea Party-type stalls). The Port of New Orleans has been doing extremely well with containerized cargo this year (highest ever for NOLA?) and want to get an even bigger slice of that pie going forward.
How will this all shake out? Will the Corps force the closure of West Bay? Will we ever learn how to save the coast? We shall see.
Backing up, West Bay was the first diversion project optimized for sediment diversion. It's also WAY larger than either Canarvon or Davis Pond (ea. ab. 10,000 CFS vs. 50k+ for W. Bay). Canarvon and Davis Pond are sometimes called failures, but that isn't really fair, since they were optimized to fight saltwater intrusion only and NOT to carry sediment.
West Bay is located near Head of Passes (scroll down on the link for the maps). Planning started in 1991 and it was the first diversion optimized for sediment diversion. It was opened and petered along for a while, but was considered a disappointment. The Corps, who hated the project from the start (they believed it would be a hazard to navigation or would just plug up), trumpeted the failure and pushed for its closure.
Here's a quote from Dr. Len Bahr about the Corps and West Bay:
Despite its recent construction in 2003, bathymetric surveys in 2009 showed that sediment accretion from the West Bay Sediment Diversion project had exceeded subsidence in parts of the project receiving area for the first time in almost a century. Nevertheless, the public was told that a lack of significant wetland accretion contributed to a decision to shut down this ‘youthful’ sediment diversion project.
They also forced CWPPRA to pay for the dredging of the Pilot Town anchorage, despite modeling that proved West Bay was responsible for 20% (or less) of the shoaling and that the anchorage was built in an area that was prone to shoaling anyway. Here's a presentation from a past Tulane Engineering Forum describing the sediment transport modeling [PDF]. Furthermore, the port people weren't really complaining because the anchorage is hardly ever used (pilots are almost 100% available within a few hours notice at Head of Passes; the anchorage is almost a vestige of the old sailing days).
Enter the 2008 and 2011 Mississippi River floods (both of which were BIG, especially 2011 which was at least a 100-year event). West Bay, which wasn't a total failure like the Corps was making out, but also wasn't lighting the world on fire, explodes in activity and they figure out the missing ingredient: sand and gravel. The normal river flow has almost no sands in it; it's all mud and fine sediment (good for nourishing plants, but not enough of a base for land-creation). In flood events, there's a totally different dynamic. During flood events, sediment load per unit volume of water is at least 50 times larger, with much coarser sediment mobilized. The Corps continues to call West Bay a failure.
There was also an interesting side story that happened about this time: CWPPRA was investigating barging sediment from one area to another and asked the Corps about shortcutting through the West Bay diversion instead of going all the way around to SW pass. The Corps said, 'bah, it'll be too shallow and you'll just get stuck on a sandbar and we know everything there is to know about river dynamics because we've been studying it for 100+ years.' Well, the barging project was shelved because of cost, but they did to a hydrographic survey and the depth of the West Bay channel: 84' (barges draw ~20' or less).
More and more, the science community wants to study West Bay (being wrong in science is a good thing; you learn something new). The Corps is doing what a bureaucratic organization does to something it sees as embarrassing them: kill it with fire. The Corps had finally blackmailed CWPPRA into closing West Bay in 2010 when 2 monkey wrenches were thrown into the mix: the 2011 floods and the shipping people 'stabbed the Corps in the back' (or so that's how the Corps felt, so I'm told). Note that that link is dated October 13th.
My theory behind the objection: the port people know SW Pass is hydraulically inefficient and a pain to keep dredged. They're looking into a new, deeper pass much closer to Venice and see West Bay as an interim solution to accommodate New Panamax-class ships (Panamax=39.5' draft, New=49.9' draft) in a cost effective manner (as opposed to Miami's expensive Deep Dredge Project that's caught up in Tea Party-type stalls). The Port of New Orleans has been doing extremely well with containerized cargo this year (highest ever for NOLA?) and want to get an even bigger slice of that pie going forward.
How will this all shake out? Will the Corps force the closure of West Bay? Will we ever learn how to save the coast? We shall see.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Notes on the 2011 Tulane Engineering Forum
I got a chance to attend the 2011 Tulane Engineering Forum and the forum continues to grow. This year drew over 600 engineers. The day before I went, one of my coworkers teased me that going to an engineering conference hosted by Tulane was like going to an easter egg hunt hosted by the Ayatollah in Tehran*.
