Fix the pumps

Parsing: Corps publicly commits to fix outfall canal walls

2009-11-09T17:27:00.006-06:00

I kind of wish the local media had paid close attention to the November 5, 2009 City Council meeting, because they would have heard a rather amazing pair of statements from the Corps' Karen Durham-Aguilera and Colonel Sinkler, heads of Task Force Hope and the Hurricane Protection Office respectively.

The slides for the meeting - including 25 slides not shown to the public - are available here. The video of the meeting is available here. The first statement comes at about 2:17:38 into the meeting.

In response to a question from the Council, Ms. Durham-Aguilera, the civilian program director for the entire Corps effort around New Orleans, says,

"We've got engineering analyses of those outfall canal walls and those safe water elevations ongoing right now with Sewerage & Water Board and levee authorities. So we're looking to see if we can physically improve those walls further and assure that Sewerage & Water Baord would not have an overtopped system."

A few minutes later, at 2:23:48, again in response to a question, Col. Sinkler says,

"After the Safe Water Elevation studies are complete and after they [the canal walls] are rehabilitated based upon the information we gather from those studies, they will be able to accommodate any needs that the Sewerage & Water Board has to remove rainwater through those canals. And things are well on track to do that. We're working hand in hand with the Sewerage & Water Board to ensure that's the case."

This is HUGE news. After over four years, the Corps has publicly pledged to fix the walls along the outfall canals to eliminate the need for "safe water levels." So when will those studies be done?

"The corps' new goal is to have all three new analyses -- along with any residual work required to raise safe water elevations -- finished no later than the June 1 start of next hurricane season."
- Times-Picayune, September 28, 2009

Oh.

So they won't even begin designing improvements until the 2010 hurricane season. Maybe they'll be done for the fifth anniversary of Katrina next August.

Slippage - Part 2

2009-11-06T17:28:00.006-06:00

As mentioned in my previous post Karen Durham-Aguilera and Col. Sinkler were scheduled to appear before the City Council on November 5th. They did so, and the video is here. And the slide presentation - with 25 slides not presented to the public - is here.

As expected, there was a lot of other "stuff" in their presentation, with the list of late projects on page 7, after all the Big Numbers.

So here's the list:

For reference, here's the list that was presented at the August 18 CRPA meeting:

From a surface perspective, things appear to have gotten better. There are now only 12 late projects on the list rather than 15. Also, many of the problem projects in St Bernard Parish and Orleans parish are apparently now on a faster track.

However, there are also some deepening problems. Moving through some of the same topics as in my last post...

West Closure Complex

The biggest problem that jumps out is the West Closure Complex (WBV-90), with its 100 year protection completion date of September 18, 2011, ten days later than the schedule from three months ago.

The Corps is pouring around a billion dollars into this project on the West Bank. On October 30, 2009, they held a big groundbreaking to-do, with invited dignitaries and media. The Times-Picayune and the Associated Press and local TV stations covered it, and the Corps got the story that they wanted out there, including a huge lie from the Corps.

From Fox 8's coverage:

"The surge gates should be complete by the 2011 hurricane season, according to Corps spokesmen."

and from the Times-Picayune, as I noted in the last post:

"The floodgates are expected to be completed by June 2011"

Finally, the Corps has repeated the same thing in their own ~~propaganda~~ update, published November 9th, 2009:

"The nearly $1 billion complex will provide 100-year level risk reduction by hurricane season 2011."

That is not the truth. The truth is that according to the Corps' own schedule, the West Closure Complex will not offer 100 year protection to the vast majority of the West Bank until most of the 2011 hurricane season is over.

By the way, the cost of the project appears to be ballooning also. The Times-Picayune mentioned this,

"Friday's event capped a week in which the corps held a three-day closed-door summit at a Metairie hotel to brainstorm ways to cut $200 million to $300 million from the project to keep it under budget.

Tom Podany, chief of the corps' protection and restoration office, said it's unclear whether the goal was met because the corps is still reviewing the proposals.

'This is part of the normal process of doing cost containment and trying to find the best value,' he said. 'We're looking at different construction techniques to keep the project under budget and on schedule."

St Bernard Parish projects

Another worrying development is the further latening of the completion of the storm protection around St Bernard Parish. In August, all three major projects were due to be late. While two of them (LPV-145 and LPV-146) have apparently been pulled back, the third one (LPV-148.02) has gotten radically later. LPV 148.02 is the levee and planned T-wall on the southern side of the Parish.

In August, the projected 100-year completion date was September 7, 2011, which was bad enough. Now, it has slipped another three months to December 11, 2011, or completely after the 2011 hurricane season. Two other St Bernard projects also will not be done until after the deadline.

West Return Wall

Finally, Colonel Gunter's comments at the August 6, 2009 City Council meeting about pulling the West Return Wall (which is the western flank of storm protection in Jefferson Parish) back before the deadline have proven dead wrong. Both north and south segments have slipped further since the August update, with a 100-year completion date of the fifth anniversary of Katrina.

Summary

Of course, none of this is the Corps' fault; it never is. While the slide with the late projects was up on the screen, here is what Karen Durham-Aguilera said:

"To get this amount of construction done in a relatively short amount of time is an intense amount of work. We do have several contracts that are projected beyond June 2011. These are on this slide. A year ago, there were 27. Today, there are 12. Even the ones on this list have improved considerably from where they were a few months ago. And just about everything is in the summer of 2011. So this continues to be something we work on, along with the state, the levee authorities, and the levee districts, and our construction firms to continue to see how much time we make up during construction.

A lot of the challenges with these projects before they're awarded is the real estate acquisition and the real estate needs that the state and the levee authorities have to deliver to allow us to do the construction. But once we get through that hurdle we're ready to go and we make up a lot of time then."

So the only reason that the largest civil works project underway in the entire country will be late - according to the person titularly in charge of that effort - is that the locals are slow on delivering the land.

There's one other thing about her statements above. She claims, "Even the ones on this list have improved considerably from where they were a few months ago." That's just not true. Of the 12 projects on the latest list, only four have had their 100 year completion dates improve since August. The other 8 have all slipped, some substantially. In fact, 2 of those 8 were previously projected to be completed on time, and have now slipped past June 1, 2011.

It shouldn't be this hard to parse everything the Corps says, and one shouldn't need such a tremendous amount of knowledge to interpret it. They have a long way to go in being straight with the public.

Slippage

2009-11-05T07:26:00.006-06:00

On November 5, 2009, Karen Durham-Aguilera, civilian head of the Corps' Task Force Hope, and Col. Robert Sinkler, head of the Hurricane Protection Office, are due to testify before the New Orleans City Council. They should be giving an update on which projects are projected to miss the June 1, 2011 deadline for 100 year protection of the greater New Orleans area.

Most likely, their presentation will include a lot of information about stuff they've already done, with the meat of the data - which projects will be late - buried in the middle and with little context. The projects will be listed by internal Corps project codes, and they won't show exactly where they are located or what the projects actually are. How do we know? Because they've already done so twice this year in just that fashion.

The Corps gave two project updates on this topic in August 2009. Those updates were only given because of June, 2009 media reports (from WWL-TV and the Times-Picayune) which detailed exactly which projects in the 100-year effort would not meet the June 1, 2011 date. Otherwise, it is unlikely this information would have ever been revealed.

The City Council hosted the first presentation. On August 6, 2009, two Corps colonels (Sinkler and Greg Gunter) appeared at the Council. They brought a Powerpoint presentation which mostly just gave an update on current and future projects without any relevant dates. But they did deign to include one slide which actually laid out the projects projected to finish beyond June 1, 2011.

The full presentation is here, and here's the important slide (Slide #5) with the late projects:

Video of the meeting is available on the City Council's website here.

As you can see, the list is substantial. For example, the highlighted projects (LPV-106.01, -109.02a, and -111.01) represent the majority of the levees surrounding New Orleans East:

(from May 14, 2009 Corps meeting slides)

During that August 6 presentation the colonels made a promise of a biweekly update of critical path projects. That never was fulfilled.

Here's the other stuff that came out of that August 6, 2009 presentation:

Late projects in St Bernard Parish

While the meeting was held in New Orleans, there was vital information regarding St Bernard Parish that was glossed over.

Specifically, both Colonels neglected to highlight the fact that all three major levee projects in St Bernard Parish, collectively referred to as the Chalmette Loop Levee, would not be ready before June 1, 2011. This was a new, very important development since those late June media reports about the Corps missing the deadline, which was what prompted the August 6th appearance.

Here's a map of where those projects (LPV-145, -146, and -148) are. They are shown in yellow:

(from May 11, 2009 Corps meeting slides)

Here's the post-6/1/2011 completion dates of those three projects as reported on Slide #5 at the August 6th meeting, along with how their 100-year completion dates compare to the late June figures:

LPV-148, 100 year completion September 7, 2011 (Slipped 6 weeks since 6/18/09)
LPV-145, 100 year completion Aug 23, 2011 (Slipped at least 2.5 MONTHS since 6/18/09 - was not late on previous lists)
LPV-146, 100 year completion July 10, 2011 (Slipped 7 MONTHS since 6/18/09 - was not late on previous lists)

As you can tell from the amount of slippage in these projects, something serious happened with these projects. The completion date for LPV-146 went from December 14, 2010 to July 10, 2011, a loss of seven months. The others lost significant ground as well. This went completely unmentioned by Colonel Gunter while Slide #5 was on screen.

And when Colonel Sinkler got to the part of the presentation specifically on St Bernard Parish projects, this development was not mentioned at all. In fact, here's what Colonel Sinkler said on the topic of the St Bernard levees:

[Slide #17 showing map of St Bernard appears]
"And then St Bernard Parish - very similar [to New Orleans East] - we're kind of concerned about these areas right now. They're between 15 and 20 feet high right now, and we do want to put an additional 8 feet or so on those levees. And our intent is to have those done by June 1st, 2011. And we're committed to that June 1st date.

"Next slide"
[Slide #18 showing details of St Bernard levee contracts appears]

"Next slide"
[Slide #18 disappears and Slide #19 showing details of Permanent Pump Stations appears]

Given the opportunity to highlight a problem that concerns the storm protection for an entire parish, Colonel Sinkler instead said "We're kind of concerned" and "Next slide."

The video for this can be found here. Move the slider to 1:51:49 to view this section of the meeting.

More projects are geting later

Just 11 days after the August 6 City Council meeting, on August 19th, the Corps gave another update on its 100 year efforts. This time it was given to the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (LA CPRA). You can find that presentation here (large file - over 30 megs).

That presentation also gives a list of projects due to be late on page 14:

Also available as a PDF here.

The list is bigger (15 projects vs the 13 at the City Council meeting) and generally has later completion dates.

The list on the CPRA presentation includes yet another St Bernard Parish project (LPV-149) in addition to the three others from the City Council presentation. It also includes the critical lynchpin project on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish, the West Closure Complex, or "WCC." The WCC is a huge storm surge barrier and pumping complex that will make over 20 miles of hurricane protection structures behind it into "secondary" protection.

On the topic of LPV-149, whose official title is "Chalmette Loop Levee, Verret to Caernarvon Structures, St. Bernard Parish," the CPRA presentation says the 100 year date is July 21, 2011. It appears this project was omitted from the list at the City Council meeting, since its late status was already reported back in June. Back then, it was anticipated to reach the 100 year level of protection on June 15th, 2011, so it slipped over a month. Clearly, taken in conjunction with the substantial delays in the other St Bernard projects, there are problems with the Corps' efforts in St Bernard that are being soft-pedalled.

On the topic of the West Closure Complex, a critical project for multiple parishes, the August CPRA presentation noted that it would not be up to the 100 year level of protection until September 8, 2011, or over three months later than what was previously promised. This means that much of the Corps' "secondary" protection on the West Bank would be "primary" protection for a large chunk of the 2011 hurricane season. This may have changed by the time of the Corps' hullabaloo about this project a few days ago, since the Times-Picayune reported "The floodgates are expected to be completed by June 2011". We'll see what's reported at the City Council meeting...

West Return Wall

At the August 6th City Council presentation, while Slide #5 (the heart of the presentation, showing 13 late projects) was visible on the big screen in the Council Chambers and on local TV, Colonel Gunter spoke about three projects he claimed had been successfully "brought back" before the June 1, 2011 deadline. From his descriptions, I believe those projects to be:

a) LPV-109.02b, which is the area where I-10 crosses the easternmost levees in New Orleans East near Irish Bayou.
b) LPV-03.2A, which is the southern section of the West Return Wall (the levee between Kenner and St Charles parish), specifically the section between I-10 and the airport
c) LPV-101.02, which is the floodwall in New Orleans running from the 17th Street canal along Lake Marina Drive to Topaz St near the Municipal Yacht Harbor.

Unfortunately, Colonel Gunter neglected to point out to the Council that one of these projects - LPV-03.2A - had actually NOT been "brought back" before June 1, 2011, as was evidenced by the very slide he was presenting:

As you can see, that slide shows the date of 100 year protection for that project as July 16th, 2011.

Summary

So, a lot of news can be produced at these types of meetings, if one knows what one is seeing. Unfortunately, the Corps takes pains not to point out this sort of information, hoping the audience is not clued in to the minutae of their projects. They cover everything up with project codes and surround the actual news with lots of other pretty slides of stuff they've already done, when they are there to tell what is coming and what will be late.

I'll post an update later with what can be gleaned from today's presentaton.

Silted In

2009-10-20T19:08:00.009-05:00

What do we know about Options 1 and 2?

- The Corps has been playing with information on the projects, redacting critical figures that show serious discrepancies in their cost estimates. Then, they've been attempting to scare the public into Option 1.

- The Corps claims they are only authorized to proceed with Option 1. However, we know it was the Corps that made a CHOICE to proceed with Option 1 over Option 2 just months after Katrina with no public consultation. They drafted legislation for Congress - eventually adopted unchanged from the original language - which locked Option 1 in. That "lock in" is according to the Corps' lawyers' interpretation of that Corps-drafted legislation. And the circle of legalism is complete.

- The Corps cost estimates for the Option 2 stations are likely wildly inflated. Between 2006 and 2009, the estimate ballooned over $1 billion. That is even taking into account a very generous 60% contingency on the 2006 estimate.

- The Corps' plans for Option 1, which they claim will allow adaptation to Option 2 later, are actually not as adaptable as all that. Their Option 1 stations leave out key features which will be necessary for Option 2, such as formed suction intakes (FSI's) on the pumps, as well as gearboxes, electric motors and support equipment which is sized for both Options 1 and 2.

- The Corps' plans for Option 1 also leave the outfall canal walls untouched, even though their own reports say those I-walls should be replaced with T-walls if the Corps proceeds with the plans they are currently proposing. The reports show that future pump station operating costs will eventually outstrip the cost to fix the walls now. Even so, the Corps is showing no inclination to do the right thing and fix the walls.

With all that in mind, it is valuable to examine what New Orleans and Jefferson Parish will be left with if Option 1 proceeds as the Corps wishes.

First up, the canals...

Put simply, the current canals are a mess. They appear to be filling with silt, impeding the drainage capacity of the city. The silt also raises the water level on those weak walls, making every major rainfall event riskier. As more and more water is pumped out of the city, more silt is deposited in the canals. Eventually, there will be so much silt, the canals will not be able to convey enough water without exceeding safe water elevation restrictions.

Silting as of 2006

The problem of silting is well known. It appears in diagrams in the 2009 B&V report. Those diagrams are based on other diagrams from another Black & Veatch report, this one from 2008. That 2008 report analyzed various flow scenarios, attempting to quantify how often the gates need to drop at the lakefront based on rainfall, lake level, and existing & future safe water levels.

