Oops! Just a Little Leak

Yesterday, the Times-Picayune carried a very restrained story about a potentially inflammatory subject: the Corps of Engineers has discovered a persistent leak in the 17th St. Canal floodwall, the very structure that breached disastrously in the wake of Katrina, flooding a good part of the city. Despite the restraint, the story gets ominous when you hit this quote:

"There's no reason for anyone to worry," (Corps section chief Brett) Herr said. "That floodwall isn't going anywhere."

Coming from the agency which denied, for months, any responsibility for the disaster in 2005, which vilified the engineers who, on a pro bono basis, painstakingly uncovered the Corps' litany of mis- and malfeasance in connection with the design and construction of the flood protection system, that's about as reassuring as Alberto Gonzalez insisting that "we don't torture". Down at the end of the story is the reason why this announcement might well be cause for concern:

The corps spent about $25 million repairing the breach in the months after Katrina, and extra clay was added to the site at that time, said Kevin Wagner, a corps' senior project manager for levees and floodwalls.

In spite of the clay cap, a small amount of water has continued to appear.

NOTE: A small amount of water was reported on the residential side of the canal floodwall by homeowners for a year and a half before the breach. It bubbled up in their backyards, and Corps officials weren't concerned about that, either.

Comments

[noplanning]

This story goes a little further back. On March 9, 2008 the Times-Picayune covered this story in "Corps of Engineers addressing repairs made during rapid-response phase." The article begins with a discussion about the ongoing seepage at the 17th Street Canal and quotes USACE Sr. Project Manager Kevin Wagner as saying "We are going to finish these repairs, but I don't think a 1-inch separation between a floodwall and a slab of concrete 10 to 20 feet wide would let enough water in to cause a catastrophic failure." The technical basis of Mr. Wagner's statement remains unclear to me.

Two days later on March 11 at the GeoCongress 2008 in New Orleans, Dr. Bob Bea from the University of California at Berkeley presented his lecture on "Failure of the New Orleans 17th Street Canal Levee & Floodwall During Hurricane Katrina." The lecture and accompanying 20 page paper discusses in detail the mechanics of seepage from the 17th Street Canal to the protected side of the levee/ floodwall. This lecture and publication, planned and submitted to the ASCE organizing body well in advance, made public the very issue that the USACE has been in denial over. They had no choice but to "come clean" with the problems at the 17th Street Canal.

[haleywins]

And there is more to worry about, the entire lakefront hurricane levee system in Jefferson into St. Charles parishes are now judged to be potentially unstable according to the corps. What took them so long? After people returned and rebuilt, now they tell us.

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-10/120841092787720.xml&coll=1

[LiarLiarIraqsOnFire]

It only has to last through this year's storm season, then it'll be someone else's problem, just like Iraq.

And they wonder why I'm bitter.

[MikeDu]

A question nobody wants to ask. is New Orleans ultimately doomed? Are we laboring to keep a terminally ill patient alive for just a few more days? The land beneath the city has settled from pumping water out of the underground aquifer, the surrounding wetlands are being subdivided by real estate developers, the ocean is forecast to rise and storm frequency forecast to increase. and the community doesn't have the revenue base to keep repairs up. Due to international corporate movements of the last 15 years basic industries have been exported and large portions of America are in danger of tipping into 3rd-world status. Will New Orleans be the first victim of the general national rot?

[Bienville]

That question has been asked many times. It's not that no one wants to ask, it's that no one has the answer. "Should we try" is a more worthwhile question. I am certain that we should, for many reasons. What should matter to you is figuring out how you will do without New Orleans; what will you do without the nearly 500,000,000 tons of cargo that is transshipped in New Orleans' ports every year? Tampa can't do it, neither can Houston, or NY-NJ, or Los Angeles, or any other port that is not on the Mississippi River. That cargo number doesn't count the domestic and foreign oil and gas going through south Louisiana.
I'd like you to show me where wetlands around New Orleans are being subdivided. For all of my nearly fifty years, the wetlands outside the "flood protection" (ahem) levees were off-limits to development. As you drive into the City, you will spend about 30 minutes crossing wildlife refuges and the like. The wetlands around New Orleans are being destroyed by several mechanisms, but none of them is real estate development.
The issue is not whether the locals have the money to repair the system. The locals already pay for 30% of all Corps construction. The issue is that the Corps didn't build the "system" (ahem) adequately in the first place. No amount of repair would or could ever make them right.

[luziannagirl]

Actually MikeDu is correct, Bienville.

Going way back before your 50 yrs, all of Gentilly except the ridge was a swamp and low woodland, drained (via canals & pumps) and then built on.