One of the things I've really come to like about the TEF's are that I'll pick up on some really nice phrases/wordplays/sayings. Some of my favorites from this year:
* "Worry Budget"
* "Assumed-Away" (dealing with risk)
* "Science as a contact sport" (engineering as well, sometimes)
* "Compartmentalized engineers" (missing out on the big picture)
* "Dynamic Regulation" (constantly in-flux regulatory rules that are poison for projects that take 10 years to develop) {Another quote from the same guy, "[MMS] served our industry well for a number of years"}
* "Everyone supports it, until you put your finger on a map" (coastal restoration)
* "Engineering meets public health meets Indiana Jones" (Engineers Without Borders)
* And my favorite of the year: "Unavoidable uncertainty in complex systems" (talking about scientists dealing with the public on complex topics)
This year's theme was the Macondo blowout. I attended the Morning Plenary Session (which included a dispersant expert from XOM, a ChemE professor from LSU, an MBA from Tulane, and the head of research for ULL), but ended up attending mostly coastal restoration and infrastructure lectures. My personal favorite lecture of the day was given by Dr. Allisha Renfro who pinch-hit for a presenter who was out. She did a science and engineering postmortem on 3 coastal projects: MR-GO**, the West Bay Diversion, and the Myrtle Grove Pulsed Sediment Diversion (which was held up as a model for future projects).
__________
* Maybe he read this article?
** Even if you ignore all the "secondary" effects (levee failures, wetlands loss, etc.), MR-GO was a MASSIVE failure on its primary objective: serve commerce. Taxpayers ended up subsidizing MR-GO (from its opening in 1968 to its closure recently) by $20,000/vessel, clearly a massive failure in its primary objective (lower transportation costs). There was also plenty of science, engineering, and economic expertise that warned against the project before it was ever begun, but the powers that be pressed on anyways.
Last year's forum notes.
One of the things I've really come to like about the TEF's are that I'll pick up on some really nice phrases/wordplays/sayings. Some of my favorites from this year:
* "Worry Budget"
* "Assumed-Away" (dealing with risk)
* "Science as a contact sport" (engineering as well, sometimes)
* "Compartmentalized engineers" (missing out on the big picture)
* "Dynamic Regulation" (constantly in-flux regulatory rules that are poison for projects that take 10 years to develop) {Another quote from the same guy, "[MMS] served our industry well for a number of years"}
* "Everyone supports it, until you put your finger on a map" (coastal restoration)
* "Engineering meets public health meets Indiana Jones" (Engineers Without Borders)
* And my favorite of the year: "Unavoidable uncertainty in complex systems" (talking about scientists dealing with the public on complex topics)
This year's theme was the Macondo blowout. I attended the Morning Plenary Session (which included a dispersant expert from XOM, a ChemE professor from LSU, an MBA from Tulane, and the head of research for ULL), but ended up attending mostly coastal restoration and infrastructure lectures. My personal favorite lecture of the day was given by Dr. Allisha Renfro who pinch-hit for a presenter who was out. She did a science and engineering postmortem on 3 coastal projects: MR-GO**, the West Bay Diversion, and the Myrtle Grove Pulsed Sediment Diversion (which was held up as a model for future projects).
__________
* Maybe he read this article?
** Even if you ignore all the "secondary" effects (levee failures, wetlands loss, etc.), MR-GO was a MASSIVE failure on its primary objective: serve commerce. Taxpayers ended up subsidizing MR-GO (from its opening in 1968 to its closure recently) by $20,000/vessel, clearly a massive failure in its primary objective (lower transportation costs). There was also plenty of science, engineering, and economic expertise that warned against the project before it was ever begun, but the powers that be pressed on anyways.
Last year's forum notes.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
5 Years of Keeping Up With the Corps
In the five years since the worst failure in the history American Civil Engineering, we've had to keep up with the Corps. They've done some good things since the storm (MR-GO closure, quick and strong repairs) and some not so good things (Option 1 vs. 2a/b debate for permanent pump stations). I'd like to go through 5 major ideas that, depending on how they settle, will determine what sort of levee system we end up with.
1- Design/Build. Shortly after the storm, the Corps decided to issue most of their contracts as Design/Build instead of the Design/Bid/Build, which they've used for decades. Nobody is really sure why the Corps is doing this. I've heard arguments from the Corps saying that they'll get more "creative" designs. I've heard arguments elsewhere saying that the Corps wants someone to throw under the bus in case there is another failure. The Corps also didn't initially free up any money for bid prep work, which meant that bidding firms would spend as little as possible preparing for the bids and would go with very conservative designs they knew how to estimate the cost of. Design/Bid/Build allows you to work the kinks out of the design while still on the drawing board. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to pay a few engineers overtime than have hundreds of workers and field equipment idle while you have to redesign something in the field once construction has begun. In general, I think the design/build approach will lead to excessive cost overruns, but won't make a difference one way or the other on the quality of the work.