The diagrams include hydrographic survey results from the post-K years (likely 2006), showing the "current" canal bottoms. Here they are for two of the canals (my annotations are in red):

17th Street:

London Avenue:
As you can see, in 2006 there were significant stretches of those canals with a lot of silt in them. There's no reason to think anything has changed (see "Where did the silt come from?" below).

I have a few caveats to these diagrams:

a) I'm having problems finding the bottom elevations of the Orleans Avenue canal from the early 90's. If I can get them, I'll make a diagram like the ones above and add it to this post later.

b) I pulled the old canal bottom and wall top elevations from the as-built drawings of the work done on both these canals, available at the IPET site (17th Street here, London Avenue here and here). The datum on those drawings was NGVD29. Now it is NAVD88. According to this document from the London Avenue load test, the conversion is NAVD88 = NGVD29 - 1.5 feet. I'm not sure if that is true or not, and I'm not particularly qualified to say so. However, for the point I'm trying to make - there's a LOT of silt in the canals - I don't believe it matters.

c) Notice the sections in the canals closer to the lake on the London Avenue canal that apparently have gotten much deeper than the -10 feet NGVD (or -11.5 NAVD) original depth. The section at the Robert E Lee Blvd bridge shows a great deal of scour. It is right in front of the "London North" breach. Since the London Avenue survey was done in March, 2006, it would make sense there would be a large scour hole right in front of the breach area at that point, before the area had been completely repaired. It's unclear if filling this hole was part of the Corps work done in that vicinity after Katrina - the hole may still be there.

One last thing on the data from 2006... The Corps had the London Avenue survey from March of 2006 turned into a video:

This video, which travels from south to north along the canal, backs up the graphic above. The areas in pink and orange are those that have lots of silt (water depths from -4 to -7 feet), and they are concentrated in the area to the south of Mirabeau Avenue. The large scour hole at Robert E Lee also shows up in deep purple (water depth of -20 feet). Most of the canal north of Mirabeau - shown in green - appears (as of March 2006) to be at nominal depth, which is in the range of -9 to -12 ft. It's somewhat interesting that there are some areas of scouring around the bridge foundations, shown in light blue (-13 to -14 feet).

Where did the silt come from?

There's two possibilities here:

1) There's always been a silting problem on the canals.
2) Katrina

While we know (1) to be true (it was why dredging was done on the 17th Street canal in the late 80's and early '90's leading to the breach), the possibility that much of this silt is from Katrina is quite strong.

Thousands of tons of silt from Lake Pontchartrain flowed into the city through the breaches in the outfall canals after Katrina. The city's Public Works department has spent years trying to get it out of the subsurface drainage system. Other canals all over the area were similarly clogged and had to be cleaned out.

What is interesting is that while the Federal government has picked up the tab to for all those cleanouts, there was no move to do the same for the three biggest areas of potetial cloggage: the outfall canals. Thus, it is possible the New Orleans area is now living with a huge legacy of Katrina - stopped up drains. The right thing to do would have been to do some dredging in combination with replacement of the weak sections of the walls soon after the storm, but the Corps foreclosed that possibility by eliminating Option 2 (or any remedial work on the walls) from consideration in late 2005 and early 2006 - with no public consultation.

Now the area is stuck with a problem that is very difficult to solve. Nonetheless, dozens of other culverts and canals have been cleaned out of Katrina debris at Federal expense since the storm; the right thing to do would be to address this problem - safely if possible.

Is it getting worse?

So is the problem getting worse? According to data collected earlier this year by the Corps, it appears at least one canal may be silting up somewhat quickly.

In May, 2007, the Corps issued a study to determine the safe water level for the 17th Street canal. The complete version (just released this year as part of the IER #5 comment process and which includes graphics in the back) is here. It concluded that 6 feet was okay, if some work was done in certain spots near the I-10 and Veterans Blvd. bridges. That work was completed shortly afterward, and the safe water elevation has been 6 feet ever since.

Of course, that study was completed before new hurricane protection design guidelines were promulgated in October, 2007. Two years later, the Corps is still studying safe water elevations on the canals, using those new guidelines. Results are not expected until the beginning of the 2010 hurricane season, or almost five years after Katrina and two years after permanent protection was originally promised to be complete.

Part of the 2007 17th Street canal study was a section on silt build up in the canal:

"(3) Sedimentation. The post Katrina surveys show that the accretion has occurred in the canal. Between I-10 and the railroad bridge the lowest canal bottom elevation is El. -10 NAVD or over 7 ft. of sedimentation according to post Katrina surveys. Between Veterans Blvd and I-10 the canal bottom elevation is El. -14 to -18 NAVD or between .5 to 3 feet of sedimentation according to post Katrina surveys. Between the B/L Station 583+00 and Veterans Blvd the canal bottom elevation is El. -15 NAVD or higher about 4 feet of sedimentation according to post Katrina surveys. Between Hammond Highway Bridge and Station 583+00 the canal bottom is between El. -17.5 NAVD and El. -19.5 NAVD (at one location 120 ft south of Hammond the bottom elevation is -20.0 NAVD)about .5 ft to 2.5 ft of sedimentation. Since the surveys were taken 18-inches of riprap has been placed on the canal bottom from Hammond Highway to the south end of the breach."

As part of the ongoing, neverending process of evaluating the safe water levels that I mentioned above, the Corps had a new survey done of the 17th Street canal this spring. The report for that survey is here, and the raw data is here.

After reading through that data, the above paragraph could be rewritten to read:

"(3) Sedimentation. The post Katrina surveys show that the accretion has occurred in the canal. Between I-10 and the railroad bridge the lowest canal bottom elevation is ~~El. -10 NAVD or over 7 ft.~~ El. -7 NAVD or over 10 ft. of sedimentation according to post Katrina surveys. Between Veterans Blvd and I-10 the canal bottom elevation is ~~El. -14 to -18 NAVD or between .5 to 3 feet~~ El. -10 to -15 NAVD or between 2 to 7 feet of sedimentation according to post Katrina surveys. Between the B/L Station 583+00 and Veterans Blvd the canal bottom elevation is ~~El. -15 NAVD or higher about 4 feet~~ El. -13 NAVD or higher about 6 feet of sedimentation according to post Katrina surveys. Between Hammond Highway Bridge and Station 583+00 the canal bottom is between ~~El. -17.5 NAVD and El. -19.5 NAVD (at one location 120 ft south of Hammond the bottom elevation is -20.0 NAVD)about .5 ft to 2.5 ft of sedimentation~~ between El. -14 NAVD and El. -18 NAVD about .5 ft to 4.5 ft. Since the surveys were taken 18-inches of riprap has been placed on the canal bottom from Hammond Highway to the south end of the breach."

So that is saying that in the space of about three years, some sections of the 17th Street canal have had 3 to 4 feet of silt build up in the canal. Considering that those particular sections have a design depth of approxmately -18.5 feet (see notes below about the canal bottom elevations), and have gone from 7 feet to 10 feet of sediment, the canal is clearly getting clogged up to the point where drainage capacity will soon be impeded.

What is the upshot of all this?

It means that the problem which led in part to the failure of the 17th Street walls during Katrina - the need to dredge the canals due to the buildup of silt - will not go away with Option 1, the Corps' preferred alternative. It also means that at the rate the silt is apparently building up in the canals, the need to dredge may come sooner rather than later. That should be worrying, considering what happened the last time the 17th Street canal was dredged.

In addition, the Corps might put forward a rather bizarre argument - silting of the canals is good. In Appendix B to the London Avenue Load Test report, the Corps paid consultants studied how the permeability of silt on the canal bottoms can prevent the walls from getting undermined like in Katrina. They concluded,

"Analyses have shown that when there is direct hydraulic communication between the canal water and the sand layer, high toe exit gradients and large uplift pressures can exist, even for modest canal water levels. If the canal was 'silted in,' then these exit gradients and uplift pressures are substantially reduced."

In non-engineerese, that means the silt is blocking water from getting under the walls.

These are the kinds of crazy situations and arguments that these faulty walls create - is it more valuable to silt in the canal, reducing drainage capacity, just so you can save some crummy walls? Or should the canals be dredged, possibly opening up seepage paths under the walls, and maybe even damaging them in the process? It's ridonkulous.

What would solve this? In the short term, some federally funded cleanups would seem to be in order. However, in the long term, concrete lined canals with a nice gentle slope that would keep the silt moving during drainage operations are the best choice. Such canals already exist all over the metro area. The Palmetto Canal - which leads to the 17th Street canal - as been concrete lined for a very long time and does not appear to have a silting problem along its length. It also doesn't have any walls, since it is subsurface. Here's a picture:

(image courtesy user "Infrogmation" at wikimedia.org)

Now, even with a concrete channel, the silt doesn't magically disappear. It builds up wherever there is an obstruction in the canal. This would include bridge foundations and the inlets of the lakefront pump stations. However, installing lowered concrete canals would significantly reduce the current problem to just those spots, and would also keep future dredging operations from the weakened walls and levees - since those walls and levees would not exist.

This is just one of the unannounced problems that will remain for the New Orleans area if Option 1 is allowed to proceed. There are others...

Pennywise Part 4

2009-10-15T08:55:00.009-05:00

Previously: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

[Pardon the copying of verbiage from Parts 1, 2 and 3 at the beginning of this part. You can scroll down past the main list of 13 features to see the new content]

The largest refrain from those in support of Option 2, which is everyone but the Corps, is that effective flood protection is better than cheap flood protection. Supporters of Option 2 say it is just plain better than Option 1, a position even the Corps agrees with in a technical evaluation report mandated by Congress. The problem New Orleans and the surrounding area faces is that the Corps is cheaping out and going for Option 1 over Option 2, which is exactly what the Corps chose to do just months after Katrina, even though they believed it would only take another $190 million to do Option 2. Admittedly, it may have cost a little more to do Option 2, but based on the facts at the time - and what was passed up the chain to the White House and Congress - the Corps CHOSE to do Option 1 to save $190 million, and drafted the authorization and appropriation language to match it. The cheaping out began a long time ago.

However, I would go further and say that the Corps is cheaping out even on how they are planning to build Option 1. I believe they are deliberately lowballing the Option 1 estimate in order to make it look like the only way to go. They are doing this through a combination of shifting some features to future Option 2 and simply not building other features. If they didn't, it would be revealed that even Option 1 - if it was truly to be built correctly and be adaptable to Option 2 - cannot be built for the $804 million the Corps told Congress to give it.

In part 1 of this series, I introduced the various flavors and features of the Option 1 pump stations as they are laid out in three primary sources:

a) The 2009 B&V report
b) The 2009 Congressional Cost Report
c) A presentation given by the Corps to the SLFPA-E (east bank levee authority) on October 1, 2009.

See that earlier post for an explanation of the three flavors of Option 1 from the 2009 B&V report.

For reference, here's the description from the Cost Report:

"Pumping Plant - The pumping stations include the pumping station building and equipment, intake wet well, discharge section, canal transitions, generators with enclosures, a tank farm, and all the ancillary systems required for a fully functional facility. A cofferdam is required for the contruction of the pumping station. A temporary bypass may also be required to route canal flows around the cofferdam during construction."

"If the lake has a wave of 9 feet striking the face of the pump station, then the pumping unit will be exposed to the pulsations equivalent to the 9 feet. For a pumping unit rated at 12 feet, this is a significant increase possibly doubling the operating head acting on the pumping unit which could result in permanent damage to the pumping units or decrease the pump service life. Several pump manufacturers were contacted regarding this issue. Generally, pump manufacturers indicate that additional testing must be performed to determine the impact that waves will have on the pumping unit."

The breakwater is a manmade speedbump for waves on the lake side of the stations. it has to be big enough to knock down most of the energy of the waves so that only minimal (1-2 feet) waves reach the stations. The 2009 B&V report includes a drawing of the cross-section of the breakwater:

The other method of keeping waves away from the pumps is putting up a big wall right in front of the pump siphon discharges, creating a huge box where water would come to rest before flowing gently into the lake over the top of the wall. The wall would serve the same function as a breakwater, but it would be a lot closer to the stations. This "stilling basin" would necessarily have a higher water elevation in it since the front wall would need to be tall enough to knock down waves which were on top of a surge. There's a drawing of a stilling basin in the 2009 B&V report:

This higher discharge water level would reduce the advantage of the siphon and would make the pumps work harder, meaning larger motors, gearboxes, generators, buildings, and the like. It's not exactly the best choice, which is probably why the Corps went with the breakwaters. However, it's truly impossible to know whether it was the best way to go from an economic point of view, since the Corps has redacted all that information out of the 2009 B&V report.

One final note on this. The IER #5 has 159 instances of the word "breakwater," but none of the word "stilling." Had the 2009 B&V report been released during the IER #5 comment period in May, people may have considered whether a stilling basin was a superior alternative to the two breakwaters proposed for 17th Street and Orleans Avenue. But the public was never availed of that opportunity, since the existence of the B&V report was never confirmed until well after the end of the comment period.

13) Removal of ICS facilities

Part and parcel of this whole project is that these new stations replace the current Interim Closure Structures (ICS). Every plan calls for that, though the Corps has looked at what it would take to keep the current ICS facilities in place. It would be far cheaper to do so than to build new stations.

I'm going to hold off on talking about this particular topic because it deserves a post of its own. For the sake of this post, suffice to say that every plan calls for getting rid of the ICS facilities after the mew pumping stations are brought on line.

Summary

So that's all the various features that make up the pump stations, as listed in the 2009 B&V report. From what I've read, it would appear the Corps has cheaped out on the following features for their Option 1 stations:

1) Includes Floodwall/Levee Upgrades - no upgrades appear to be planned, even though the inclusion of gates would seem to require it on two of the three canals.

3) Channel transitions - the Corps wants to put a turbulence-inducing retaining wall, or "step," to account for the elevation difference between the current canal bottoms and the lowered sills. In the long run this will cause damage to the pumps and will be a maintenance headache with silt building up at the bottom of the step.

5) Formed Suction Intakes - the Corps knows these will be required for Option 2, just like the deepened foundation they are already including. However, they are not including them in their version of Option 1, pushing the FSI costs into an Option 2 at an indeterminate future time. This appears to be a direct instance of the lowballing of Option 1 costs and the inflation of Option 2 costs.

6) All Electric Pumps - This "feature" only truly appears in the Cost Report. There will undoubtedly be diesel pumps in the pump stations, so this is probably another effort to drive down the reported cost of Option 1 at the expense of reality.

7) Pump Station Sized for Future Pump Capacity
8) Pump Capacity Sized for Future Pump Capacity
9) Fuel Storage and Generator Sized for Future Capacity

These three features leave out the actual equipment that would accommodate future interior drainage expansion by the Sewerage & Water Board, including only space for the equipment. This is another way to minimize reported cost.

Also, the Corps is only planning on installing pumps, motors, gearboxes, switchgears, and other pump-related equipment that is sized for Option 1, rather than looking ahead and installing oversized equipment which could be recycled for Option 2. Again, this chops current costs while raising the bills in the future, making Option 1 look better at the expense of Option 2.

As you can see, the Corps has done as much as possible to drive down the reported costs for Option 1. In some cases they have eliminated features like FSIs and diesel pumps from their Option 1 cost estimate in order to squeeze that square peg into their $804 million round hole. In additon, they appear to have passed some of those costs on to Option 2, making that Option look that much less attractive. When combined with the increase of $1 billion in the Option 2 station costs in the span of 3 years, it's obvious there's little to trust in the Corps' estimates, which makes the decisions being made based on those estimates suspect as well. And of course, their entire plan leaves the same, defective floodwalls in place along the canals for New Orleans to deal with.

