The Corps' invented crisis

The Corps arguments against Option 2 boil down to three contentions:

1) They are not authorized by Congress to build Option 2.

2) They haven't been given enough money to do so, according to their own estimates.

3) They don't have enough time to build Option 2 before the current interim closure structures self-destruct, or something.

Rebutting each of these:

1) Authorization: Over the past few weeks, it has emerged that the Corps is planning to do work identical to Option 2 at weak spots along the canals. They have budgeted at least $90 million for the work and plan on it lasting for years. Obviously, they are authorized to do modifications to the canals.

2) They goosed the Option 2 estimate between 2006 and 2008 by at least $1 billion more for less work on the pump stations. They also shifted a bunch of features from Option 1 to Option 2 in those estimates, to make the numbers look better for Option 1 and worse for Option 2. Their claims of expense cannot be taken at face value.

Which brings us to the "hurry up" reason, which is the most odious of their arguments.

I've detailed in the past how they've used this distortion to scare the public and their representatives. Karen Durham-Aguilera trotted it out - unsolicited no less - at the November 5, 2009 City Council meeting, paired with a rewriting of history (move the slider bar on the video to about 2:19:33):

"The thing that we're all remembering - especially from the engineers' point of view - the outfall canals, closure gates, and pump stations are temporary structures. You know, our mission was to get those in place before another hurricane season, and that is what we we did, and they were out there by June, 2006. They were never made to be long term. They are exposed in the elements. They are subject to corrosion. So our job is to get those replaced as quickly as possible. And even if we start today, it's going to be spring of 2014 before we're done because it's a very complicated construction project. So that's why we're so driven to keep moving forward, so that we're doing everything we can to not have a gap in risk reduction for the citizens of greater New Orleans."

Okay, first off, does she seriously think the entire New Orleans metro area has amnesia? We're not stupid. The gates and pumps were NOT "out there" by June, 2006. Here's the Times-Picayune on June 1, 2006, in an article titled "Pumps won't hit '06 goal this summer:"

"It won't be possible to provide the maximum promised pumping capacity at the new floodgates on the 17th Street and London Avenue canals during what are usually the most active months of hurricane season this year, and perhaps not until the start of the 2007 season, Army Corps of Engineers officials confirmed Wednesday.

They said the magnitude and complexity of installing the gates, which requires configuring as many as 28 separate pumps, platforms and diesel engines, makes it impossible to provide the 6,000 cubic feet per second of drainage capacity that corps officials had been working to have ready in September.

The soonest that level may be attainable is Oct. 31. All corps officials can guarantee this year is 2,400 to 2,800 cubic feet per second of drainage capacity using auxiliary pumps now being installed adjacent to each structure. They will try to use portable pumps to add 1,000 cfs."

But the Corps rewriting history is not new. However, you'd think they would bother to look at their own contemporaneous newsletters, which make clear construction was continuing on the gates and pumps throughout the 2006 hurricane season. The June 12, 2006 newsletter even says this:"The company selected to manufacture these pumps to the required specifications within the specified time, delivered pumps that are not working to required specifications."

But that is only tangential to this post. The real emphasis is on Ms. Durham-Aguilera's repetition of the Corps' threat:

We're doing everything we can to not have a gap in risk reduction for the citizens of greater New Orleans."

The Corps claims the interim closure structures have between 5 and 7 usable years of life. They also claim that Option 2 would take until 2023 to build, thus their claim of a "gap," as if they are powerless.

Getting them pinned down on where they got the 5-7 year number is not easy. Combing through their public statements seems to evince two excuses: a) The above mentioned corrosion excuse and b) a limited lifespan on the much-investigated MWI hydraulic pumps. I'll tackle the pump one first.

Corps excuse #1 - the hydraulic pumps have limited lifetime
As to the first excuse, project manager Dan Bradley let slip that the 5-7 year number, whatever its origin, doesn't have a basis in reality last month.