2- Resiliency/Backup. One of the points the SELFPA-E has repeatedly made to the Corps when arguing for work on the interior canal walls is what happens if there's a failure of the interim control structure. I have no reason to think there is a design flaw, but if there was, then the flood waters would have a direct path into the city where we know that certain sections of the floodwalls are sub-standard. If the walls are repaired, there would be a second line of defense. The Corps has said that there's no money to do repairs to the existing walls and they can only do what Congress orders them to. The Corps wants to focus all their efforts on Option 1. Now, I will give the Corps credit because there have been several promises made to do at least a modest amount of work upgrading the canal walls at known weak points and that has at least partially mollified SELFPA-E's worries about the canal walls. There is some recognition within the Corps that redundancy is a good thing. OTOH, the Corps can shift some money around and it sort of pokes a hole in their "we do what Congress orders us to do" argument, because otherwise, they wouldn't spend a nickel on canal wall upgrades. From what I understand, it looks like there will be minimally acceptable repairs to canal walls, but many engineering experts, particularly the SELFPA-E would prefer to see more.
3- Geotechnical Analysis. Southeast Louisiana is built on very soft soils and the geotechnical analysis of what sort of loads it can carry is key to any large building project. Most of the geotechnical engineers I know do not believe the Corps' geotech methods are the best that are out there. Furthermore, while I can't say this about the Corps, I have personally seen geotechs put under enormous strain give a "better" answer to allow projects to move forward. The last thing I'll say about geotechnical engineering is it's one of those things in engineering that's still sort of art mixed with science. MIT did a famous study that was presented to ASCE where they constructed a dike, gave a group of eminent geotechnical engineers every single detail about how it was constructed (fill material, depth, volume, etc.) and asked the geotechnical engineers to provide an estimate of how high the water level inside the dike could go before the dike gave way. Of the 7 experts, 5 gave predictions significantly below the level that it failed at, 2 gave level substantially above the level it failed. The geotechnical engineers were given perfect data and no political or economic considerations factored into this test.*
4- B.31.3 Calculations. Matt McBride covered this a few years ago: Post 1 and Post 2. Later, Parsons wrote a report [pdf] that stated the piping is properly designed, per ASME B.31.3 code. It doesn't happen often, but I can say absolutely, definitely, objectively that they are WRONG! I've done those ASME calcs many times before and they are just plain wrong. The consequences aren't all that severe (the piping would probably leak, causing a drop in pressure and lower pumping rates; very small risk of rupture/HSE danger), but it still worries me. If there's a mistake that obvious in something built to tight tolerances, what about more subjective engineering decisions that use materials with wide tolerances?
5- 100 vs. 1000 year protection. As Tim has repeatedly pointed out, "100 Year" protection isn't enough. We need 500 or 1,000 year protection. Furthermore, I have personal questions about how those 100-year levels are computed. The Corps, in the post-Katrina work, has actually built a bit higher than strictly to 100-year protection. For example, some levees have a few extra feet to take subsidence into account and ensure that in a decade or so, the levees will still be well above the 100-year level. Outside the government, I've seen other organizations that have completely revamped what they consider to be a "100 year event". For example, offshore, what used to be considered a 1000-year design is now only considered a 100-year design and as a result, modern construction methods are much, much more robust than they were even just 5 years ago. Don't take my word for it. "Lessons Learned the Hard Way" Page 11 [pdf]: "Yesterday’s 1000-yr criteria have become today’s 100-yr". You can also compare the old API RP's with API 2INT-MET (subsequently integrated into current API RP's).
From all this, I hope everyone sees how important it is to keep an eye on the Corps. Oversight is incredibly important. Note that the SELFPA-E is spending an enormous chunk of their incredibly meager budget to get engineering firms to review the Corps design drawings and calculations. This is important work that must continue.
UPDATE- Minor edits for spelling.
___________________
* Paper: "Reliability of embankment performance predictions" Hynes and Vanmarcke, 1976.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The F-N Diagram
I was going to do a bigger post on this, but I've sort of let it slide, but I didn't want to completely forget about it.
From here: Managing Risk to Humans and to Floodplain Resources (PDF). The chart shows chance of a levee breach on the vertical axis and number of fatalities on the horizontal axis.
When this chart was put up at the Tulane Engineering Forum, the audience took a second to process it (note the log-log scale), but when they did, there was a gasp. It's not every day you see a graph of fatalities on a logarithmic scale. Each line is 10 times worse than the line preceding it. You don't want to see the New Orleans levees in the upper right quadrant of this chart.