The best way to proceed, rather than allowing the Corps to play with the numbers and the designs, is to get an independent estimate of the permanent pumps project while all the features that are common to Options 1 and 2 proceed. Simultaneously, the Corps should shift money to the permanent pump project to accommodate all those common features.

Unfortunately the move for an independent study slowed when the Landrieu/Vitter amendment to the 2009 Energy & Water Resources appropriations bill - which authorized such a study - died in conference in September. It still needs to happen, because the Corps simply cannot be trusted with this project at this point.

Previously: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Pennywise Part 3

2009-10-15T08:53:00.006-05:00

Previously: Part 1 Part 2

[Pardon the copying of verbiage from Part 1 and Part 2 at the beginning of this part. You can scroll down past the main list of 13 features to see the new content]

The largest refrain from those in support of Option 2, which is everyone but the Corps, is that effective flood protection is better than cheap flood protection. Supporters of Option 2 say it is just plain better than Option 1, a position even the Corps agrees with in a technical evaluation report mandated by Congress. The problem New Orleans and the surrounding area faces is that the Corps is cheaping out and going for Option 1 over Option 2, which is exactly what the Corps chose to do just months after Katrina, even though they believed it would only take another $190 million to do Option 2. Admittedly, it may have cost a little more to do Option 2, but based on the facts at the time - and what was passed up the chain to the White House and Congress - the Corps CHOSE to do Option 1 to save $190 million, and drafted the authorization and appropriation language to match it. The cheaping out began a long time ago.

However, I would go further and say that the Corps is cheaping out even on how they are planning to build Option 1. I believe they are deliberately lowballing the Option 1 estimate in order to make it look like the only way to go. They are doing this through a combination of shifting some features to future Option 2 and simply not building other features. If they didn't, it would be revealed that even Option 1 - if it was truly to be built correctly and be adaptable to Option 2 - cannot be built for the $804 million the Corps told Congress to give it.

In part 1 of this series, I introduced the various flavors and features of the Option 1 pump stations as they are laid out in three primary sources:

a) The 2009 B&V report
b) The 2009 Congressional Cost Report
c) A presentation given by the Corps to the SLFPA-E (east bank levee authority) on October 1, 2009.

See that earlier post for an explanation of the three flavors of Option 1 from the 2009 B&V report.

For reference, here's the description from the Cost Report:

"Pumping Plant - The pumping stations include the pumping station building and equipment, intake wet well, discharge section, canal transitions, generators with enclosures, a tank farm, and all the ancillary systems required for a fully functional facility. A cofferdam is required for the contruction of the pumping station. A temporary bypass may also be required to route canal flows around the cofferdam during construction."

"1. Pumping stations could be equipped with a mix of diesel driven pumps and electric motor driven pumps. For the purpose of this report, electric motor driven pumps were used."

No further explanation is given, but here's my guess: the savings from not installing diesel engines is greater than the increased cost of extra generator equipment for all electric pumps. Thus, the costs would look lower. While overall costs would be lower for both Options 1 and 2, it would only matter in the calculations for Option 1, where the Corps wanted to make it look as cheap as possible. The problem is that it doesn't reflect reality: there WILL be diesel engines inside the stations. The Corps simply said to Congress, "Let's just ignore reality for this report, since it'll make Option 1 cheaper."

7) Pump Station Sized for Future Pump Capacity
8) Pump Capacity Sized for Future Pump Capacity
9) Fuel Storage and Generator Sized for Future Capacity

The "future capacity" referred to here is that capacity the Sewerage & Water Board would like to bring online over the next few years. Through the construction of various new pump stations and drainage culverts, the Board anticipates the following increases in carrying capacity for each canal:

17th Street: increase from 10,500 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 12,500 cfs
Orleans Avenue: increase from 2690 cfs to 3390 cfs
London Avenue: increase from 7980 cfs to 8980 cfs

These three pump station features are designed to take into account the future S&WB expansions. However "take into account" can have multiple meanings.

In the 2006 report, it meant that the Option 1 and the Option 2 pump stations had pump capacities which matched the future S&WB numbers. That is, the 17th Street lakefront stations in both Option 1 and Option 2 had 12,500 cfs of actual pumps. And the buildings and generation capacities matched those larger numbers. The same went for Orleans and London.

Now, three years later, it means a totally different thing.

Now it means that space will be provided for pumps needed in case of future S&WB expansion (i.e. 2000 cfs of pumps at 17th, 700 cfs of pumps at Orleans, and 1000 cfs at London), but the actual pumps and everything that goes with them will not. Only the space for extra generating capacity will be provided. That's what the Corps means when they say such things are "expandable," as if that's an actual feature.

Don't get me wrong - it's nice the Corps is acknowledging the reality of expansion that has been in the S&WB capital budgets for years by building structures that can handle the extra equipment necessitated by that expansion. But three years ago they were budgeting for the actual equipment. Now they're not. Why? Cost.

There's another wrinkle. Since the Option 2 pumps will need bigger motors (for the electric pumps) or engines (for the diesel pumps), it would be possible to purchase bigger motors now for the electric pumps and possibly run them at a slower speed or lower load while Option 1 is in place. Note that it's probably not possible to buy bigger engines now for the diesels, since they can't really be run as light as Option 1 would require without damage. The 2009 B&V report speaks to this:

"Large electric motors are more tolerant of the light loading. Thus oversized electric motors could be installed and operated at a reduced load. The efficiency of the electric motor decreases when lightly loaded and as the motor size increases, the motor starting current required will increase. These factors will increase the required onsite electric generator capacity, but the impact on the number of generators is considered minor. If oversized electric motors are provided on the pumps, the engine generators that provide power to the motors will need to be replaced or additional engine generators would need to be installed when the pump station is converted from an Option 1 to an Option 2 pump station."

In addition, it would be possible to include other pump components in an Option 1 station that could be used in Option 2. Again, from the 2009 B&V report:

"Other aspects of the pumps that could be made similar for the Option 1 and Option 2 pumps at an additional cost are the size of pump shaft and bearings and the gear box. Both the pump shaft and bearings can be oversized to function for both Option 1 and Option 2 pumps. In a similar manner, the gear box could be reused for both options provided that the pump speed is the same. If the pump speed varies between Option 1 and Option 2, the gear drive will need to be modified or replaced to accommodate the change in pump speed."

It does not appear the Corps wishes to include many pump components in the Option 1 stations which could be reused in the Option 2 stations. The slideshow from the October 1, 2009 presentation to the SLFPA-E says as much. Page 16 shows what would be done to the Corps' Option 1 stations to convert them to Option 2:

Further confirmation is provided in the red text boxes on the Option 1 rendering:

"GEAR REDUCER SPECIFIC FOR CURRENT WATER SURFACE ELEVATION"
"PUMP MOTOR SPECIFIC FOR CURRENT WATER SURFACE ELEVATION"
"PUMP BELL AND IMPELLER SPECIFIC FOR CURRENT WATER SURFACE ELEVATION"

"Current water surface elevation" referes to the canals as they exist today, which is what will remain after Option 1 is done.

Only the pump housing and the length of the shaft match Option 2 requirements:

"PUMP COLUMN AND SHAFT DESIGNED FOR BOTH WATER SURFACE ELEVATIONS"

As you can see, much of what they are planning to install on Option 1 will have to be replaced in Option 2, including gearboxes, motors, impellers (that's actually to be expected) and electrical switchgear. With clever planning, much of that equipment could be purchased in Option 1 with an eye toward Option 2, saving money down the line.

However, the rule of the day with the Corps' version of Option 1 is to save money now, and don't worry about future costs. It's quite shortsighted and makes bringing Option 2 to fruition much harder, since it will be unnecessarily expensive down the line.

Next: Part 4
Previously: Part 1 Part 2

Pennywise Part 2

2009-10-15T08:51:00.006-05:00

[Updated section on channel transitions - 11-10-09]

Previously: Part 1

[Sorry for the repeat of the two introductory paragraphs from Part 1, but I never know exactly how people are coming to the blog, and if they hit this post frst, they might miss this content]

The largest refrain from those in support of Option 2, which is everyone but the Corps, is that effective flood protection is better than cheap flood protection. Supporters of Option 2 say it is just plain better than Option 1, a position even the Corps agrees with in a technical evaluation report mandated by Congress. The problem New Orleans and the surrounding area faces is that the Corps is cheaping out and going for Option 1 over Option 2, which is exactly what the Corps chose to do just months after Katrina, even though they believed it would only take another $190 million to do Option 2. Admittedly, it may have cost a little more to do Option 2, but based on the facts at the time - and what was passed up the chain to the White House and Congress - the Corps CHOSE to do Option 1 to save $190 million, and drafted the authorization and appropriation language to match it. The cheaping out began a long time ago.

However, I would go further and say that the Corps is cheaping out even on how they are planning to build Option 1. I believe they are deliberately lowballing the Option 1 estimate in order to make it look like the only way to go. They are doing this through a combination of shifting some features to future Option 2 and simply not building other features. If they didn't, it would be revealed that even Option 1 - if it was truly to be built correctly and be adaptable to Option 2 - cannot be built for the $804 million the Corps told Congress to give it.

In part 1 of this series, I introduced the various flavors and features of the Option 1 pump stations as they are laid out in three primary sources:

a) The 2009 B&V report
b) The 2009 Congressional Cost Report
c) A presentation given by the Corps to the SLFPA-E (east bank levee authority) on October 1, 2009.

See that earlier post for an explanation of the three flavors of Option 1 from the 2009 B&V report.

For reference, here's the description from the Cost Report:

"Pumping Plant - The pumping stations include the pumping station building and equipment, intake wet well, discharge section, canal transitions, generators with enclosures, a tank farm, and all the ancillary systems required for a fully functional facility. A cofferdam is required for the contruction of the pumping station. A temporary bypass may also be required to route canal flows around the cofferdam during construction."

And here are the renderings from the October 1, 2009 presentation. First, the plan for Option 1:

and the plan for Option 2:

The list of pump station features from the 2009 B&V report is:

1) Includes Floodwall/Levee Upgrades
2) Includes Gated Bypass
3) Canal Transitions
4) Deepened Sill
5) Formed Suction Intake
6) All Electric Pumps
7) Pump Station Sized for Future Pump Capacity
8) Pump Capacity Sized for Future Pump Capacity
9) Fuel Storage and Generator Sized for Future Capacity
10) Includes Siphon Recovery
11) Includes Breakwater
12) Stilling Basin at Discharge
13) Removal of ICS Facilities

As I've noted above, we've already covered the first two features. In this post we'll move on to the next few...

3) Canal transitions

The current canals have a depth of about -17 or -18 feet (at 17th) or as little as -9 feet at London or Orleans. That elevation would remain under Option 1. The future Option 2 canals would have a depth of about -29 feet. The Corps has said they will build the Option 1 pump stations with foundation depths to match the future Option 2 canals. The water needs to get from the higher Option 1 canal bottoms to the lower depths of the pump station foundations at the pump inlets.

There's two ways to do that. They could just put in an 11- to 20-foot tall "step," where water would flow rather roughly toward the pump inlets, or they could put in an extended transition section which would allow water to enter the pump inlets smoothly. The step is shown in the 2009 report like this:

The extended transition is shown here:

Obviously, the step would be cheaper. It requires less excavation and less construction. The extended transition could be over 100 feet long, while the step takes up hardly any room at all.

Here's a detail from the Corps' October 1 presentation to the SLFPA-E (entire image in part 1), showing which option they are going with for the Option 1 stations:

Remarkably, it appears they are choosing the extended transition, based on the text in the box on the left: "EXTENDED TRANSITION, SLOPE (SLOPES TO CANAL ELEVATION (~ EL -29 FT)" This, along with the deepened sill (see next entry) appears to be one of the places the Corps has decided not to cheap out.

Update - 11-10-09
Upon further review of this graphic and other information from the Corps' City Council presentation on November 5, 2009, it actually appears they are taking the cheaper route and putting in the "step." They are putting in a little slope from the top of the step to the pump station sill, but it is still the same thing.

Check out this slide from the City Council presentation, which was NOT shown to the public:

It clearly shows a huge step from where the current bottom of canal (shown as elevation -9) to a slightly extended transition leading into the pump inlets down at -37 feet. This is clearly a cheap-out by the Corps, and it needs to be stopped.

4) Deepened Sill

This refers to the Corps generously building the Option 1 stations with foundations deep enough to accommodate future Option 2 canals. If they didn't do this (what is referred to in the 2009 B&V report as "Non-Adaptable Option 1,"), construction of Option 2 would be impossible. Those shallower Option 1 stations would have to be completely ripped out and rebuilt from scratch if Option 2 ever came to pass, because their foundations would have to be rebuilt about 11 to 20 feet deeper. Fortunately, that's not what is going to happen, though that has only become clear within the last couple of months.

What's interesting about this particular feature is that it is not required for Option 1, only for Option 2. Yet the Corps is proceeding with it. This is in direct opposition to their claim they are not authorized to build Option 2. How can they proceed with spending dollars on a deeper foundation for an Option for which they claim they don't have authorization? It is these legalistic arguments that unfortunately have come to dominate much of the Corps' work, as their lawyers count angels, heads of pins, and ways NOT to do things, no matter how much everyone tells then they're wrong.

5) Formed suction intake

This one is linked to the deeper sill. A formed suction intake, or "FSI," is a Corps invention that they're very proud of. It's a contoured tube that goes on a pump inlet to smooth the flow into the pump guts. Without it - according to the Corps - vortices can develop between the submerged inlet and the water surface. This can break down the flow through the pump, making it run rougher. An FSI can also cut down on cost, because it allows a shallower foundation than would be needed without an FSI. That is, the "submergence" of the pump can be less with an FSI than without.

The Corps used FSI's on the 19 direct drive pumps that were installed at the 17th Street and London Avenue gate structures in 2007. They provided a snazzy graphic of those pumps with their attached FSI's in the February 21, 2007 Task Force Hope Update:

Those FSI's were steel. The ones on the pump stations would be concrete with steel reinforcement.

The choice here is whether to use an FSI on each pump inlet, or to simply have the inlets be open pits, or "wet wells" as the Corps refers to them. The 2009 B&V report does an excellent summary of the choice of FSI vs. wet wells, so I'll quote large parts of it here:

"A FSI is required for Option 1 Non-Adaptable, Option 2, and Option 2a to improve laminar inflow into the pumps and to reduce the required submergence and pump station foundation depth."

That is saying that the water depths in the Non-Adaptable Option 1 case and the Option 2 case are not great enough to avoid using an FSI.

"The Base Adaptable Option 1 pump station does not require a FSI because the foundation of the pump station is deepened to reflect the depth of an Option 2 pump station. The deeper foundation in combination with the Option 1 canal water elevations allows the pump intake to be adequately submerged in the water to eliminate the need for a FSI."

That is, since the foundation of the Base Adaptable Option 1 (which is the plan closest to what the Corps wants to do with Option 1) is deeper, but the inlet water level remains the same as current levels, the pump submergence in that scenario is great enough to avoid the need for an FSI.

But here's the kicker:

"A FSI would be required to be constructed in the wet well area of the Base Adaptable Option 1 pump station if the pump station is converted into an Option 2 pump station. The Robust Adaptable Option 1 Pump Station included a FSI as part of the adaptability of the pump station. The construction of the FSI during construction sequence 1 of the four phased construction approach reduces the future cost of converting the pump station to an Option 2 Pump Station and thus is included in the Robust Adaptable Option 1 Pump Station."

In plain English, that's saying the that if Option 2 comes about after the Corps' preferred Option 1 (basically the Base Adapatable Option 1) is built, the Corps will have to go back and install FSI's anyway. They could save future dollars by putting the FSI's in now.