During a presentation to the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - East on October 15, 2009 (the same day as his boss, President Obama, was in town), Bradley let this gem out:

"Mr. Estopinal commented that it was stated in the reports he read that the projected life span of the temporary pumps is about 5 1/2 years and 50,000 operating hours. He asked for a clarification of the life span. Mr. Bradley responded that the 50,000 operating hours had to do with the life span of a gear within the pump. Other things, including the gear, govern the life span of the pumps. Therefore, five to seven years was expected to be a reasonable serviceable life. This does not mean that the serviceable life could not be prolonged a few more years with maintenance; however, an increasing amount of money would have to be put into the system."

Oops! I thought everything would fall apart if they didn't start the Option 1 bid process right now! Turns out, when it comes to the MWI pumps, it's just a matter of cash.

How much cash, you ask? Assuming $5 million in maintenance a year for all three closures, and excluding the flowrates from the direct-drive, non-hydraulic pumps (about 40%), leaves about $3 million a year to maintain the hydraulic pumps. Multiplied by the extra amount of time the Corps estimates Option 2 would take over Option 1 (9 years), that's an additional $27 million in maintenance on the existing hydraulic pumps. Not an insubstantial sum, but also not huge either. Plus, there are opportunites for savings in current maintenance expenses. For example, by the time 2013 rolls around, the Corps will have spent over $1.5 million to rent three used cranes (they act as backup to the hydraulic winches on the gates), when they could have simply purchased them for a fraction of the price.

By the by, Mr. Bradley is - ahem - bending the truth when he refers to the 50,000 hour lifespan of "a gear within the pump." The 50,000 hour figure actually was referring to the specified lifetime of bearings within the MWI pump units. Now, there are definitely difficulties with the gearboxes on the MWI pumps, which were substantially detailed in the OSC report (Part 1, Part 2) from earlier this year - specifically that the gearboxes are undersized for their service according to their manufacturer's published catalog data. However, that's not what Bradley was saying. He - like many the Corps sends out to talk to government representatives - relies on his audience not knowing the minutae of the subject at hand.

Corps excuse #2 - corrosion of the interim closure structure will limit their lifetime
As Ms. Durham-Aguilera mentioned, the Corps also has a talking point that corrosion is a problem. Their message discipline was on display in Bradley's comments about the topic to the October 15th, 2009 SLFPA-E meeting, which sound almost identical to Durham-Aguilera's on November 5, 2009. First, Bradley's statements:

"Mr. Barry asked that Mr. Bradley detail the situation concerning the interim structures, since much of the pressure is due to the condition of those structures. Mr. Bradley explained that after Hurricane Katrina the USACE was in a hurry to get closure structures in place in the outfall canals before the 2006 hurricane season. The architects/engineers (A/E) were rapidly attempting to get the structures in place knowing at that time that the permanent pump stations would be three to five years down the line. Much of the structuring was not actually coated and is exposed steel. Therefore, many of the problems are due to corrosion. Last year the maintenance cost was approximately $5 million. The cost of maintenance could increase each year and these costs are coming out of the project funds."

And Durham-Aguilera on November 5:

"The thing that we're all remembering - especially from the engineers' point of view - the outfall canals, closure gates, and pump stations are temporary structures. You know, our mission was to get those in place before another hurricane season, and that is what we we did, and they were out there by June, 2006. They were never made to be long term. They are exposed in the elements. They are subject to corrosion. So our job is to get those replaced as quickly as possible. And even if we start today, it's going to be spring of 2014 before we're done because it's a very complicated construction project. So that's why we're so driven to keep moving forward, so that we're doing everything we can to not have a gap in risk reduction for the citizens of greater New Orleans."

So they claim that due to the interim closure structures' exposure to the weather, they won't last more than a few years, with the implication that there's nothing that can be done about it. That's not true.