The big point I was going to make in the long post I never wrote was we need MUCH more than 100-year level levees.
Related: Residual Risk / YRHT. Very good quote from Dr. Bea.
More here:
Risk-based design of flood defense systems (PDF).
Remember, hurricane season is less than 3 weeks away.
UPDATE- Some minor edits.
UPDATE 2 - Presentations Online
From here: Managing Risk to Humans and to Floodplain Resources (PDF). The chart shows chance of a levee breach on the vertical axis and number of fatalities on the horizontal axis.
When this chart was put up at the Tulane Engineering Forum, the audience took a second to process it (note the log-log scale), but when they did, there was a gasp. It's not every day you see a graph of fatalities on a logarithmic scale. Each line is 10 times worse than the line preceding it. You don't want to see the New Orleans levees in the upper right quadrant of this chart.
The big point I was going to make in the long post I never wrote was we need MUCH more than 100-year level levees.
Related: Residual Risk / YRHT. Very good quote from Dr. Bea.
More here:
Risk-based design of flood defense systems (PDF).
Remember, hurricane season is less than 3 weeks away.
UPDATE- Some minor edits.
UPDATE 2 - Presentations Online
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Chalmatians and 9th Warders have their day in court
"In a landmark decision, a federal judge has ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers' failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding by Hurricane Katrina" from WDSU.
Here are a few notes and thoughts:
From the CS Monitor:
The LA Times talks about the monetary award a lot. It notes it will be years before appeals are exhausted, but the compensation could total billions. Note that this ruling would only apply to residents of Chalmette and the Lower 9th Ward. Also from the article:
I looked up the Teton Dam failure and found a few things that interested me, like, "On Saturday, June 5, 1976, at 7:30 a.m., a muddy leak appeared, suggesting sediment was in the water, but engineers did not believe there was a problem." Also, on the cause of the dam failure (emphasis mine):
From the American Society of Civil Engineers Report on the 2005 New Orleans Levee Failures:
Known soil stability problems played a big role in both with a very similar failure mechanism between the outfall canal failures and the Teton Dam failures. The best thing about the Teton Dam failure:
Gee, it would be a nice idea to try doing that for levees.
I still think this ruling will be overturned on "sovereignty immunity" grounds, but it's always nice to reinforce to the rest of the country that had the Corps simply designed and built the levees to spec, most of New Orleans' flooding would never have happened and we'd all be talking about how New Orleans 'dodged a bullet.' If you want to see a natural disaster, go to Buras, LA or Waveland, MS.
UPDATE- Harry Shearer weighs in. Oyster provides quotes from a judge with quite a lexicon.
Here are a few notes and thoughts:
From the CS Monitor:
"The government's primary defense is that what we did, it did not cause this, and if it didn't cause it, there is no liability," Mark Davis, a professor at Tulane University Law School, told the Monitor this summer.
The LA Times talks about the monetary award a lot. It notes it will be years before appeals are exhausted, but the compensation could total billions. Note that this ruling would only apply to residents of Chalmette and the Lower 9th Ward. Also from the article:
He called upon the Obama administration and Congress to agree to a universal settlement -- something he said the Bush administration had pledged not to do.
O'Donnell said his team had filed a separate legal action that seeks to cover those thousands of victims in a class-action suit. He noted that the federal government had agreed to universal settlements in past cases in which it had erred, including after a 1976 failure of the Teton Dam in Idaho and the 2000 Cerro Grande fire in New Mexico, which started as a federal controlled burn.
I looked up the Teton Dam failure and found a few things that interested me, like, "On Saturday, June 5, 1976, at 7:30 a.m., a muddy leak appeared, suggesting sediment was in the water, but engineers did not believe there was a problem." Also, on the cause of the dam failure (emphasis mine):
Study of the dam's environment and structure placed blame on the collapse on the permeable Loess soil used in the core and on fissured (cracked) Rhyolite in the foundations of the dam that allowed water to seep under the dam. The permeable Loess was found to be cracked. It is postulated that the combination of these materials allowed water to seep through the dam and led to internal erosion, called piping, that eventually caused the dam's collapse.
From the American Society of Civil Engineers Report on the 2005 New Orleans Levee Failures:
Known soil stability problems played a big role in both with a very similar failure mechanism between the outfall canal failures and the Teton Dam failures. The best thing about the Teton Dam failure:
Today, Bureau of Reclamation engineers assess all Reclamation dams under strict criteria established by the Safety of Dams program. Each structure is periodically reviewed for resistance to seismic stability, internal faults and physical deterioration.
Gee, it would be a nice idea to try doing that for levees.