So what is the Corps planning for? Remember the description of the pump stations in the Congressional Cost Report?

"Pumping Plant - The pumping stations include the pumping station building and equipment, intake wet well, ..."

The graphics in the October 1, 2009 SLFPA-E presentation back this up:

This is one if the exact spots where the Corps has CHOSEN to move costs from Option 1 to Option 2. Just as with the deepened foundation - which is needed for Option 2 but not for Option 1 - they could have chosen to install the FSI's as part of Option 1. They chose not to, likely strictly for cost reasons.

If the Corps' preliminary hydraulic analysis is correct, their elimination of FSI's from Option 1 deliberately makes Option 2 more expensive and difficult in the future. Is it an attempt to hobble Option 2, or simply nearsighted pennypinching?

Next: Part 3
Followed by: Part 4
Previously: Part 1

Pennywise Part 1

2009-10-15T08:50:00.014-05:00

The largest refrain from those in support of Option 2, which is everyone but the Corps, is that effective flood protection is better than cheap flood protection. Supporters of Option 2 say it is just plain better than Option 1, a position even the Corps agrees with in a technical evaluation report mandated by Congress. The problem New Orleans and the surrounding area faces is that the Corps is cheaping out and going for Option 1 over Option 2, which is exactly what the Corps chose to do just months after Katrina, even though they believed it would only take another $190 million to do Option 2. Admittedly, it may have cost a little more to do Option 2, but based on the facts at the time - and what was passed up the chain to the White House and Congress - the Corps CHOSE to do Option 1 to save $190 million, and drafted the authorization and appropriation language to match it. The cheaping out began a long time ago.

However, I would go further and say that the Corps is cheaping out even on how they are planning to build Option 1. I believe they are deliberately lowballing the Option 1 estimate in order to make it look like the only way to go. They are doing this through a combination of shifting some features to future Option 2 and simply not building other features. If they didn't, it would be revealed that even Option 1 - if it was truly to be built correctly and be adaptable to Option 2 - cannot be built for the $804 million the Corps told Congress to give it.

While they redacted nearly all the costs out of the 2009 Black & Veatch 90 Day Study, the Corps legal eagles still left all the technical information intact. The 2009 report is the backup for the 2009 Congressional Cost Report, which is the bedrock document for the Corps' cost estimates. That B&V technical information tells a pretty disappointing story that was left untold during the public comment period of IER #5 in May of this year.

First, I should explain that the 2009 report breaks down Option 1 into 3 flavors:

a) Non-adaptable Option 1 is the easiest to understand. It is the cheapest way to go. The inlet basin and foundation of the stations would not be lowered to match a future Option 2 bottom-of-canal grade, and there would be no features included to make future Option 2 any easier or cheaper. The Corps does not seem to be going this route.

b) Base adaptable Option 1: this appears to be closest to what the Corps is doing, though there are differences. It is essentially the Non-adaptable Option 1, but with a deeper foundation and sill to accommodate future deepened canals in Option 2. However, many other features which would make this flavor adaptable are not included.

c) Robust adaptable Option 1 is the one that New Orleans should really be getting. In addition to the deepened foundation and sill, it also includes many features that would quicken and cheapen the future conversion to Option 2. A few features from this flavor appear in the Corps' latest Option 1 plans, but mostly this does not appear to be the way the Corps is going, probably due to cost.

The Corps has picked and chosen from the various features of these flavors to make a melange of Option 1. Without the costs of each feature (redacted out of the main text of the 2009 report, while similar figures remain in the 2006 report main text), it's difficult to determine exactly why they chose certain features over others. The best I can do is document what we know now, and give my best shot on their reasoning.

The B&V report gives a summary of all the features available for each flavor of Option 1 on Adobe page 72:

1) Deepened Sill
2) Pump Station Sized for Future Pump Capacity
3) Pump Capacity Sized for Future Pump Capacity
4) Formed Suction Intake
5) Fuel Storage and Generator Sized for Future Capacity
6) Canal Transitions
7) Includes Breakwater
8) Stilling Basin at Discharge
9) Includes Gated Bypass
10) Includes Floodwall/Levee Upgrades
11) All Electric Pumps
12) Includes Siphon Recovery
13) Removal of ICS Facilities

This list provides the best framework for discussing the details of the planned Option 1 pump stations. Note that some of these are not features per se, but rather choices. For example, number 6 - "canal transitions" - refers to whether the transition from the existing canal bottom (which will be preserved in Option 1) to the inlet basin of the new Option 1 stations is abrupt and short or long and smooth.

Anyhow, the Corps has thrown the public a bone by saying that while they don't support Option 2 (excuse me, they claim Option 2 is "not authorized" even though the language of the authorization explicitly says they can "modify" the canals), they will nonetheless be including features in the Option 1 stations which make them "adaptable" to make Option 2 easier (and thus possibly cheaper) in the future.

It's a nice thing to say, but how true is it? What features on the above list are actually going in the as-publicized Option 1 stations? And which are not? Are there truly "adaptable" features in the proposed Option 1 stations, or are there features which will need to be ripped out for Option 2? And are there features which should be in the Option 1 stations but have been pushed off to Option 2?

Besides the 2009 B&V report, there are two authoritative sources for what the Corps wishes to do with the Option 1 stations. One is the 2009 Congressional Cost Report, which is based earlier drafts of the B&V report. The Congressional Cost Report includes a detailed paragraph describing the Option 1 stations:

"Pumping Plant - The pumping stations include the pumping station building and equipment, intake wet well, discharge section, canal transitions, generators with enclosures, a tank farm, and all the ancillary systems required for a fully functional facility. A cofferdam is required for the contruction of the pumping station. A temporary bypass may also be required to route canal flows around the cofferdam during construction."

The second source showing the Corps' Option 1 intentions is a slide presentation given to the SLFPA-E (the east bank levee authority) on October 1, 2009. It includes quite a bit of information which, when combined with the 2009 B&V report and the Cost Report, may allow us to figure out some things.

Here's the rendering of the Corps' Option 1 proposal from that presentation:

And here is the rendering of future Option 2:

I'm going to work through the various features of the station shown in the three sources using the list from the 2009 B&V report and figure out what's in and what's out. The easiest way for me to do this is to work from the inlet of the stations to the discharges. So let me rejigger the features list and work through it one by one.

1) Includes Floodwall/Levee Upgrades
2) Includes Gated Bypass
3) Canal Transitions
4) Deepened Sill
5) Formed Suction Intake
6) All Electric Pumps
7) Pump Station Sized for Future Pump Capacity
8) Pump Capacity Sized for Future Pump Capacity
9) Fuel Storage and Generator Sized for Future Capacity
10) Includes Siphon Recovery
11) Includes Breakwater
12) Stilling Basin at Discharge
13) Removal of ICS Facilities

In this post, I'm just going to concentrate on numbers (1) and (2) on the above list. Subsequent posts will work further through the list.

1) and 2) Includes Floodwall/Levee Upgrades and Includes Gates Bypass

These two items belong together, since they represent a choice. The "floodwall/levee upgrades" refer to the need to fix the outfall canal walls if gates are installed in the Option 1 stations. If there are no gates, water would only rise in the canals from rainstorm water when the city's interior pumps were turned on. That rainwater would be immediately evacuated by the Corps' pumps at the lake ends of the canals. The installation of gates allows storm surge into the canals before the gates are closed but while the city's pumps are running, increasing the risk for a breach.

The easiest parallel would be to imagine the current gates sealed permanently closed, essentially turning the canals into very long bathtubs. The only water coming in would be from the city pumps, so the Corps pumps would be turned on every time there was rain. This would increase the cost to run the Corps pump stations. However, there would be no risk from storm surge flooding (barring backflow through the Corps' pumps), since there would be no open gates through which surge could flow.

There is a certain appeal to this scenario, since the possibility of exceeding the safe water levels in the canals is considerably reduced. However, since the walls and levees along the London Avenue canal are built on such sandy soil, and the safe water level there is so minuscule, the risk of canal breach along that canal still exists even without gates, and work would still need to be done on those walls anyway. The same situation exists to a lesser degree along the 17th Street canal, where the safe water elevation is slightly higher than at London Avenue.

That is what one of the redacted appendices in the 2009 report - Appendix F - is all about. It lays out a lot of calculations which weigh the cost of increased Corps Option 1 pump operation (i.e. Option 1 stations with no gates) vs. making needed repairs to the canal walls (i.e. Option 1 stations with gates). The appendix is a very dense read, but it basically boils down to the rather cold financial calculation of whether it is cheaper to fix the walls or run the future Option 1 lakefront pump stations all the time. It's quite chilling to read, frankly. One of the creepiest sentences is this one: "Most of the advantages and disadvantages have cost implications, so the decision to provide gates for full or partial flow or no gates at all is primarily an economic one." Yikes.

Like I said earlier, the interesting thing is that it doesn't matter what they do on London Avenue - they have to fix the walls because the money and flow numbers don't work out either way. If there's gates, the danger from storm surge and high tide puts the London Avenue walls at risk. If there's no gates, the danger from stormwater outflow from the city puts the London Avenue walls at risk. And the situation at London is likely worse than Appendix F states. That's because Appendix F assumes that the current 5 foot Safe Water Elevation only extends along the northern half of the canal. For some reason, they call out the Safe Water Elevation along the southern half of the canal as 9 feet. I have confirmed with the Corps New Orleans District Operations Division that the London SWE is 5 feet along the entire canal.

The Corps has chosen to install gates on the Option 1 stations. According to the 2009 Appendix F, this also means they should be improving the walls along the London Avenue and 17th Street canals. However, according to the Congressional Cost Report, they will not spend any money on Levees & Floodwalls in Option 1:

This is disturbing. Their own report tells that if they install gates, which they are, they need to upgrade the walls at London and 17th. But they've made the decision not to make those upgrades. Very disturbing indeed.

What's even more troubling is that we're not talking about a ton of money here to upgrade the remaining walls. According to Appendix F, if gates are installed it would only cost a relatively paltry $118.8 million to replace the I-walls with T-walls along vulnerable sections of the 17th Street and London Avenue canals (the Orleans Avenue canal can already handle high water levels and does not require any wall replacement). And that is a worst case number. It includes a 20% contingency and comes from a extreme hydraulic requirement of filling the canals completely up to 8 feet in depth. With those repairs, that 8 feet would be the new safe water elevation along the 17th Street and London Avenue canals (up from 6 feet at 17th and 5 feet at London)

Yes, the Corps could fix the walls along the existing canals and make Option 1 far, far more palatable to the public for about $120 million. However, thus far they've made no moves to do so. Instead they continue to study the safe water elevation, with results not due until the beginning of the 2010 hurricane season. They also claim that Option 2 is far too expensive, but what Appendix F shows is that they could do Option 1 with canal wall replacements for a fraction of the Option 2 cost and still end up with a pretty safe system that could be upgraded to Option 2 later.

Naturaly, that's not going to happen. They want to save pennies while the city crosses their fingers every time the lake is at high tide and it rains hard.

Next: Part 2
Followed by: Part 3 Part 4

Apples to apples

2009-10-06T08:15:00.000-05:00

Now that we've gotten the basics of how the Corps wants to keep all those nasty numbers away from the public, let's start looking at what information the Corps has let slip out on Options 1 and 2.

The only recent cost information we have comes from the Congressional Cost Report. And as scanty as it is, it still has value.

Here's the costs as reported on page 2:

For this post, I'm going to zoom in one number in particular, the "stations only" number for Option 2:

"PUMPING PLANT $1.468 billion"

That's the number just for the pump stations themselves, not the work on the canals that is the heart of Option 2. That canal work is substantial, and I'll probably look at it later.

A caveat: this is only for Option 2. Any changes resulting from Option 2a are not a part of this comparison, not because Option 2a is less important, but because there is more data to compare between the two reports when it comes to Option 2. If the Corps would release the entirety of the 2009 Black & Veatch 90 Day Report, the public would be able to do whatever comparison they wanted.

For now though, how does this Congressional Cost Study "stations only" number compare to the equivalent numbers from the 2006 GEC/Black & Veatch study?

That 2006 study was a rough order of magnitude (or "ROM,") study, so there was quite a bit of slop in the numbers. The margins of error were large on these numbers, meaning they were supposed to be toward the high end of things. In fact, the consultants added a 69.4% contingency on the prices for the 2006 numbers. It would be valuable - very valuable - to know the corresponding contingency for the 2009 estimate.

So let's take a look at the "station only" numbers from the 2006 study. Those can be pulled from page 329, which we've previously looked at:

Those numbers were:

17th Street: $249,888,716
Orleans Ave: $75,237,316
London Ave: $157,228,610

Adding together, the 2006 cost for the stations only was $482 million, or $1 billion less than the latest Corps numbers.

Yes. According to the Corps' consultants who worked on both reports, the cost for just the stations increased $1 billion in 3 years. That's a magnificently humongous increase, especially considering the 2006 numbers were increased by nearly 70% to account for unknowns.

Frankly, $1 billion sounds crazy, so let's try to make sure we're comparing apples to apples. We can compare all the non-cost data between the two reports, since the Corps deigned to release all of that in the 2009 report.

First off, maybe the installed pumping capacity went up between 2006 and 2009:

In the 2006 study:

17th St: 12,500 cubic feet per second (cfs) installed
Orleans: 3400 cfs installed
London: 9000 cfs installed

Here's the sizing for the 2009 report:

17th St: 10,500 cfs installed (2000 cfs less than 2006)
Orleans: 2750 cfs installed (650 cfs less than 2006)
London: 6880 cfs installed (2120 cfs less than 2006)

Installed pumping capacity went down between the two reports. And both reports used the same basic pump designs - vertical pumps.

What about the size of the buildings? Let's look at the longest dimension, the length:

In 2006:

17th Street: 378 feet, rounded up to 400 feet
Orleans: 124 feet, rounded up to 130 feet
London: 284 feet, rounded up to 300 feet

In 2009:

17th Street: 378 feet, rounded up to 380 feet (20 feet shorter than 2006)
Orleans: 124 feet, rounded up to 130 feet (same length as in 2006)
London: 248 feet, rounded up to 250 feet (50 feet shorter than in 2006)

What about the building heights?

In 2006, it appeared they were planning on buildings whch were 73 feet tall:

(Page 297, 2006 report)

Now, they seem to be planning on buildings that are 57.5 feet tall:

(from September 17, 2009 presentation by USACE to SLFPA-E)

Um, okay. The 2009 study uses buildings which have gotten smaller in height and length compared to the 2006 study. The London Avenue building is shorter on length because the Corps wants to divert flow to the Florida Avenue canal, making one pump bay unnecessary at the lakefront station.

How about the amount of generator fuel storage?

2006 numbers:

17th Street: 206,986 gallons
Orleans: 58,856 gallons
London: 152,173 gallons

2009 numbers:

17th Street: 150,589 gallons (25% less fuel capacity than 2006)
Orleans: 40,579 gallons (30% less fuel capacity than 2006)
London: 100,393 gallons (33% less fuel capacity than 2006)

Hmm... less fuel storage too.

How about the total building electrical loads?

2006:

17th Street: 50,216 kVA
Orleans Ave: 13,808 kVA
London Ave: 36,146 kVA

2009:

17th Street: 30,135 kVA (40% lower than 2006)
Orleans Ave: 3019 kVA (78% lower than 2006)
London Ave: 20,081 kVA (44% lower than 2006)

Total generator power required for all 3 stations?

2006:
100 megawatts (not including utilities)

2009:
60 megawatts (including utilities).

