Shearer: N.O. is ‘the city America forgot’

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

Comedian Harry Shearer, whose work includes the films “A Mighty Wind” and “This is Spinal Tap” and voice work  for “The Simpsons” (He’s Mr. Burns, among other characters), in a blog posting Friday said the nation has forgotten about New Orleans.

Here’s an excerpt:

Today’s Times-Picayune points out what’s painfully obvious: the biggest man-made engineering disaster (per Dr. Bob Bea, co-author of the ILIT report ever to befall an American city has fallen completely off the national radar screen. New Orleans got only one passing mention, in reference to its growth in charter schools, in the four national candidates’ debates. New Orleans may be, according to the old slogan, “the city that care forgot”, but, judging by this campaign, it’s certainly the city America forgot.•

Magazine looks at termite role in Katrina flooding

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

Since Hurricane Katrina, the Corps of Engineers has received a lot of blame for the failure of floodwalls and levees that led to massive flooding. But an article in the fall issue of American Entomologist suggests that termites might have played a role in what went wrong. Gregg Henderson, a professor at the Louisiana State University AgCenter, wrote the piece for the magazine.

Today, ScienceDaily reported on the magazine’s termite story.

Here’s an excerpt the ScienceDaily article:

The Formosan subterranean termite originates from China, where it has been known to damage levees since the 1950s. Besides eating at bagasse seams, the termites may have contributed to the destruction of the levees of New Orleans by digging networks of tunnels, which can cause “piping,” sending water through the tunnels and undermining the levee system.

It’s not the first time Henderson has linked termites to the levee failures. Take this excerpt from an August 2007 posting on beyondpesticides.org’s blog:

Throughout the world, termites have caused problems on levees by tunneling in the soil and weakening the integrity of the structures, Dr. Henderson said, including those that broke in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “It’s almost certain termites contributed to the levees’ failure,” he said, noting that 70 percent of the seams of flood walls on the London Avenue canal, the site of breaches, showed signs of insect infestations.

Years before Katrina struck, Dr. Henderson cautioned that Formosan termites were undermining the protective system by eating the sugar-cane-based seam-filling material in the concrete dike walls and infesting mature trees along the levees. Experts suspect falling trees that pulled their roots out of the ground contributed to the weakening and eventual breaches of levees in New Orleans during Katrina. Planting vetiver grass, Dr. Henderson says, could not only provide erosion control and a breakwater barrier, but it could help prevent future damage by warding off termite infestations.•

Corps criticized for too many studies

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

Sen. David Vitter this week took the Army Corps of Engineers to task for what he called the slow pace of levee work in south Louisiana.

The corps “studies things to death, in general,” Vitter is quoted as saying in a story by The Associated Press.

He’s not the first one to say the corps spends too much time studying and not enough time building. Many people across the country have voiced similar frustrations.

Ed Townsend, a blogger in New York, complained about corps studies in a Sept. 25 column. Townsend said corps officials on Sept. 12 toured sites in Sullivan and Delaware counties, where flash flooding June 19, 2007, damaged homes and businesses . Following the tour, the corps said a major flood study is needed, Townsend said.

“How many studies and millions of dollars are needed to bring relief from overflowing creeks and rivers, washed out roads, damaged homes and businesses’ and loss of life?” Townsend wrote. “There is a list of politicians and others a mile long that continue to call for study after study but is there any real relief at the end of the rainbow?”

An Aug. 19, 2007, story by The New York Times said Mayor Louis V. D’Arminio of Saddle Brook, N.J., was putting pressure on the corps to expedite a dredging project on the Lower Saddle River basin. In April 2007, the river overflowed, and low-lying areas flooded.

Here’s an excerpt from the story:

Mr. D’Arminio of Saddle Brook says the corps of engineers has failed to deliver on a 1996 plan — which had a price tag then of $90.6 million — to dredge 5.2 miles of the Saddle River and reduce the likelihood of flooding.

Officials of the corps said in a July 2 letter that a reassessment of the plan was being completed using data from the last flood and that a new design encompassing changes in the project would cost $1 million. The corps’ manager for the project, Daniel Falt, estimated the current cost of the overall plan at $113 million.

Before it can begin, the state would have to clean up pollutants — estimated at $20 million in 1996, according to Mr. Falt, and as much as $30 million today, according to Mr. D’Arminio.