I still think this ruling will be overturned on "sovereignty immunity" grounds, but it's always nice to reinforce to the rest of the country that had the Corps simply designed and built the levees to spec, most of New Orleans' flooding would never have happened and we'd all be talking about how New Orleans 'dodged a bullet.' If you want to see a natural disaster, go to Buras, LA or Waveland, MS.
UPDATE- Harry Shearer weighs in. Oyster provides quotes from a judge with quite a lexicon.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Quote of the Day - 27 October 2009
Storm threat to New Orleans out of our control, says general | World news | The Guardian
"If you ask can I protect the city, the answer is no. Can I reduce the risk? Yes. "We can develop better early warning systems, better evacuation plans, better levees to hold back most of the water, but we cannot stop levees being overtopped and the city flooded." He declined to say whether this meant the city should be abandoned altogether and relocated inland. "That is outside my brief," he said.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Floodgate Reports - The Bottom Line
I've had a couple of posts in the hopper while waiting on some last few pieces of information. I'm going to break into that info early, because I think it's important...
Two major levees-related news items today:
Analysis finds flaws in pumps at outfall canals. (Refers to M.W.I. Pumps)
Corps revises London Ave. Outfall Canal ICS operating procedures. The big news is that the safe water level has now been reduced so low (about 2.5 feet) that the pumps will now run during all major rainfall events.
What does this mean in the big picture?
The current setup was a temporary fix based off what the Corps could assemble as quickly as possible after the storm. (From Page 10 of Parson's Report)
The interim setup, even if every single pump operates flawlessly to its full design capacity, is only designed for a 10-year (UPDATE- "rain") event. We've heard many times how much of a joke the 100-year level is. The 10-year level is even weanier.
Pumping Station #6, which feeds the 17th Street Canal and is the main pumping station for the city of New Orleans, is capable of putting out a little over 10,000 cfs. That's an admitted shortfall of over 20% at that pumping station. In a big enough storm, water will begin to back up. In a short/lightish storm, the only thing that will probably happen is street flooding and maybe a few flooded cars. In a long-lasting/high-intensity storm, large parts of the city , especially Gentilly (drained by PS#3 & #4), Mid-City and Lakeview, will flood.
The parts of the floodwalls that failed were repaired quite thoroughly. The Corps rebuilt those parts with T-walls with ample foundations. But, the parts that didn't fail were left untouched. There's been a about what the safe water level for the Canals is. Each time the Corps has investigated, the walls have been derated. The walls SHOULD be rated to their top (a little over 10' elevation). Instead, they've been derated, especially on the London Avenue Canal, where they'll now close it at 2.5'**. There are currently no plans whatsoever to rebuild the walls or repair them in any way. The Corps says it would take too long and would take too much money and they'd rather get the permanent pump stations online.
If you were to sit the major engineering experts in the area down and ask them what the 3 most important projects are for New Orleans, I'll bet the lion's share would include the permanent pump stations at the mouths of the outfall canals. When the "10-year storm" standard was adopted (~ early 2006), the Corps was planning on having the permanent pump stations in place no later than 2010. Had they been replaced then, the 10-year storm standard may have been reasonable. Now, they're officially saying it will be complete by 2012, at the earliest. The Corps has picked up the pace, but it's looking more like it will be 2013 at the earliest before the stations are complete. The longer it takes for the permanent pump stations to be built, the more maintenance will be required and the more one should question the original design basis for the pumps.
Bottom line: The pumping capacity of the City of New Orleans is seriously constrained. Sections of the city, especially Gentilly, Lakeview, and Treme/7th Ward, WILL flood in storms significantly less intense than the minimal 100-year level we expect, even without a levee breach. The extent of the flooding will be proportional to the storm intensity and duration. The system will not be fixed for several years at the current rate. Major weakpoints in the system (the weakened walls) will still not be fixed by the time the system is complete.
I hope that sums things up without droning into too much detail.
________________________
* I'll leave the "contractual" issues for others to comment on, I'll stick with my expertise. From what I understand, the Corps basically called around to see who could supply the most cubic feet per second (cfs) by next hurricane season. That particular time, because of rising commodity prices, was a bad time to be buying heavy equipment, especially pumps, especially pumps that large. I'll give the Corps the benefit of the doubt and say that, among those they contacted, MWI had the most cfs with the quickest stated delivery.
** Safe water level used to be about 5' with closure at 4'. Now it's 4' with closure at 2.5'. The Corps has said they will take whatever measures necessary to stop the level from rising in that Canal, including shutting off all pumps feeding the canal until their pumps can catch up. It's already happened several times. The canal walls have been derated so much, I'd curious how they justified the decision to give them any rating whatsoever.