So here's the list of things on the Option 2 stations that got smaller between the 2006 and 2009 studies:

1) Installed pumping capacity
2) Building lengths
3) Building heights
4) Generator fuel storage
5) Maximum electrical load
6) Total generating power

And here's the list of things on the Option 2 stations that got significantly bigger between the 2006 and 2009 studies:

1) Cost

Is it any wonder there is deep skepticism regarding the Corps' 2009 cost estimate?

The fix was in

2009-09-30T14:24:00.021-05:00

[Note to folks coming here: make sure you click on "Fix the pumps" at the top of the page to see all the most recent entries. If you can't click it, you're seeing everything.]

[Correction appended 10/1/09. See end of post]

So, we know the Corps is playing games with their taxpayer-financed reports on the permanent pump stations; they've been redacting all the vital information out of them, though not really fast enough in some cases.

We also know they are trying to scare citizens into supporting Option 1.

But what about their story that they are only authorized by Congress to put in Option 1? What's behind that? A lot.

Let's go back to late 2005 and early 2006. A lot of money for the Corps' post-Katrina efforts was moving through Congress, almost completely unopposed. In the 3rd Katrina Supplemental, they received about $2 billion to get stuff repaired and back to authorized levels. It was part of a much bigger Iraq War supplemental appropriations bill, P.L. 109-148 (H.R. 2863 in the 109th Congress).

Then came the next Iraq war supplemental in the spring of 2006. And with that bill there were more post-Katrina expenses meant to strengthen the levee system around New Orleans. On February 16, 2006, the White House submitted their funding request for an additional $19.8 billion in hurricane reconstruction funds. You can find that request here:

February 16, 2006 White House post-Katrina supplemental appropriation request

Included in there was language, drafted by the Corps, which survived all the way to the final bill signing in June, 2006 (see page 69):

"$530,000,000 shall be used to modify the 17th Street, Orleans Avenue and London Avenue drainage canals, and install pumps and closure structures at or near the lakefront;"

That final bill was P.L. 109-234 (H.R. 4939 in the 109th Congress), and would be known informally as the "4th Katrina Supplemental."

While there's been a lot of attention to the language of that provision, no one has really studied where the number came from or what it represented. Now we know.

Take a look at page 329 of the unredacted 2006 Black & Veatch report:

This information is also on Adobe pages 175 and 176 of the main report, which is subsection 6.1.2.

There's the $530 million, listed as the "Option 1" cost in something called the Post Change Authorization. That particular phrasing is a slight typo by the consultants. It should read "Post Authorization Change."

The Corps uses Post-Authorization Changes (PAC's) to bypass part of the normal two-stage authorization & appropriation process in Congress. Basically (feel free to correct me) by compiling a Post-Authorization Change report for an existing project (like the New Orleans levees after Katrina), they can skip authorization and go straight to appropriations. This is likely what happened with all the post-Katrina appropriations, due to the urgency.

What is notable is what is at the bottom of that page. It is an estimate, also from the same "Post Change Authorization" for Option 2! And at the time when that PAC information was being pulled together (somewhere between November, 2005 and when the White House sent the funding request to Congress in mid-February), the Corps believed that Option 2 would only cost $720 million.

Let me make this clear: at a time when one party controlled the White House and Congress, and at a time when there was no doubt the bill this was attached to (a massive Iraq supplemental) would pass, and at a time when goodwill toward fixing flood defenses around New Orleans was at an historic high, the Corps CHOSE to ask for the cheaper, less effective, less complete option for the outfall canals. A better option (Option 2), according to their own back-of-the-envelope estimates (note how rounded the numbers are, as opposed the very precise Black & Veatch/GEC numbers), would have only cost another $190 million in a bill that ended up costing - if memory serves - around $100 billion. They could have crafted the language around Option 2 and asked for the $720 million, and almost certainly gotten it. And if the costs went up later (as they did with the Option 1 stations), they could always ask for more money (as they did, twice, successfully), but at least the language would have been there. None of that happened.

Now, of course there is more to the story. That page also shows what Black & Veatch and GEC came up with for Options 1 and 2. The Corps probably let out a big sigh of relief when B&V/GEC came back with their estimate showing Option 1 as cheaper than what Congress had given them (at the Corps' behest, of course). But it's the Option 2 estimate that undoubtedly cast the decision to proceed with Option 1 in stone.

That B&V/GEC Option 2 estimate came in at double what the Corps had initialy projected (and what they could have asked for, if they wanted to). At that point, I believe the Corps decided there was no chance Option 2 would ever come to pass.

There's two questions that natually arise:

1) When the Corps passed along the funding request for the 4th Katrina supplemental to Congress, did they tell Congress that the $530 million was for Option 1, and that for an additional $190 million Congress could authorize and appropriate funds for Option 2?

2) When did the Corps get the B&V/GEC estimate of $1.4 billion for Option 2? If they got it during the negotiations over the 4th supplemental (between February and June, 2006), did they fully inform Congress that there was an option - albeit more expensive - that would fully protect New Orleans better than what they initially proposed?

With regards to (2), I believe it is likely the Corps received preliminary versions of those Black & Veatch estimates at some point during the 4th Katrina Supplemental negotiations. While the final date on the report is July 31, 2006 (over a month after the bill was signed), it would be standard practice that the Corps would be receiving draft versions and informal updates as information was compiled by the consultants. And if the consultants had discovered that their estimate for Option 2 was double the Corps, its a certainty they would not have waited until the report's final issuance to let the Corps know.

The amount of funding for the permanent pump stations was increased twice since 2006, first to $704 million, and then to the present amount of $804 million. In between, the Corps tried to raid the permanent pump stations fund twice. The first time, they wanted to defund it to pay for West Bank projects. Congress stepped up and simply gave the Corps what they needed without any shifting of money. The second time, they successfully transferred all but $100 million from the pump stations fund to pay for the IHNC surge barrier project now under construction. That depletion was restored and augmented in the final, 6th Katrina supplemental in 2008.

As you can see, none of the extra amounts the Corps ever asked for after the 4th Katrina supplemental even approached the $1.4 billion number the Corps possessed internally for Option 2. It was always for Option 1, because that was what they CHOSE to do in the harried months after the storm. And God knows, the Corps could never, ever change their mind once they've made a decision. After all, they just do what Congress tells them.

So, to summarize:

1) The language and funding amount for the permanent pump stations initially came from the Corps, and were likely compiled in the latter part of 2005 or very early 2006.

2) That funding amount - $530 million - was the result of a CHOICE by the Corps not to proceed with Option 2. The Corps was not forced into Option 1 by Congress - a ridiculous notion since the Corps drafted the very language and set the funding level that gave birth to the permanent pump station project.

3) After the Corps received internal reports from a consultant that Option 2 would break the bank and that Option 1 would not, they proceeded merrily down the Option 1 road, undoubtedly relieved their hurredly composed estimates had at least been partially right. Later, when citizens and government officials began demanding Option 2, they would construct a narrative that they were somehow backed into a legislative box. But that "box" was of their own making at a time when they likely could have asked for the moon, the sky, and stars and gotten them. Instead they said, "I'd rather stay in the planetarium."

4) Two subsequent chances to remedy the permanent pump station situation over the next two years - the 5th and 6th Katrina supplementals, which included billions more in dollars for the Corps' post-Katrina activities - were allowed to pass without action by the Corps. They had cemented the Option 1 decision, and would not budge.

This certainly puts a different spin on all the lip service that has been paid to Option 2 over the past three years. The Corps conducted a bunch of public meetings, a partnering process, produced two Congressionally mandated reports, all indicating that Option 2 was on the table. The fact was they had decided in late 2005 or early 2006 that Option 2 would never happen (unless someone had gotten the courage to go to Congress for extra funding, which never happened), and everything since then has pretty much been window dressing.

Is it any wonder they attempted to redact all the numbers out of this report after they posted it? But apparently that's how the government works for its citizens - by playing them for chumps. Fortunately, there are people actually affected by these decisions that will not take them laying down.

[Correction, 10/1/09 appended after publication: The numbers that form the basis of this particular post, which are top-level cost numbers, actually remain in the redacted version of the 2006 on Adobe pages 175 and 176:

Redacted version of 2006 Black & Veatch/GEC permanent pump station report

Of course, they are gone from the redacted Appendix H. The redactions leave the reader in the dark as to what is included in those numbers. For example, with the redactions, one does not know there are millions of dollars of work on bridges over the canals included in the 2006 estimates. One also does not know the amounts included for contingencies and such. The redactions take the heart out of the report.

It is also noteworthy that even the equivalent top-level cost numbers have been excised from the main text of the Black & Veatch 2009 report, where there is absolutely no justification for doing so.]

Corps to NOLA: Drop Dead (unless we get Option 1)

2009-09-30T06:27:00.010-05:00

[Note to folks coming here: make sure you click on "Fix the pumps" at the top of the page to see all the most recent entries. If you can't click it, you're seeing everything.]

In my previous post, I introduced three of the main reports in the saga over the Corps' construction of permanent pumping stations at Lake Pontchartrain and how that will be done. The battle is between the Corps cheaper Option 1 - which effectively leave the current system in place - and Option 2 - which vastly improves the system to a design which has been around for 100 years: gravity drainage in below ground culverts with no weakened walls or tandem pumping to worry about.

I'll be referring to the as-unredacted-as-currently-available versions of those reports in my coming discussions. You can find them here:

2006 Black & Veatch permanent pump station cost & engineering report (completely unredacted)

2009 Congressionally-mandated cost report

2009 Black & Veatch permanent pump station cost & engineering report from June 4, 2009 (partially redacted)

But for the purposes of our discussion, it may be important to fall back a moment and look at the bigger battle.

Currently, the U.S. Congress is reconciling the Senate and House versions of the annual Energy & Water Developement Appropriations bill. That bill has an amendment introduced by both Senators Vitter and Landrieu which would effectively force the Corps into Option 2, something the Corps doesn't want. Their concerns are chiefly with cost. I say that, since they are mandated by Congress to provide 100 year protection to the New Orleans area, so any threats about losing that level of protection are just that - threats. Thus, their main objection can only be about costs.

I believe they are very concerned about money. In fact, I believe it is the driving concern behind their opposition to Option 2. They have already gutted the $540 million fund for armoring levees in order to pay for the massive Industrial Canal closure project (and they're also slow-walking any actual work on armoring as well), which is hundreds of millions of dollars over budget now:

"During a media tour of the storm surge barrier under construction at Lake Borgne, corps officials said they had asked Congress to allow them to use $540 million in funds slated for other projects to finish the INHC work by 2011.

"The $540 million would be taken from a pot of money set aside for 'armoring' the flood protection system, [U.S. Corps of Engineers Task Force Hope civilian leader Karen] Durham-Aguilera said. Armoring is a term used to describe a host of ways the corps strengthens levees and floodwalls, usually by adding concrete pads on the ground in the front and back of structures to guard against water erosion.

"In all, Congress gave the corps $14.3 billion to build a better flood protection system for the New Orleans region. The price of the work has been rising, but the corps insists it can finish what it needs to do by 2011 with the money Congress gave it."

They have also said they don't know whether they will have enough money to pay for $1 billion in required mitigation measures after all their hurricane protection work is done:

"They hope they'll have enough money in the $14.7 billion that has been appropriated for levee and drainage improvements to cover mitigation, but they won't know until closer to the end of the construction program, said Col. Al Lee, commander of the New Orleans District office.

'We're going to do everything we can to insure there is adequate funding,' [Corps of Engineers New Orleans District Commander Colonel Al] Lee said. 'If we get to the point where we need additional funding, we'll ask for additional funding.'"

That's two huge pots of money totalling $1.5 billion that are apparently dwindling as we speak. Without an additional appropriation, the more expensive Option 2 might force them back to Congress, hat in hand. Why this is a problem, I'm not sure, since they did so three times since Katrina as costs skyrocketed, but whatever.

Anyway, with this bill pending in Congress, the Corps is using tried and true scare tactics to attempt to influence and intimidate the public and other government officials. They may be prohibited from "lobbying" Congress, but they're apparently not prohibited from doing the same to the public.

We've already seen how they've either held back or redacted after-the-fact any cost information about the permanent pump stations except what they believe was mandated by Congress, which is a few lines in a fairly thin report. That's an attempt to control the debate by controlling the data. They are also issuing scary press releases and using the press to get their message out.

Their main tack is that the current system will expire, or blow up, or fall apart or something in 2013 or 2014 if nothing is done RIGHT NOW (i.e. have the state agree to Option 1). Their implication is that they will allow that to happen, even though they control 100% of the funds for both a) construction of new permanent stations and b) operation & maintenance of the existing interim stations.

Over the past few weeks, here's a sample of the Corps' press activity relating to the permanent pump stations, all with appropriately bland titles to mask the intimidation:

They kicked off the latest Ominous Warnings in their August 14, 2009 Task Force Hope Newsletter:

August 14, 2009 TFH newsletter:

"The three Outfall Canals at 17th Street, Orleans Ave. and London Ave. are outfitted with interim pumps and closure structures that were installed before Hurricane Season 2006. These interim structures provide 100-year level protection while the Permanent Canal Closure structures are being designed. Construction completion on the permanent structures is planned for 2013.

"To provide the permanent replacements of these temporary facilities, the Army and the State must sign a PPA by late August 2009. Any delay in signing the PPA could delay this project past its scheduled construction completion milestone of December 2013, putting the public at extended risk."

First, note the bit of historical revisionism in the first paragraph. The pumps and closure structures were NOT installed before Hurricane Season 2006. In fact, none of them were ready by June 1, 2006, and some were never really ready for the entire season, with pumps and structural pieces being pulled and added the entire time.

But more relevant to this discussion is the snide threat at the end: "Any delay in signing the PPA could delay this project past its scheduled construction completion milestone of December 2013, putting the public at extended risk."

The campaign continues with a pair of press releases this month:
"Corps provides update on permanent pumps" September 17, 2009

"The Corps continues to remind the community that the interim structures were not designed for long term operation. The temporary pumps and closure structures at the three outfall canals have a limited service life, or until 2011 - 2013.
[...]
"During the presentation, Bradley showed how the permanent pump stations can accommodate other options. 'We know how to engineer the project and build it for adaptability,' explained [Corps engineer Dan] Bradley, as he explained the potential construction project. 'But even if we started today, it will take until about 2014 to complete the work, pushing the temporary pump service life to the limit. That’s risky business to the surrounding community.'
[...]
"Without a [Project Partnership Agreement] between the state and Corps of Engineers, no project can move forward. To date, none has been signed for permanent pumps. 'The clock is ticking,' said Bradley."

Once again, apparently the Corps is going to let New Orleans drown if they don't get their way.

We'll come back to that adaptability stuff later, because it's not as simple as they make it sound, and it's also key to understanding how costs have been moved from Option 1 to Option 2, making Option 1 look better and Option 2 look worse.

But, moving on...
Five days later they reissued the same press release, but this time they attached the PowerPoint presentation:

"Corps provides update on permanent pumps" (presentation included) September 22, 2009

They've also been using the press to whip up citizens. On September 21, 2009 they got this story on to WWL's broadcast:

"Corps still at odds with state and city officials" September 21, 2009

which includes a new tack: "we're going to ruin locals' lives for ten years"

From the story:

"Plus, the Corps is now warning residents along the canals that the more than $3billion worth of work needed would have a big impact on their neighborhoods. 'You can expect to have about ten years of heavy construction occurring in your backyard while we excavate those canals and drive thousands of pilings,' [Corps manager Mike] Park said."

Fortunately, City Councilwoman Shelley Midura calls them on their BS:

"'That could be possible, but does it mean that you settle for the quick and easy and cheap solution?' said New Orleans City Councilmember Shelley Midura, the representative for many of the neighborhoods that would be affected by both the construction and potential flooding.