As recently as the late 70's and early 80's, much of what's now the western edge of Kenner and probably 60 to 80% of what's now known as New Orleans East was hardwood bottom land, swamp, and brackish marsh, all forms of wetland.

On the west bank, it's perhaps even worse. Take a drive past the Naval base in Algiers/Gretna, and swing over to the Belle Chase bridge, look at the size of those drainage canals, and the species of native trees still hanging on in some of the more recently built areas, and tell me that's not ex-wetland. Of course it is!

And then there are the ring-leveed communities, like Willow Ridge, Davis Plantation, and Ormond Estates, all carved out of cypress/tupelo swamp, whose perennial hurricane mantra is "Women and children north, men man the pumps!"

Make no mistake, unsustainable and unwise real estate development was, and is a PRIME source of wetland destruction in and around the Greater New Orleans area, and a big contributor to loss of property and life in recent hurricanes.

[LeftCoastLefthandedLefty]

I think the whole "New Orleans isn't salvagable" argument shouldn't even enter into our national discourse.

New Orleans is a great american city, known worldwide as a center of uniquely american cuisine (creole, cajun) ,art (the birthplace of jazz) , and culture.

This argumennt is not being debated about Florida which anually recieves several times the number of hurricanes N.O. does. This debate never springs up about San Francisco (I am a Bay Area native) which has been destroyed twice by earthquakes in the last 100 years.

New Orleans for some reason has become the red-headed stepchild city of the US. When we want to a convention or a superbowl party we will go there , when we want Oil we dril offshore there. But when it's time to provide federal support to the region, we convienently find an argument that allows us to neglect the area.

My friends, it is time to pay what we owe.

[adzeman]

Bush will not rest until he erases New Orleans fromthe face of the earth.

[haleywins]

Can he even find New Orleans? Isn't it more a matter of he couldn't care less?

[Donise]

So this story is published yesterday, Before the debate last night, and not one question. No coverage anywhere else that I've seen, not on traditional media channels and no other progressive outlet...

Un-fracking-believeable... You've brought it to our attention Mr. Shearer, and for that I thank you. Now, I think I'll go email a Congressman, or three.!

[haleywins]

The corps' continued laissez-faire attitude reflects the Bush White House for the entire New Orleans area, so why should they be different?

[forsmokey]

Harry, I know you have heard this before. Thank you for doing your part on behalf of the people of NOLA. Considering the horrendous Bush "we will not forget you" Administration and MSM coverage that is and was Katrina. K.M.B. Richmond, Virginia

[DaveMacaray]

I grant you that Mr. Shearer has done much to draw attention to New Orleans' plight, but hasn't he also put the Army Corps of Engineers in an impossible position by stripping them of their credibility? He criticizes them for saying not to worry. Fine. But wouldn't he have also criticized them for saying they weren't sure, that they needed "further study," or some such thing? In other words, in Shearer's estimation the ACE can't really do anything right. The Corps has lost all credibility as far as he's concerned. Fair enough. But why pretend that what they say matters?
HARRY RESPONDS: I'd suggest it wasn't me who put the Corps in an "impossible position", but rather the Corps itself. Had it been transparent and honest immediately after the breaches, it would have earned points for credibility (even as it lost them for competence).

[DaveMacaray]

But now that they're "finished," why continue flogging them? What does it matter? Even in the unlikely event that the Corps applied themselves and succeeded in fixing the damn things, no one would believe them, which, in a grim sort of way, is ironic. The ACE discussing the levees is like Rumsfeld discussing Iraq . . . no one cares to listen anymore.

[Bienville]

The Corps can immediately restore their credibility by hiring outside independent experts to review their work and making the process transparent.
I was very interested in Rumsfeld's views on Iraq - while he was in the position to determine policy there. I found little credibility in his views, because as facts became known, he was often wrong. So, I trusted him less. My disagreement with his policy did not affect his credibilty, only his credibility did so.When he left office, I lost track of him.
When the Corps lets competent experts review their work, and lets us see the process, they will reverse the decline of their credibility. Right now, they are in the position of the discredited, though still in power, Rumsfeld; they still matter, because they still run the game.

[Bienville]

This is the link to the article Harry cites:
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/eastjefferson/index.ssf?/base/news-6/1208323508243710.xml&coll=1

Will they never learn? While repairing a levee that failed rom their incompetence, the Corps commits more incompetence. Burying debris like rocks and broken pipe creates surfaces that compromise the strength of the levee and gives paths to seepage that potentially leads to failures. Duh!

This is the link to another equally ominous article:
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-10/120841092787720.xml&coll=1

Ominous, because the levee in question held during Katrina and it protects the last undamaged basin on the East Bank, and its roughly 500,000 residents.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Get THIS guy on the case:

http://www.leifpettersen.com/leifswriting4/hansbrinker.JPG