PS- Thanks again, Matt McBride. Fix the Pumps is a great reference site.
NOTE: Some minor edits after initial post.
UPDATE- See comments.
UPDATE 2- London Avenue floodgate closes today (9/12) due to heavy rainfall.
Two major levees-related news items today:
Analysis finds flaws in pumps at outfall canals. (Refers to M.W.I. Pumps)
Corps revises London Ave. Outfall Canal ICS operating procedures. The big news is that the safe water level has now been reduced so low (about 2.5 feet) that the pumps will now run during all major rainfall events.
What does this mean in the big picture?
The current setup was a temporary fix based off what the Corps could assemble as quickly as possible after the storm. (From Page 10 of Parson's Report)
The interim setup, even if every single pump operates flawlessly to its full design capacity, is only designed for a 10-year (UPDATE- "rain") event. We've heard many times how much of a joke the 100-year level is. The 10-year level is even weanier.
Pumping Station #6, which feeds the 17th Street Canal and is the main pumping station for the city of New Orleans, is capable of putting out a little over 10,000 cfs. That's an admitted shortfall of over 20% at that pumping station. In a big enough storm, water will begin to back up. In a short/lightish storm, the only thing that will probably happen is street flooding and maybe a few flooded cars. In a long-lasting/high-intensity storm, large parts of the city , especially Gentilly (drained by PS#3 & #4), Mid-City and Lakeview, will flood.
The parts of the floodwalls that failed were repaired quite thoroughly. The Corps rebuilt those parts with T-walls with ample foundations. But, the parts that didn't fail were left untouched. There's been a about what the safe water level for the Canals is. Each time the Corps has investigated, the walls have been derated. The walls SHOULD be rated to their top (a little over 10' elevation). Instead, they've been derated, especially on the London Avenue Canal, where they'll now close it at 2.5'**. There are currently no plans whatsoever to rebuild the walls or repair them in any way. The Corps says it would take too long and would take too much money and they'd rather get the permanent pump stations online.
If you were to sit the major engineering experts in the area down and ask them what the 3 most important projects are for New Orleans, I'll bet the lion's share would include the permanent pump stations at the mouths of the outfall canals. When the "10-year storm" standard was adopted (~ early 2006), the Corps was planning on having the permanent pump stations in place no later than 2010. Had they been replaced then, the 10-year storm standard may have been reasonable. Now, they're officially saying it will be complete by 2012, at the earliest. The Corps has picked up the pace, but it's looking more like it will be 2013 at the earliest before the stations are complete. The longer it takes for the permanent pump stations to be built, the more maintenance will be required and the more one should question the original design basis for the pumps.
Bottom line: The pumping capacity of the City of New Orleans is seriously constrained. Sections of the city, especially Gentilly, Lakeview, and Treme/7th Ward, WILL flood in storms significantly less intense than the minimal 100-year level we expect, even without a levee breach. The extent of the flooding will be proportional to the storm intensity and duration. The system will not be fixed for several years at the current rate. Major weakpoints in the system (the weakened walls) will still not be fixed by the time the system is complete.
I hope that sums things up without droning into too much detail.
________________________
* I'll leave the "contractual" issues for others to comment on, I'll stick with my expertise. From what I understand, the Corps basically called around to see who could supply the most cubic feet per second (cfs) by next hurricane season. That particular time, because of rising commodity prices, was a bad time to be buying heavy equipment, especially pumps, especially pumps that large. I'll give the Corps the benefit of the doubt and say that, among those they contacted, MWI had the most cfs with the quickest stated delivery.
** Safe water level used to be about 5' with closure at 4'. Now it's 4' with closure at 2.5'. The Corps has said they will take whatever measures necessary to stop the level from rising in that Canal, including shutting off all pumps feeding the canal until their pumps can catch up. It's already happened several times. The canal walls have been derated so much, I'd curious how they justified the decision to give them any rating whatsoever.
PS- Thanks again, Matt McBride. Fix the Pumps is a great reference site.
NOTE: Some minor edits after initial post.
UPDATE- See comments.
UPDATE 2- London Avenue floodgate closes today (9/12) due to heavy rainfall.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Keeping watch on the Corps - UPDATED
As hurricane season begins to emerge on the horizon, here are a few articles for you to ponder about the Corps and the levees.