"Midura said it's a choice residents along the canals should get to weigh in on before the state signs off on any work by the Corps.

"'I think those are ways to try and intimidate the political leadership from advocating for the best for the people,' Midura said."

I'm sure there will be more like that.

It's all smoke and mirrors. Between the redactions of vital material from reports paid for by taxpayers, the scare tactics, and the just plain ridiculous nature of their arguments, it makes you wonder how much time and treasure the Corps New Orleans District are expending on telling citizens how they can't do something, rather than find the path forward on how to actually do it. It is likely many millions of dollars.

They need to stop wasting money and time and get to writing language for Congress to adopt in order to give them the inevitable cash infusion they will need. Otherwise, the New Orleans area will have:

1) A dangerous, crappy pumping system

2) Little or no armoring of levees

3) Little or no mitigation of all the hurricane protection work

Great.

Redaction - an ugly game

2009-09-29T23:23:00.002-05:00

[Note to folks coming here: make sure you click on "Fix the pumps" at the top of the page to see all the most recent entries. If you can't click it, you're seeing everything.]

Recently, residents of the greater New Orleans area may have seen an uptick in the battle over the permanent pumping stations to be installed at the lakefront. The Corps wants to proceed with "Option 1," while everyone else and their uncle wants to proceed with "Option 2." Even the Corps itself admits that Option 2 is technically superior.

Option 1 builds lakefront pump stations while leaving the existing canal walls and Sewerage & Water Board (S&WB) pump stations where they are. Option 2 gets rid of the walls and the existing S&WB stations replacing the existing canals with deeper, concrete-lined channels. Option 2 would create a system identical in operation as exists on the east bank of Jefferson Parish and in New Orleans East, where gravity-fed, below-grade canals lead to lakefront pump stations.

This is a huge project, likely to cost over a billion dollars (despite the Corps' insistence they'll stay within their appropriated amount of $804 million). Yet the coverage of Option 1 vs. Option 2 has usually broken down to "Corps says this, locals say that, and coming up in weather..." without really looking at the details. I'm going to start with those details with this temporary revival of Fix the Pumps.

The Corps claims that Option 2 is far too expensive and time consuming. They also claim the existing gate structures at the lakefront are ramshackle and will expire sometime around 2013 (a less than inspiring thought, when one considers the more than $400 million poured into those structures so far). I suppose the Corps plans to just pack up and go home at that point if they don't get Option 1, even though the project is completely federally funded?

The public basis for their "too expensive and time consuming" claim is a Congressionally mandated report on the cost of the stations. Yes Congress had to pass a law to get the Corps to release their cost estimates for this project.

That Congressional cost report, which was severely delayed before its final release in, can be found here:

Cost Report to Congress

It would seem to be quite detailed. However, it only provides top-level cost estimates for each Option (1, 2 and 2a; 2a is Option 2 with a diversion of flow from the 17th Street canal designed to help Orleans and Jefferson Parish residents by lowering the load on the canal).

Reports like these are not creations unto themselves. They are distillations of much larger reports, and they are prepared by consultants hired by the Corps. And that is where I want to start this segment of the Option 1/Option 2 saga: with the reports. Because those are the bedrock statements that cannot be refuted or forgotten or massaged.

What really kicked this whole Option 1/Option 2 deal off was a report written by Corps consultants GEC (out of Baton Rouge) and Black & Veatch (from Kansas City) in 2006. It is something of the "bible" for everything that has been generated on this matter for the last three years, until very recently. It was the report that created the terms "Option 1" and "Option 2."

It's a huge, heavily detailed report with lots of pictures, calculations, and cost estimates. Before this year, it had not seen the public light of day.

However, on May 1, 2009 the Corps released their long-anticipated draft Individual Environmental Report #5, which dealt with the permanent pump stations. I'm sure the Corps intended IER #5 to be the only report the public saw. It said the Corps was choosing Option 1; public comments were opened for 30 days on May 4, with an end date of June 3.

While others attempted to use this period to change the Corps' mind, I saw it as a golden opportunity to extract previously unseen information. IER #5 contains an extensive list of references, most of which were previously unpublished internal Corps reports dealing with the permanent pumping stations. The 2006 Black & Veatch report was among them (IER #5 was how I learned of it). Writing the Corps on May 3rd, I asked them to upload all those reports, without redactions, to the website set up for the hurricane protection system environmental review process, nolaenvironmental.gov.

To my great surprise, they did just that within days. Every report I requested showed up on the website on May 6th. You can see all the stuff uploaded for IER#5 here:

IER#5 documents at nolaenvironmental

However, there was one wrinkle. The 2006 Black & Veatch/GEC report contained dynamite (in the Corps' view). It showed all the exact cost estimates the Corps had compiled for Options 1 and 2 back in 2006. Those costs were significantly cheaper than what the 2008 Congressional report was showing. More worrying (to the Corps) was that 2006 report even showed the math behind those estimates, allowing the public to check whether those 2006 estimates were legit. There were even backup calculations for the backup calculations!

So less than a month after the 2006 report was uploaded to the nolaenvironmental website, and just before the 30 day comment period closed for IER #5, the 2006 Black & Veatch report was quietly taken off the nolaenvironmental.gov site and heavily redacted. All the cost information was stripped out of it and it was re-uploaded, with its guts gone. The redacted version is now on the nolaenvironmental site here.

Naturally, I had already saved the complete version, and you can find it here in all its unredacted glory:

Unredacted 2006 Permanent Pump Station engineering and cost report from Black & Veatch

Having three year old cost information out there was probably not the Corps' primary worry. I believe that the radical increase in price for the pump stations (both on the Option 1 and Option 2 sides) between 2006 and 2008 was too much to explain away with their usual handwaiving. If someone got their hands on the backup to the 2008 Congressional report, they would be able to compare and contrast to the 2006 report, and figure out exactly where the inflation came from. This would be very damaging to the Corps' insistence that only Option 1 was affordable. It might show that they had inflated the Option 2 costs when reporting to Congress, and shorted the Option 1 costs. It might even show that both Options were actually unaffordable within the current appropriation of $804 million.

When the Congressional cost report came out, I recognized it immediately as Black & Veatch's work. They've done the lion's share of the reports on the permanent pump station project, dating back to 2005. That meant they had boiled down some other, likely huge report that probably included a detailed cost breakdown similar to the 2006 report. The backup to the Congressional report was what was needed.

So multiple requests for that Black & Veatch backup report were made. Lisa Ludwig of Pump to the River (who is advocating for Options 2 and 2a) filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the report. Congressional staffers also put in a request. And finally, I asked for it to be posted to nolaenvironmental.gov

A few days ago, the Corps posted the B&V backup report to nolaenvironmental.gov. It is formally known as the "90 Day Report," because it was commissioned to support the Congressional cost report, which was due 90 days after the bill in which it was mandated became law (the Corps missed that deadline by months). It turned into a much more important report that has been worked on for nearly a year and has cost the public well over $1 million.

Here it is:
Redacted March 13, 2009 version of Black & Veatch "90 Day Report"

In a surprise to no one, it is completely gutted. In a report specifically compiled to document costs and schedules, all the cost and schedule information has been completely redacted. Three whole appendices (F, I, and J), as well as the part of the main text dealing with costs and schedules (Section 5), are gone. The Corps has offered no justification for these wholesale redactions.

The report they uploaded is dated March 13, 2009. However, I have happened on a later version of the report dated June 4, 2009 (the day after IER #5 comments closed, no coincidence I'd wager). While it is still missing two of the three appendices and the parts of the main text that would talk about costs and schedules, it does include Appendix F, which deals with the tradeoff between putting in gates on the stations and repairing the walls along the canals. I'll detail that later.

That June 4, 2009 version, with Appendix F intact, can be found here:

Redacted June 4, 2009 version of Black & Veatch "90 Day Report"

The Corps' posting the March 13, 2009 version of this report (which even redacted runs over 300 pages) brings up another serious question. The IER #5, issued on May 1, 2009, makes no reference to the Black & Veatch 90 Day Report supposedly finished two months earlier, even though the B&V report was the most comprehensive report to date on the entire project. Thus, the Black & Veatch 90 Day Report never came out during the public comment period for IER #5. Thus, the public did not have all the facts in front of them. This brings into doubt the integrity of the IER #5 process.

Because if the public did have that report when IER #5 was on the streets, they would have known that the Corps is actually considering three "flavors" of Option 1 and two "flavors" of Option 2. They would have known there are serious advantages and disadvantages to each, and cost repercussions on each decision. They would have figured out that the Corps likely moved some costs from Option 1 over to Option 2, skewing the figures given to Congress.

In short, for the last six months, the Corps has been witholding vital information, and in some cases deliberately excising it from the public square, during the fight over Option 1 and Option 2. In an Administration that is supposedly priding itself on openness and transparency, someone needs to tell the White House that the Corps is subverting those values as much as possible in an effort to advance an agenda not supported by anyone but themselves.

The Corps must release the complete, unredacted, and most finalest final version of the Black & Veatch 90 Day Report, and they need to do it forthwith. Congress is debating this very topic in conference right now as part of the Energy & Water Resources Appropriation bill, and they need to have all the information. Also, the public deserves it.

That's all folks

2007-07-03T16:12:00.000-05:00

As some of you may know, I'm trying to step away from all of this. It's taken a huge toll on me, as if Katrina weren't damaging enough.

So this is my last post. For a while, I'd considered this a closed loop process, where a defined end would be reached at some point.

However, I've concluded "Katrina" will never end, and at this point the only way to find my end is to declare it.

I had thought about continuing for a while, despite some major transitions in my life, but I just don't think it's worth it. I've got to move on. I've put out as much information as I can get, and if people don't understand the issues at hand by now, they'll never understand.

Thanks to all those who have supported me. I wish the best for New Orleans.

What MVN thinks of the internal

2007-07-03T15:11:00.001-05:00

There were ten technical recommendations in the Corps' internal investigation into the floodgate pumps. Since General Crear ignored almost all of them in his ~~press release~~ cover letter, it fell to the local media to find out their disposition.

Courtesy of WWL-TV, below you will find the New Orleans District's responses to the internal investigation's technical recommendations. I can't verify the truth of anything but part of the first one. The hydraulic reservoirs are being raised (see photos below).

The idea behind raising the hydraulic reservoirs is to pull hydraulic fluid from lower in the reservoirs, preventing entrained air from entering the delicate Denison hydraulic pumps and wrecking them. MWI's original scheme (the one which has been in existence up until last month) was to pull hydraulic fluid off the top of the reservoirs, working against gravity and guaranteeing air would get trapped in the inlet lines to the Denison pumps. This wrecked Denison pump after Denison pump. Considering that the scheme has been in operation up until last month, it is a strong possibility there are now wrecked Denison pumps on the skids, a conclusion reached in the internal investigation (see my commentary on internal recommendation #1 below).

The new scheme raises the reservoirs and reworks the piping and hoses between the reservoir and the Denison pumps, with the hydraulic fluid coming out of a point lower on the reservoir (hopefully the very bottom, but that's not clear).

They've started raising the reservoirs with Orleans Avenue for some unknown reason (I would have thought 17th St and London would be far more urgent, since those floodgates gates are intended to be dropped long before Orleans). All of the Orleans Avenue reservoirs appear to be raised.

17th Street does not have raised reservoirs on any of the original 12 pumps, as of June 20 (the six newer pumps came with raised reservoirs last year). Considering how much importance the Corps puts on 17th Street - every major press availability is held there, and it's the only site the Corps took the GAO when they visited, not that it mattered to the GAO - you'd think they would have started there.

So how does one tell if the reservoirs have been raised? It's fairly simple. First, let's get oriented to where the hydraulic reservoirs can be found on the drive skids. We'll use a picture from Dennis Strecker's April 18, 2006 report, which is included in the internal investigation (Adobe page 136):

The "day tank" is another name for the fuel tank. One can see the hydraulic reservoir is located inboard - or behind - the fuel tank. One can also see that the hydraulic reservoir is shorter than the fuel tank. This makes for a handy reference to determine whether the reservoirs have been raised. If the top of the reservoir is above the fuel tank, they've gone up. If the fuel tank is higher than the reservoir, they haven't been raised.

Here's a "before" picture of a drive skid at the east drive shed at Orleans Avenue:

As you can see, the top of the fuel tank was above the top of the reservoir. Thus, the reservoir was at its original, as-delivered height on March 25, 2007.

Now look at an "after" shot of the same skid:

The top of the reservoir is above the top of the fuel tank. The reservoir is now sitting up on a new set of approximately foot-high legs. This work was done in late May or early June.

All five drive skids on the east side of Orleans Avenue had gotten this treatment as of June 20th:

I don't have a picture of it, but I did see that the five skids on the west side of Orleans also had their reservoirs raised as of June 20, 2007.

Here's a picture of the actual legs being used to raise the reservoirs, along with hoses that have been removed from skids:

Moving over to London Avenue...

Here's the three southernmost skids in the west drive shed at London Avenue, none of which had their reservoirs raised at the time of this photo:

Here's the other three skids in that shed (sorry about cutting off the skid on the right):

How do we know the reservoirs are unraised in this shed? By examining the relative heights of the fuel tanks and the reservoirs. Here's a detail from the first London Avenue shot above, which shows the reservoir unraised:

All of the rest of the London Avenue - west drive skids were exactly the same as of June 20, 2007.

I don't have pictures of the London Avenue - east drive skids, but I did see they were also unraised as of June 20, 2007.

Finally, let's do the same treatment on 17th Street. First, the east drive platform:

Below is a detail shot of the drive skid on the left. While it's a little hard to make out (it's actually easier to see in the long shot above), you can see that the top of the fuel tank remains above the top of the reservoir:

Here's the best picture I could get of the 17th Street west drive shed:

And here's a detail, showing that the reservoirs hadn't been raised in that shed as of June 20, 2007 (I'm using the "daylight" argument):

My camera doesn't pick up as much detail as the naked eye, so you'll have to trust that I could clearly see the reservoirs in that shed were still at their original heights that day.

The internal recommendations follow, along with the New Orleans' District's responses. I've included a little commentary inside brackets. "MVN" is the Corps code for the New Orleans District.

"1) Flooded suction for all hydraulic oil pumps to prevent equipment failures and unsafe priming by operating personnel. Simultaneously with this action is the removal of the Denison Hydraulic pumps to inspect for any failed or in process of failing components. Any unsuitable components shall be replaced."

MVN responds: In process.

[It's important to note the second sentence of this recommendation. The internal team believes there could be "failed or in process of failing" components inside the Denison hydraulic pumps - even today. This is pretty huge, since the Denison pumps are the heart of the drive skids, and their failure leads to the failure of a water pump. There are 80 Denison pumps installed at the three canals, along with another six installed on spare drive skids. That's 86 units that are still in jeopardy of going kablooey.

Such Denison pump failures happened all the time during the MWI factory testing, and they continued during the initial field testing in the spring of 2006 (note: not complete field performance testing - which the Corps has no intention of conducting - just turning the pumps on to see if they worked).