Mr. D’Arminio said the corps of engineers should stop studying the plan and start putting it into effect. “We want public service instead of lip service,” he said.•

Can’t see the levees for the trees

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

Homeowners trying to block the removal of trees near the 17th Street Canal had their hopes dashed Thursday when a judge sided with the federal government.

The Army Corps of Engineers says it needs to remove the trees from private property because they pose a threat to levees. Apparently, if the trees blow over during a storm, it can leave a hole that can fill with floodwater and cause a levee to fail. Some property owners, though, say removing the trees will make their properties more vulnerable to criminals and vandals. Some homeowners also argue that a new gate at the mouth of the canal will stop storm surge from entering the canal, reducing the risk of a levee breach.

But U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier saw things the corps’ way.

It’s not the first time the courts have sided with the federal government since Katrina.  In January, another New Orleans federal judge rejected a class-action lawsuit that tried to hold the corps responsible for the breaching of levees that flooded much of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish after Katrina.•

How to repair floodwalls: Use newspaper

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

Newspaper is often used to wrap presents on the cheap, line bird cages and make nifty paper hats.

But it also has another application I didn’t know about: plugging openings in floodwalls.

According to a story by WWL-TV Thursday, workers have filled expansion joints in a St. Bernard Parish floodwall with newspaper instead of the rubber joint that is normally used.

When asked about the work, Kevin Wagner with the Army Corps of Engineers said, “If you look at the repairs we made to the joints, there’s not really a safety issue with the joints at all,” according to WWL.

What do you think?

Check out WWL’s report here.

(Photo from http://www.thegreenhead.com/imgs/boat-drain-stopper-2.jpg)

Levee lurch

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

I can imagine the shock that people in East Jefferson and St. Charles Parish had this morning when they picked The Times-Picayune off their lawns.

“EJ, St. Charles levees’ strength in question” read the headline.

The problem, according to the newspaper, is a new analysis by the Corps that shows the levees could be at risk for catastrophic failure because fabric at the base of the levees is not wide enough to stand up to a 100-year storm.

This is not exactly the news you want to hear with hurricane season just around the corner.

Embattled engineers

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

As if people don’t have enough reason to be angry at the federal government for Katrina levee failures, now some are accusing the engineers who investigated those failures of cover-ups.

The federal government paid the American Society of Civil Engineers $1.1-million to investigate what went wrong in the levee breaks that flooded the New Orleans area during Katrina. The society also investigated the collapse of skyscrapers in the 2001 World Trade Center attacks.

“Critics now accuse the group of covering up engineering mistakes, downplaying the need to alter building standards and using the investigations to protect engineers and government agencies from lawsuits,” The Associated Press said in a story today.”

In the World Trade Center case, critics contend the engineering society wrongly concluded skyscrapers cannot withstand getting hit by airplanes. In the hurricane investigation, it was accused of suggesting that the power of the storm was as big a problem as the poorly designed levees,” AP reported.

Judge: Corps can’t be sued

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor

 

So, a judge has ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can’t be sued for the flooding that ruined homes and lives in Hurricane Katrina.

 

According to U.S. District Judge, the Corps cannot be sued for flooding from three outfall canals because of immunity provided under the Flood Control Act of 1928.

 

An attorney for about 300,000 plaintiffs said today that they plan to appeal.

 

What do you think?

Corps investigation lampooned in YouTube video

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor 

In a new public service announcement, Levees.org accuses the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for relying on an organization “controlled by the Corps” to investigate levee failures after Hurricane Katrina. 

You can view the video on YouTube by clicking here.     

After Katrina, the “Army Corps of Engineers asked the American Society of Civil Engineers to hand pick some members to find the truth. Then they paid them nearly $1 million and awarded them medals of honor,” the PSA says. 

Levees.org is calling for another a new review of flood protection and “organizational failures that caused widespread flooding in metro New Orleans in August of 2005.” 

The 64-second PSA was uploaded to YouTube at 9 p.m. Monday night. So far, the video has received 18,012 views.

Makes sense to me

By Deon Roberts, Online Editor 

St. Tammany Parish and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could benefit from an agreement the two sides are considering. 

The Corps needs dirt to bolster levees in the New Orleans area. 

The parish needs retention ponds to collect storm water. 

So, under the deal, the Corps would dig the ponds for the parish and keep the soil for levees. But before agreements are finalized, the Corps must test the soil to determine whether it can be used in levees. 

Parish President Kevin Davis said it could say millions in taxpayer dollars. 

This is one of those no-brainer governmental partnerships we should be seeing a lot more of.