Temporary pumps at Orleans, London and 17th Street canals safe, investigation shows. Parsons, one of the largest engineering firms in the world, was tasked with evaluating, for the n-teenth time, the MWI pumps that have been the source of much controversy. Parsons declared the pumps, within very limited parameters, the most important of which is the speedy replacement of the temporary pumping stations. The Corps originally planned on 2012, but now is planning on 2013. Any delay past that could have serious consequences. Two final notes: first, the link to the full Parsons report (here [PDF]) is now broken, last time I checked and second, I may post more on the Parsons report. If anyone would like a copy of the report, I still have a copy of it in PDF format. I'll just say for now I have some issues with Parsons' report.
Obama appoints new overseer for Corps. We'll see how this plays out. She seems to be more of an environmentalist than some of her predecessors, which might play well for Louisiana's coastal restoration needs. We'll just have to wait and see.
Jury deliberating on Corps bribery scheme. Two contractors for the Corps tried to bribe several Corps employees for confidential bid information to allow them to get a leg up on the competition.
Corps hurricane chief leaving New Orleans. Heading to Afghanistan after a short rotation in New Orleans.
ASCE internal investigation finds to ethical misconduct. Please note Tom Jackson's comments at the end. He's an extremely well respected engineer and New Orleans is lucky to have him as the head of the Easter Levee District. Levees.org responds: Levees.org calls probe a "whitewash." I hear the news reports of the conference and they claim that ASCE only investigated one specific complaint out of a 40+ page long letter. I haven't seen the letter posted any where yet, so I'll reserve judgment until I see it. UPDATE- Here's the letter [PDF]. Hosted on the Louisiana chapter of ASCE's website. It also looks like two sets of complaints are being conflated. One complaint is by Dr. Seed (link above). The second complaint is by the founder of a well respected local geotech firm, Dr. Boutwell, that recently passed away. Those complaints seem to be well known and well understood. His report centers on the precise mode of soil failure.
Ivor Van Heerden fired by LSU. This report is really a mixed bag. Tim and Greg have a long history of extremely justified criticisms of Van Heerden. I tend to like his overview of the geology angle and how he breaks complicated engineering matters down for a lay audience. That's one of the reasons the press has latched on to him. His book, The Storm, still has one of the best described, most detailed reports on what needs to be done to fix South Louisiana before it falls into the sea. When Van Heerden stuck with what he knew (primarily geology), he was excellent. His problem is he made himself too much the story (probably with certain members of the media egging him on) and when he did that, he overshadowed some very good work being done by the Hurricane Center, specifically the storm surge modeling. If he lets himself be part of the story more than the science, he probably needed to go. LSU constantly tried balancing academic freedom with pulling Van Heerden back to his core area of expertise and eventually decided it was easier to just fire him. Still, this firing will probably be a black mark on LSU's academic reputation.
NOTE- Updated. See above. Will probably post more later.
UPDATE 2- I realized I've read through Dr. Boutwell's presentation before (part of which is available on this website). His stuff is very straightforward and well supported. As a result, his report was well received and respected.
Dr. Seed's letter is a different animal. My first reaction to the letter was unprofessional. I don't know what audience the letter was intended for, but he was overly dramatic with his presentation of various facts and down right conspiratorial at several junctures. He brings out the Twin Towers investigations, which could be aimed at a very specific, legitimate failure modes that weren't detected on the initial investigations, but could also be conspiracy-theory crap. Injecting irrelevant information like that jeopardizes the credibility of the entire letter.
All that being said, he made some very legitimate observations about Corps behavior that warrants attention. It looks like several specific employees (not named, but described) didn't discharge their responsibilities in an honorable manner. It honestly reminds me of the Corps employees caught leaving threats on the Levees.org website. The Corps is a large organization, so some bad apples are probably inevitable. The Corps should move quickly to discipline/fire the offenders. I'd be very curious if any of the employees mentioned in Dr. Seed's email are the same ones leaving the Levees.org comments.
It's a shame that the press is conflating legitimate, scientific inquiry with disreputable comments. It casts a shadow over all those investigating the Corps and lessens the impact of legitimate, scientifically verifiable complaints.
UPDATE 3-
Working link for the Parsons report.
Leaking Metairie Levee. Several investigations into underground canal in Metry. Corps says the problem isn't serious. The engineer with the Levee Board-East says there's not enough data to make a definitive conclusion one way or the other.
2 convicted of bribery in Katrina levee case | National | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle One of the guilty had to be taken out on a stretcher after he had a heart attack at the ruling.
I've done a little digging and I have one more point: that's the second Corps commander we've lost in a very short time. Usually, they have a 3 year rotation. This is the second one we've lost after only about 6 months on the job. Frequent leadership changes can be a sign of an organization in chaos.