We know the Denison hydraulic pump failures continued during the field testing because the internal investigation folks included data on field tests in Attachment #10 to the internal report. It's only two pages, but's it's sure disturbing. Here's the results for the tests of just two drive unit (DU)/pump assembly (PA) combos at Orleans Avenue in May and June of 2006:

DU 8845/PA 4590 (test date: 5/31/06)
Total run time: 25 minutes
Component failure: Filter side Denison hydraulic pump

DU 8842/PA 4581 (test date: 5/24/06)
Total run time: none - static pressure test only
Component failure: Filter side Denison hydraulic pump

DU 8842/PA 4581 (test date: 6/1/06)
Total run time: none - 20.2 minutes
Component failure: Control panel side Denison hydraulic pump

What's interesting about DU 8842 is that it was the skid that was used for the only 24 hour "endurance" test performed during the MWI factory testing in the third week of April, 2006. Except that test had the skid running at 1000 psi, less than a third of the pressure the drive was supposed to generate in the field. But after 24 hours of running on cruise control (and a brief repair to the gear oil circulation pump), 8842 was good enough to send out to Orleans Avenue, where we can see it promptly broke - twice - after less than an hour of runtime.

None of the information about the poor performance of the pumps in the field after they were installed was published in the media at the time it happened. Articles from May, June, July, and August of 2006 show no acknowledgement by the Corps of any problems on the MWI pumps, until the vibration problems emerged in mid-August. Those vibration problems are also documented in those Orleans Avenue tests three months previously (more withholding of information).

The same withholding by the Corps goes for public meetings attended by in-the-know Corps New Orleans officials such as Jim St. Germain, Colonel Bedey, Colonel Wagenaar, and Walter Baumy, some of which I have on tape. No one in the public - and I mean NO ONE - was clued in to the fact that drive skids were going kablooey and pump assemblies were vibrating practically on a daily basis throughout the summer of 2006. That's a horrible way to treat the people of New Orleans, but it's a great way to treat a manufacturer that doesn't want bad press.

Now, a year later the Corps is doing the exact same thing, because it's the exact same people - St. Germain, Bedey, Bradley. They run the pumps and drive units for 45 minutes, assumedly at 3000 psi (though we have no idea, and the freaking media won't ask), get worthless flow numbers from flowmeters that exemplify GIGO, and then they say, "Everything's fine!" Everything is not fine. Qualified, non- New Orleans individuals in the Corps believe there are still vital pieces of equipment primed for failure on these skids today. That's serious.

We're talking about protecting peoples' lives here. It's not a game. This is why comprehensive, extensive testing is required of this equipment, not the crappy crud with which MWI and the New Orleans District bamboozles the local media. The contract says so, reality says so, the public says so, and common decency says so. The only people that say it isn't are the New Orleans District and MWI.]

"2) Recommend that a certified hydraulic systems inspector, per ASME B31.1 Power Piping, inspect the piping system and certify that the hydraulic piping system is safe to operate for the intended use. The inspector may add operating requirements due to the reduced factor of safety. Any additional operating requirements must be included in the training of, and provided to any pump system operators."

MVN responds: They analyzed...said not true.

[This one cracks me up, and kind of makes me cry a bit. The Corps is, I believe, relying on a static test of the piping at 4500 psi to make this statement, as well as some really crummy calcs included in the internal report (found on the last two pages).

Such a static test is inadequate to determine if the pipes are suitable for dynamic conditions lasting hours on end. Considering how much the piping vibrates when the pumps are run, and how rusty the pipes are now, and how undersized they are according to code, it's clear the New Orleans District and its Metairie-based consultants at NY Associates, Linfield Hunter Junius, and URS likely have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to the pipes failing. They're playing with peoples' lives for God's sake. Are they really willing to leave clearly deteriorating equipment in the field for use during a hurricane?]

"3) Evaluate to determine if the automatic clutch system should be required to be installed to reduce shockwaves within the hydraulic piping system as required per contract documents to provide a smooth, soft start."

MVN responds: At first said don't think need to be done....then said in process.

[If they think the piping is okay, then why are they looking at the clutch to prevent damage to the pipes?]

"4) Information on welds that have been previously repaired by the Government and other welds which were not repaired should be reviewed. Further review is needed to determine whether additional welds should be repaired."

MVN responds: Done.

[We will likely never see information about this.]

"5) Provide mechanical computations for flange bolts to insure they are sized properly to handle the weight of the components."

MVN responds: Done.

[We will likely never see these calculations.]

"6) Remove inlet strainers per Denison recommendations."

MVN responds: Evaluating.

[How can they still be "evaluating" this one? All the information was laid out over a year ago on this issue, as shown in the internal report and the shop inspection records. Denison themselves says not to use strainers on the inlets to their pumps. What is there to evaluate?]

"7) Installation of the hydraulic cones in London and Orleans, along with vortex suppressors as determined by the Model Studies conducted at ERDC. The cones are currently being installed at London Avenue Canal."

MVN responds: Done.

"8) Each pump should be provided with a hydraulic system monitoring device (as required by the contract) to allow diagnosing hydraulic system behavior even while the pump is submerged. If a monitoring device is not provided, then a credit to the Government is due."

MVN responds: Evaluating.

[After all the hydraulic system problems, you'd think this one would be a no-brainer. You'd think...]

"9) Calibrate and locate the ultra-sonic equipment in the proper locations as required by the manufacturer with direction as required by Dr. Maynord at ERDC. This is to determine the correct amount of flow capacity for the pump at all three Canal sites."

MVN responds: In process.

[As I mentioned a few posts back, there's very little reason to believe the flowmeters will ever work. In ERDC's own April 2007 tests at London Avenue, they weren't used to find the capacity of the pumps. Instead, ERDC "backed into" the capacity by getting the static head in the pumps and used a derived pump curve (with its own significant scatter errors) to interpolate to the capacity. From an engineering standpoint, this is far less reliable than a direct measurement of the flow. It also subverts the entire floodgate pump control system, which is based on the flowmeters, not some jury-rigged piezometer-and-pump-curve smashup.

This would appear to be another source of a tremendous amount of wasted taxpayer funds - probably millions of dollars. Here we are over a year after the installation of these control systems, and at their most fundamental level, they don't work. What a mess.

This one lands smack at Dan Bradley's feet. He's the electrical engineer on this job, and was responsible for the controls system.]

"10) Have MWI provide manufacturer’s information and shop drawings (including Durst information) as discussed earlier in this report."

MVN responds: Done.

[I have a hard time believing this is "done," since the ERDC folks didn't have MWI's certified information on which to rely just over two months ago.]

Cover up, Part 3: GAO SUX

2007-07-02T15:32:00.000-05:00

Updated 10/8/07. See below

In Parts 1 and 2 of this report, we looked at the lies, extremes in poor judgement, and skirting of the law in which the Corps New Orleans District regularly trades. Today, we'll expand our focus to what passes for oversight over the Corps, and why that can't even be trusted.

When I heard this past March that, at Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu's request, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was investigating the floodgate pumps mess, I was hopeful but skeptical. GAO's previous work on Katrina issues has been spotty at best. It seems, based on comparisons to what the Corps internal investigation turned up, that my skepticism was justified.

What GAO gave to Senator Landrieu's office was a steaming turd. It doesn't even track what the Senator asked for in her letter to the GAO. And now that we have the Corps internal investigation in hand, we can see the blatant mistakes by GAO clearly.

The GAO report doesn't mention the numerous contract administration improprieties (including - but not confined to - troubling use of implied authorities by individuals like Jim St. Germain and Dan Bradley who did not possess such authorities), it only glancingly mentions the critical technical difficulties with the hydraulic systems (accepting the inadequate interim fix on the reservoirs as adequate, instead of bringing up the fact that the permanent fix was critical and had not been implemented for nearly a year, and still hasn't been implemented on most of the drive units), and I have to wonder if they even read Ms. Garzino's correspondence and the shop inspection reports. In fact, Ms. Garzino's name inexplicably does not appear anywhere in a report that would not exist without her memo.

In addition, there's zero mention of the continuing non-execution of the performance testing section of the contract, which is at the heart of the cover-up (see Part 1 and Part 2 of this report). In fact, there's only parrotting of the Corps' line: "Any performance problems with the pump systems could be resolved after they were installed on the canals."

Except (and this is only 9 pages later in the GAO report), "According to the Corps, it is not possible to test each pump system for an extended period of time or to test the entire system due to limitations in simulating the amount of water that would be present in the canals and the lake during an actual storm event."

So the performance problems could be resolved later, presumably through contractually-mandated full performance testing. Except that "later," there's no way to actually perform those tests? Huh?

How in the world did the GAO not catch and highlight this clear contradiction in the Corps' statements, especially since it appears the GAO's own report? Why didn't they catch it and perhaps think about whether the Corps ever intended to do that performance testing, or if the Corps has never intended to do it (see the earlier parts of this report)? And then why wouldn't they think about possible motivations for such inaction, and really dig in? Why couldn't they do that bit of thinking?

This is what I mean when I say the GAO investigation is junk. They appear to have taken whatever the Corps New Orleans District handed them and did no critical reasoning on it. Hey GAO, here's critical reasoning on the Corps statement about the impossibility of extended testing of the pumps on site: What about taking the pumps out of their platforms and running them elsewhere, where they could be lowered and raised - thus eliminating the "limitations in simulating the amount of water?" I'm not the first person to think of it. That's exactly what the Corps themselves did last August when the vibration problems emerged! They hooked pumps to a crane and dunked them in the canal at different depths. Surely everyone remembers that. Here's an August 6, 2006 picture of that widely publicized testing, taken from the Corps' own press release (dated December 1, 2006) (it also flashes by in the multi-image GIF on the Corps New Orleans Hurricane Protection Office front page, which is where I got the date):

The caption cracks me up. It makes it seem like this was routine testing, not everyone at the Corps and MWI grasping at straws.

You can see the drive unit for the pump on the deck at the lower left of the photo behind the mist cloud. Now, if this was possible last August, why couldn't a barge be rigged up with a crane (to raise and lower the pump), some kind of framework (to hold the pump), and a set of appropriately long discharge piping in which to measure flow? And why couldn't such a system be run for a legitimately long amount of time to measure the entire range of flows and heads, as well as a long enough time to simulate storm conditions?

The answer is: of course it could, but I'm sure MWI would refuse to do it, even though they are contractually obligated to do so. Because it costs too much. And the Corps New Orleans District refuses to do it because it would show how poor their contract administration has been, i.e. they've paid millions of taxpayer dollars for equipment which does not meet spec. (Side question: I wonder if MWI paid for all the crane rental time, labor, and materials for the testing shown in the photo above?)

And that's how you do critical reasoning.

There's even flat-out lies in the GAO report that should have been obvious. On Adobe page 35, there's a chart of Orleans Avenue canal capacity dating back to June of 2006:

It shows a constant capacity for Orleans at just under 2000 cfs from June, 2006 until mid-May of this year, when there's a small, unexplained bump up to just over 2000 cfs. I'd like to know how the Corps could have gotten 2000 cfs out of 10 pumps at Orleans when five of them were sitting out of the water up on the deck from October, 2006 through March, 2007, 2007 (read the linked blog entries for more details and pictures):

The year on the picture above should have read "2007." Oops.

Yes, I understand that the period the pumps were out at Orleans was outside the height of hurricane season. But the pumps weren't even in the damn water for over six months! When basic, easily checkable facts like that are screwed up, why should the rest of the GAO investigation carry any credibility?

The whole GAO thing seems less like an investigation and more like a mistake-ridden, propaganda-laced summary of current conditions. GAO themselves needs to be investigated by their inspector general to determine how Senator Landrieu could write the following as their marching orders...

"I request that the Government Accountability Office immediately undertake an investigation of the Army Corps of Engineers rationale for the the installation of faulty flood control pumps despite the internal memoranda indicating their insufficiency for the task. Furthermore, the investigation should examine the contract arrangements with the company in question and should determine whether or not any improprieties exist in the award or fulfillment of these contracts."

...and then the GAO could interpret/twist that into the following "questions to be answered:"

"- What were the specifications and requirements of the contract and what was the basis for the selection of the supplier for the pump systems?
- In light of the factory test failures known to the Corps, why did it install the pump systems?
- What pumping capacity existed on June 1, 2006, and what actions has the Corps taken to address the known problems with the pump systems?
- What is the current pumping capacity at the drainage canals and what are the Corps’ plans to increase capacity during the 2007 hurricane season?"

They're kinda close, but GAO's missing a large chunk of what the Senator asked for. Where are the GAO's questions about the contract arrangements and improprieties in the fulfillment of the contract? "Fulfillment" entails looking at the entire span of the contract (which means up to the day GAO issued their report), not the "basis for selection of the supplier." That is a tremendous narrowing of the scope of the Senator's request, and GAO needs to be taken to task for it.

Why is there zero mention of the substantial improprieties on the financial and contract administration side of the project? The Corps internal investigation uncovered suspiciously inadequate record-keeping, an uncooperative Contracting Officer, and millions of dollars in payments to MWI that couldn't (or wouldn't) be accounted for. Isn't that precisely what the General Accountability Office should have also found? After all, they've got the word "account" right there in their name.

Even taking the GAO's questions on their own terms, how can they ask their last question about current pumping capacity without mentioning the persistent, documented capacity shortfalls revealed by Corps-overseen testing in April 2006, November 2006, and once again in April 2007? The November 2006 and April 2007 testing was performed at the behest of the Corps internal investigative team. GAO themselves say they met with "members of the Mississippi Valley Division’s independent team reviewing issues related to the contract and pump performance." If they listened at all to that team, how could GAO not reach the same conclusions (on all matters, not just capacities) the internal team was reaching?

You can probably see that I think very little of the GAO investigation. I can say now that while they were investigating in March, April and May, they were reading this blog every day, sometimes for hours at a stretch. That gave me limited hopes, because one of the reasons I started blogging was to make documents easily available to the eventual investigations I knew would come. Even today, someone at the GAO checks in regularly. How they got from what I've reported to their stuff is a mystery. And when you consider the everlasting, gob-stopping treasure trove of the Corps internal investigation (which is light years beyond any of my little rhetorical bottle rockets), the GAO report is measurably inferior.

There's only three possibilities for the radical differences between the GAO's report and the Corps internal investigation:

1) GAO didn't get access to the same data the Corps internal team did. This is very, very unlikely, despite what they told Senator Landrieu's office. There's no way GAO could have written a report without looking at the contract, the modifications, and the correspondence. Also, did they not request the same documents the Corps internal team was using?

2) The Corps and GAO had access to the same data, but GAO actively ignored it for some unknown reason. This is the scariest possibility, because is speaks to a compromised investigatory process.

3) The Corps and GAO looked at the same data, but GAO didn't realize its significance. In other words, the GAO team was incompetent.

In any case, whatever the reason for the inadequacy of the GAO report, the consequence is clear. It has muddied the waters into what happened, extending the cover-up. Indeed, after its release, both MWI and Colonel Bedey crowed about how they were in the clear.

MWI (in the May 21st Palm Beach Post letters to the editor):

"...The Associated Press further reported on Thursday that Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said an investigation and forthtcoming [sic] report by the Government Accountability Office found no evidence of fraud or improper influence in the pump project."

Colonel Bedey (in the May 17th AP article about the briefing GAO gave Senator Landrieu's office):

"'We always said there was no smoking gun,' Col. Jeffrey Bedey, who is overseeing reconstruction of the city's levee system for the corps, said in reaction to the report."

As we now know from the internal investigation, there's an armory of smoking guns. GAO either ignored them or was told to ignore them.

In some ways, I wish the GAO had just kept their own counsel. Fortunately, Senator Landrieu is the chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that controls GAO's budget, so GAO had better do a much more thorough job when they dig back into this fiasco. And, as I mentioned above, I hope the GAO Inspector General takes a close look at this one too. It's certainly destroyed my faith in yet another agency of the government, which I didn't think was possible after all that Katrina has wrought.

Update, 10/8/07:
After the internal came out, and it became readily apparent that the GAO investigation was inadequate, Senator Landrieu said she strongly encouraged GAO to revisit their findings:

"...the GAO must keep digging to ensure that Congress and the people of New Orleans have the truth"

That press release is here. That was on June 8th.