They are attempting to make the corrosion argument using this Black & Veatch internal report (released in April of this year, but substantially prepared in mid-2007) on how to make the ICS's last for 25 to 50 years with adequate maintenance. Nowhere within its text does it say the structures are vulnerable to failure within 5 to 7 years due to corrosion.

The only time that a definitive lifespan on the closure structures is mentioned in relation to corrosion is this:

"The equations determining the allowable corrosion (sacrificial steel) at any point in the nonoverflow structure sheet piling indicate there is a large safety factor in the cofferdam design. About 0.25 inches (250 mils) of corrosion can be tolerated without catastrophic results. Based on the average (4.5 mils/year) and maximum (9.0 mils/year) submerged zone corrosion rates given in Appendix C Table 1.4-1, the estimated service life of the non-overflow structure is in the range of 28 to 55 years."

The "non-overflow" structures are those sheetpile-enclosed masses on either sides of the gate structures themselves:



The report points to corrosion as a one problem among many with the interim closure strucutres, and suggests a number of remedies to allow the structures to be used for 50 years. Some of those remedies have already been implemented, such as sandblasting and painting of all the exposed piping on the sites.

Other remedies are pretty common sense - coating exposed steel sheet pile with coal tar epoxy for example. The Corps already calls for this in every specification it sends out for driving sheet pile which will have exposed length above ground. The report also calls for implementation of cathodic protection as well as covering other exposed surfaces with appropriate coatings.

Fortunately, this report includes all the detailed cost estimates for this work. Care to hazard a guess at what the Corps is refusing to spend on corrosion protection for the current structures to make them suitable for 50 years of service? The princely sum of $9,163,500.

And don't forget: the Corps has already spent $1,972,867 to Creek Services, LLC out of Gretna on contract W912P8-09-C-0001 (aka W912P8-08-C-0108) to do a large chunk of this work - painting the pipes. So the actual sum is approxmately,

$7,190,633

So basically the Corps is threatening the public with the near-imminent demise of the interim closure structures due to corrosion because they are unwilling to spend a little over $7 million on corrosion protection which could last 50 years. For comparison, the Corps New Orleans District has a public relations contract worth well over $5 million with Outreach Process Partners.

$7.2 million is about 0.9% of the $802 million already appropriated to the permanent pump stations, or $3 million less than the $10 million the Corps wants the property taxpayers of New Orleans to pay every year for forcing Option 1 on them instead of taking the time to do Option 2 (see my earlier post "The story so far"on the tax implications of Option 1).

Oops, again.

The Corps cheaps out - again

So, in sum, the Corps is threatening the New Orleans area with failure of their interim closure structures - a violation of Congressional direction to provide 100 year protection - if they don't build something - the technically inferior Option 1 - before then. In fact, there is no imminent threat. The Corps already has admitted and has had consultants tell them in detail what is needed to prolong the lives of the ICS's for as long as they need to. At the most, doing so until Option 2 is complete would cost about $27 million in hydraulic pump maintenance and $7 million in corrosion protection, a fairly minor sum in the midst of the Corps' $14.3 billion appropriation from Congress. By comparison, if Option 1 is built by 2014 instead of constructing Option 2 by 2023, the citizens of New Orleans would pay an extra $90 million in increased property taxes over those 9 years the Corps refuses to do their job.

Essentially, the Corps is saying citizens should pay $90 million out of their own pockets for an inferior system rather than the Corps paying $34 million out of appropriations they already have, and then going back to Congress to refill the pot.

And that is what this all comes down to - money, and the Corps' apparent embarrassment in having to ask for more of it. There is no imminent danger of a "gap in risk reduction" from the reasons the Corps has given (not that there aren't other good reasons to get the ICS's out of there, but the Corps will never admit to them because it would be tremendously embarrassing).

We know they are short on money for armoring, for mitigation, for the West Closure Complex, and for Option 2. We also know they're skimping on Option 1 stations. The bill is coming due within the next year, so they just need to man up and ask for what they need to give the citizens of the New Orleans area and this country what they promised. And they need to stop lying.