Temporary pumps at Orleans, London and 17th Street canals safe, investigation shows. Parsons, one of the largest engineering firms in the world, was tasked with evaluating, for the n-teenth time, the MWI pumps that have been the source of much controversy. Parsons declared the pumps, within very limited parameters, the most important of which is the speedy replacement of the temporary pumping stations. The Corps originally planned on 2012, but now is planning on 2013. Any delay past that could have serious consequences. Two final notes: first, the link to the full Parsons report (here [PDF]) is now broken, last time I checked and second, I may post more on the Parsons report. If anyone would like a copy of the report, I still have a copy of it in PDF format. I'll just say for now I have some issues with Parsons' report.
Obama appoints new overseer for Corps. We'll see how this plays out. She seems to be more of an environmentalist than some of her predecessors, which might play well for Louisiana's coastal restoration needs. We'll just have to wait and see.
Jury deliberating on Corps bribery scheme. Two contractors for the Corps tried to bribe several Corps employees for confidential bid information to allow them to get a leg up on the competition.
Corps hurricane chief leaving New Orleans. Heading to Afghanistan after a short rotation in New Orleans.
ASCE internal investigation finds to ethical misconduct. Please note Tom Jackson's comments at the end. He's an extremely well respected engineer and New Orleans is lucky to have him as the head of the Easter Levee District. Levees.org responds: Levees.org calls probe a "whitewash." I hear the news reports of the conference and they claim that ASCE only investigated one specific complaint out of a 40+ page long letter. I haven't seen the letter posted any where yet, so I'll reserve judgment until I see it. UPDATE- Here's the letter [PDF]. Hosted on the Louisiana chapter of ASCE's website. It also looks like two sets of complaints are being conflated. One complaint is by Dr. Seed (link above). The second complaint is by the founder of a well respected local geotech firm, Dr. Boutwell, that recently passed away. Those complaints seem to be well known and well understood. His report centers on the precise mode of soil failure.
Ivor Van Heerden fired by LSU. This report is really a mixed bag. Tim and Greg have a long history of extremely justified criticisms of Van Heerden. I tend to like his overview of the geology angle and how he breaks complicated engineering matters down for a lay audience. That's one of the reasons the press has latched on to him. His book, The Storm, still has one of the best described, most detailed reports on what needs to be done to fix South Louisiana before it falls into the sea. When Van Heerden stuck with what he knew (primarily geology), he was excellent. His problem is he made himself too much the story (probably with certain members of the media egging him on) and when he did that, he overshadowed some very good work being done by the Hurricane Center, specifically the storm surge modeling. If he lets himself be part of the story more than the science, he probably needed to go. LSU constantly tried balancing academic freedom with pulling Van Heerden back to his core area of expertise and eventually decided it was easier to just fire him. Still, this firing will probably be a black mark on LSU's academic reputation.
NOTE- Updated. See above. Will probably post more later.
UPDATE 2- I realized I've read through Dr. Boutwell's presentation before (part of which is available on this website). His stuff is very straightforward and well supported. As a result, his report was well received and respected.
Dr. Seed's letter is a different animal. My first reaction to the letter was unprofessional. I don't know what audience the letter was intended for, but he was overly dramatic with his presentation of various facts and down right conspiratorial at several junctures. He brings out the Twin Towers investigations, which could be aimed at a very specific, legitimate failure modes that weren't detected on the initial investigations, but could also be conspiracy-theory crap. Injecting irrelevant information like that jeopardizes the credibility of the entire letter.
All that being said, he made some very legitimate observations about Corps behavior that warrants attention. It looks like several specific employees (not named, but described) didn't discharge their responsibilities in an honorable manner. It honestly reminds me of the Corps employees caught leaving threats on the Levees.org website. The Corps is a large organization, so some bad apples are probably inevitable. The Corps should move quickly to discipline/fire the offenders. I'd be very curious if any of the employees mentioned in Dr. Seed's email are the same ones leaving the Levees.org comments.
It's a shame that the press is conflating legitimate, scientific inquiry with disreputable comments. It casts a shadow over all those investigating the Corps and lessens the impact of legitimate, scientifically verifiable complaints.
UPDATE 3-
Working link for the Parsons report.
Leaking Metairie Levee. Several investigations into underground canal in Metry. Corps says the problem isn't serious. The engineer with the Levee Board-East says there's not enough data to make a definitive conclusion one way or the other.
2 convicted of bribery in Katrina levee case | National | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle One of the guilty had to be taken out on a stretcher after he had a heart attack at the ruling.
I've done a little digging and I have one more point: that's the second Corps commander we've lost in a very short time. Usually, they have a 3 year rotation. This is the second one we've lost after only about 6 months on the job. Frequent leadership changes can be a sign of an organization in chaos.
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