June 1? REALLY not so much

Colonel Jeff Bedey, head of the Hurricane Protection Office, appeared on WLAE's "Road to Recovery" last night and dropped the following bombshell:

The extra pumps at the 17th Street and London Avenue canals will be ready sometime between "late July and mid-August."

Reading the tea leaves (why can't these people ever just give a straight answer?), that means somewhere between July 20 and August 15. Of course, that is smack in the middle of hurricane season.

Interestingly, he had the gall to say during the same interview that the Corps had not lost its sense of urgency. He used the same "running a marathon, not a 10k" line that he used last week on WIST-690 (sounds like a talking point to me). I think it's just that the Corps thinks its a better long distance runner than a sprinter, and has decided to only do long distance. When I ran track in high school, I would have loved to have run the 800 or the 1600 instead of the 400. It was way easier. Apologies to any runners in the audience, but I never fell down gasping for breath either of the times I ran the 800 like I did many times at the end of running the 400.

He also mentioned that the Corps had awarded the remaining two bearing repair contracts for the Orleans Parish pump station repairs (he announced this unsolicited, except for a little prompting from the host in the form of, "We've got thirty seconds left, is there anything else you want to say?"). According to the latest Corps schedule for Orleans pump station repairs, those contracts are:

OPS-06A: Bearings - PS 1, 14, 14, 16, I-10
Advertise contract: 11/1/06 (previously 9/13/06)
Award contract: 11/22/06 (previously 10/21/06)
Construction complete: 7/23/07 (previously 7/23/07)
Duration: 8 months (previously 9 months)

OPS-06B: Bearings - PS 4, 6, 10, 12, 19
Advertise contract: 11/1/06 (previously 9/13/06)
Award contract: 11/22/06 (previously 10/21/06)
Construction complete: 7/23/07 (previously 7/23/07)
Duration: 8 months (previously 9 months)

This is a good thing, though the completion dates are - like the floodgate extra pumps - smack in the middle of hurricane season. I wonder if some sense of urgency might have avoided that situation?

And there was no actual advertisement, as has become the pattern on these contracts. The Corps seems determined to keep the public out of the business of knowing what's going on with the public's own assets.

Hey Corps (I know you're reading this, if the 25 or so hits from last Wednesday are any indication), would it hurt that much to put this stuff up your public website? Because there not on the Awarded Contracts page now, and they certainly weren't ever on the Advertised Solicitations page. What are you trying to hide?

Finally, Bedey said there were still six pump station repair contracts in the design phase, though that number might include non-pump station repair contracts (he was throwing out a bunch of numbers without specifics, trying the wow the audience with statistics). We're 15 months out, and they're still designing?