It took a while, but the GAO did restart their inquiry. Oddly, it was MWI themselves that first revealed this publicly. On September 12, 2007, they responded to an article posted on a website called CorpWatch around Katrina's 2nd anniversary. The original article summarized the pump story to date. MWI's response attempted to rebut it, and accidentally revealed:

"The GAO is now in the process of pursuing an additional inquiry and we welcome
the opportunity to meet with them again."

I seriously doubt they "welcomed" the opportunity to be investigated, but that's standard corporate-speak.

This was confirmed on October 8th, along with some other huge news:

Times-Picayune, Monday, October 8:
Third probe of pumps on canals requested

Associated Press, Monday, October 8:
Report: New Orleans pump contract likely handled improperly

Ms. Garzino went to the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigatory agency. Her referral raised enough eyebrows at OSC that they ordered Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to further investigate the entire imbroglio. Going through OSC provides an extra degree of protection to ensure the integrity of the investigation.

The existence of the Defense Department investigation was revealed by an illegal leak of its existence from within the Pentagon to a whistleblower group called PEER. Their source has likely lost his or her job, because PEER did not bother to submit a FOIA request for the documents they leaked to the Times-Picayune. Had they done so, their source would have been protected, and the DoD investigation would have likely gone a lot smoother.

Be that as it may, the documents they gave to the Times-Picayune are attached to their October 8, 2007 press release here. The direct link to the documents is here.

Cover up, Part 2

2007-06-29T01:13:00.000-05:00

In Part 1 of this report, we detailed Colonel Bedey's lie on national television about full performance testing of the pumps and drives. Bedey claimed the Corps had "decided" in the spring of 2006 to move that testing from the Florida factory of MWI to the worksites in New Orleans.

We demonstrated the transparent falsity of that lie by looking at actual contract documents, emails, and analysis within the internal Corps floodgate pumps report. All of those sources show that Corps had no intention of conducting full performance testing at the worksites. They also show that there has not been any full performance testing at the sites for over a year, a clear violation of the contract. Colonel Bedey made up out of whole cloth the fiction that full performance testing would be conducted in New Orleans. The lack of such testing is a serious shortfall in the performance of the contract.

In this part, we'll look at the implications of the lack of full performance testing, as well as the Corps' actions in trying to avoid doing such testing.

What does the lack of full performance testing mean?

For one thing, it completely undercuts all of the Corps New Orleans District's reassurances about how great the pumps are working. The fact is they have no way to determine whether all of the pumps are working up to spec, because through their inaction they have illegally de facto eliminated that part of the contract.

Remember what the internal investigation says about full performance testing of all the pumps:

"This testing was not performed in accordance with the contract requirements and a significant credit is due to the Government for the nonperformance of it"

This is in the present tense, i.e. the full performance testing was not performed as of June, 2007. Perhaps that's why Bedey said earlier in the interview (see my June 13th post) that the internal report was a snapshot of September, 2006 conditions: he was clumsily trying to undercut the fact that for over a year, he and the people under his command and their supplier have likely colluded to avoid enforcement of a vital aspect of the pump supply contract. Enforcement of that provision - and its probable results that the pumps don't meet the spec (see below for backup on that) - would likely land the Corps and MWI in court, and due to the New Orleans District's cruddy recordkeeping, MWI might win.

But what about all the testing the Corps says they've run? They say the pumps are ready

All those dog and pony shows the Corps has run for the local media, which the media then turns into b-roll footage for the nightly news... none of them were actual performance tests over the entire range of the pumps' required flows and heads. Bedey admitted in the press briefing when the internal report was released that none of the latest round of "tests" went longer than 45 minutes. There's no way one could run a satisfactory flow test in such a brief time.

The Corps' own press release from May 31, 2007 (just a few weeks ago) refers to them as "demonstrations." That's also a term that appears in the very vague section on field testing in the original contract (a section that was taken straight from MWI's own specifications). It's probably a key semantic difference in Corps-speak which is conveniently left unexplained to the layman. Dollars to doughnuts, a "demonstration" does not qualify as a full performance test. But the Corps is perfectly happy muddying the waters for the unitiated.

In running all these "demonstrations," and in not performing the contract as it is written, the New Orleans District has decided not to determine if what the taxpayers have spent millions of dollars on actually meets the specification! It also appears that in portraying the demonstrations as legitimate performance tests (schizophrenic, or maybe duplicitous, quote from Corps May 31 press release: "they've been successfully tested"), there has been a coordinated effort to cover up the lack of full performance testing.

Why not run the full performace tests?

Why wouldn't the New Orleans District and MWI want to know for sure if the pumps meet the spec? Why not yank every one of the pumps out one at a time, along with their twinned drive unit, mount them on a barge in the lake, and run 'em like they're supposed to be run under Hydraulic Institute testing standards? That is, why not test the pumps through their entire range of performance as they were specified?

The internal investigation also provides that answer: the pumps don't meet the specification. According to previously unreported limited, but pretty rigorous, pump testing performed late last year (internal report Attachment #3) and earlier this year (Attachment #13) by Corps hydraulic scientists, all the pumps fall below the requirements for flow. In factory testing last fall, when a new pump curve was generated (where was the certified version from MWI?), the shortfall was in some cases over 5%.

In field tests just two months ago at London Avenue, the numbers were much worse, with capacity shortfalls of over 50%. The Corps researcher guessed that the April, 2007 London Avenue results were due to poorly calibrated flowmeters or perhaps bad placement of the flowmeters, and used the pump curve generated in the fall testing to determine flow (using the pump curve, the Corps researcher again called out about a 5% flow shortfall for the April test). But that pump curve itself has errors and scatter, meaning the error in the April test was compounded.

[Special aside on flowmeters:

The London Avenue tests used acoustic flowmeters placed on the 9'-0" manifolds, just as I had suggested was the best place for them in my May 1 post. Even so, the Corps researcher got pretty cruddy results.

It is instructive that the Corps researcher in April, 2007 (just two months ago) did not depend upon the readouts from the individual flowmeters already installed on 5'-0" discharges of the pumps, but instead installed new flowmeters just for the test. That says to me that the meters on the 5'-0" discharges are - as I suspected - worthless. Keep in mind those are the meters whose results give Bedey the Wheaties to make his pronouncements that everything's shipshape. Thus, Bedey's full of it.

The poor showing of the meters on the 9'-0" tubes also reinforces the notion that the ones on the 5'-0" discharges aren't giving good data. If the Corps researcher couldn't get good results with 4 diameters of runup to the meters (the approximate amount at London's 9'-0" manifold pipes), how in the world could meters with just 1 diameter of runup (those that are installed on the individual 5'-0" pump discharges) be expected to give anything but garbage?

Besides all that, though, there remains the question of whether the meters in the April test were way off - and their results can be dismissed - or whether the Corps researcher was just engaged in guesswork as to the results of a 50% capacity decrease. He refused to express confidence in any flowmeter readings at the floodgates when I spoke with him recently, and said it was still a subject of much debate. He also said he didn't want to seem like he was "covering anything up," but that he needed to go through channels before he discussed anything further. I told him that we already deep into hurricane season, and the time for "channels" was long past.]

Frankly, the Corps has no real idea how much water is flowing through the pumps (because they don't trust the flowmeters that are in place now - where have I heard that before?), but they are sure it's less than what it's supposed to be. In any case, there's no real basis for Colonel Bedey to pronounce that the pumps are working as designed.

Spread over the 18 units at 17th Street, a 5% capacity decrease means there's effectively only 17 pumps there. A 50% capacity decrease ... well I think you can figure out how bad that is. That's hardly good value, and is indicative of very poor engineering and even worse stewardship over the funds of the taxpayers.

Any other reasons the Corps wouldn't want full testing?

There's the obvious one: when subjected to similar testing for a week in Florida, the pumps failed at a spectacularly high rate.

They also failed to meet the specification for flow and head in that testing.

All of that is laid out in Ms. Garzino's memo, the shop inspection records, and in the internal report. All of them describe numerous failures throughout use of the pumps over a long timespan. Again, that's hardly good value.

Pulling the threads together

Colonel Bedey lied repeatedly in his interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper on June 11th. His biggest whopper - that the pumps would be performance tested in New Orleans instead of Florida - is undercut by a mountain of direct and indirect evidence. In fact, not only was the performance testing not moved, it has never been performed at all.

Bedey's lie also unspools - and perhaps help explain - a disturbing series of events.

1) After just one week of full performance testing, that testing was stopped on the authority of individuals who were not allowed to make such a change.

2) Then, for the last year, the Corps New Orleans District (NOD) has decided not to enforce the provision of the contract requiring full performance testing of all pumps, and they have not documented such a substantial change in the normal Corps way - i.e. they are operating outside of normal Corps channels without authorization to do so.

3) Instead, the Corps NOD is holding public "demonstrations" of the pump systems which are portrayed to the public (through the media and the New Orleans District Public Affairs office) as adequate performace tests in conformance with the contract.

4) The few semi-rigorous, non-"demonstration" tests done on the pumps since their installation show them falling below the required head and flow as called out in the contract. The first testing that showed the shortfall happened April, 2006. And then there was testing in November, 2006, and then more testing in April, 2007. Shouldn't they be following up on this?

6) The New Orleans District is making millions of dollars in poorly documented payments to a supplier that - according to the Corps' own hydraulic scientists and engineers - did not deliver what was specified.

7) The New Orleans District contracting office is acting as extremely poor stewards of public funds, leaving out - or perhaps not even creating - the required justifications for many of the over 30 modifications to the pump supply contract. They then refused to turn over a complete accounting of the project to the internal investigators:

"The Contracting Officer was requested on 11 April 2007 to provide a total dispursement screen from CEFMS to verify the actual expenditures to date on this contract. This was not provided to the Artman Team by the Contracting Officer." [Adobe pages 21-22, internal report]

Does any of this sound like the normal way to run a project? No, of course not.

But it does sound like the way potential indictees act when they are trying to hide their actions.

All of this - the cruddy accounting, the poor recordkeeping, the willingness to turn a blind eye to supplier inadequecies, the lies to the public - it all points to a cover-up of likely motivations - people in the Corps (Bedey, St. Germain, Bradley) were so interested in getting MWI's equipment on site and portraying it as non-defective that they would do anything for over a year to dupe the public into believing they were protected. Surely they should lose their jobs for this.

How in the world can the people of New Orleans, the federal government, those within the Corps, and anyone else trust these folks to build a functioning flood protection system when they engage in unethical behavior and skirt the law and their own regulations?

In light of the lives and property at stake in New Orleans, what could possibly motivate a person so strongly to do such things? I'm pretty sure only subpoenas are going to let us know the complete truth. I hope the Justice Department is paying attention.

If the Corps wishes to dispute this, then they need to make the involved persons (specifically Maria Garzino, Jim St. Germain, and Dan Bradley) available to do so. Anything else is just bloviation and spin.

Cover up, Part 1

2007-06-23T18:18:00.000-05:00

Introduction

Today I'm starting a multipart series of reporting and analysis of the facts revealed in the Corps' internal report on the floodgate pumps and drives. Today's part focuses on what I believe is the latch to Pandora's box: a lie by Colonel Bedey on national television.

That lie on CNN leads to a horrible conclusion: the Corps has deliberately avoided enforcing its own contract to keep egg off its face and to protect its supplier. Doing so is, well, crazy, and possibly illegal. One would think this is enough for people to lose their jobs.

The Quote

On the June 11th edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 (transcript here) there was the following exchange between Cooper and Colonel Bedey:

"COOPER: There was a report last year by an Army Corps of Engineers engineer who said it's not working. The pumps won't work. And just this past Friday three engineers backed up that report. So do the pumps work?

[...lots of other stuff about how much Bedey loved and appreciated being investigated...]

BEDEY: "...And in doing so [putting in the floodgates and pumps], we had to make some hard decisions. Some of those decisions were to forego all of the factory testing and get the pumps in the water, knowing that we would have to do all the testing and commissioning here on site.

"We've done that. We've been successful."

I've added the emphasis, because it opens up a can of worms. It is a slight variation on the standard line the Corps New Orleans District has used to explain away the installation of defective pumps last year, events revealed by the release of Ms. Maria Garzino's memo this past March 13th. Usually they say they wanted to get pumps in the water, and then "troubleshoot" them later. However, this time Bedey switched it up a bit and mentioned the testing that was so thoroughly eviscerated during the pumps' and drive units' time in Florida.

Bedey's used this line before, though not in such a prominent forum. In a piece of Corps propaganda from April of this year, he said, "We decided we would work out the final testing on the pumps in place."

The language for that testing in the contract calls for full performance testing of every pump system in accordance with Hydraulic Institute standards. This would mean running the pumps through their entire range of flows and pressures under as close to "real world" conditions as possible. This was the segment of the testing which was unofficially "eliminated" by unauthorized Corps personnel and MWI in Florida after just a week of running the pumps last April. The exact day of the decision was April 18, 2006. The modification to the contract dealing with changes in the testing did not come until two weeks later, on May 2, 2006. As we will see below, the official modification did not eliminate the contractual requirement for full performance testing.

Bedey is saying the Corps had/has every intention of still doing that contractually obligated full performance testing; they would just do it on site in New Orleans.

What's interesting is that, unlike many of the other standard excuses the Corps uses, this one can be truth-squaded with documentation now available courtesy of the internal investigation. So in this part of the report, we'll examine the truthfulness of Colonel Bedey's statement. In the next part of the report, we'll take a look at its implications and consequences...

We'll look at three sources, all from the Corps themselves: 1) the text of the internal report, 2) the relevant contract modification, and 3) contemporaneous internal emails.

Exhibit 1: The internal report

The report has extensive passages on the elimination of contract-required full performance testing. It has this to say about the current state of affairs:

"Modification P00004 revised the static test procedures by clarifying the actual steps to follow but no where did it delete the requirements of the full size water testing for each pump. This testing was not performed in accordance with the contract requirements and a significant credit is due to the Government for the nonperformance of it."

So the requirement for full size testing has yet to be fulfilled. That's odd, because Bedey said on CNN they've done that testing and it's been "successful." Hmmm...

Exhibit 2: P00004

As the quote above from the internal report shows, Bedey was talking about a May, 2006 modification to the floodgate pump contract called P00004, which dealt with testing of the pumps and drives. The entire text of P00004 is included as Attachment #11 to the internal report. It is the only modification given such treatment, which attests to its importance.

For your convenience, I've broken it out as its own file. We know that P00004 is the only modification relating to changes in testing because the internal report acerbically notes, "Modification P00004 (See Attachment #11) was the alleged modification that revised the testing requirements of the contract."

Let me cut to the chase on this one - there's no mention in P00004 of eliminating the complete factory testing and replacing it with complete field testing in accordance with HI standards.

Assumedly, if Bedey were telling the truth, some mention of changing the testing from the factory to the site would have been included P00004.

So the only relevant modification to the contract does not mention what Bedey said it mentions. Hmm...

Exhibit 3: The emails

The internal report also contains contemporaneous internal emails among Corps personnel assigned to the Pump Team. Were Colonel Bedey telling the truth, the movement of the full performance testing of all pumps from Florida to New Orleans would surely show up in these emails.

Instead, three critical emails from late May, 2006 (when these pumps were supposedly - according to Bedey - to be fully tested) show no evidence of a testing plan for the site. They also show no evidence of a paperwork trail to back up Bedey's assertion.

The emails are on Adobe pages 122, 123, and 124. I have broken them out as their own link here.

First is a May 17, 2006 email from Joe Thomas to Maria Garzino and Dan Bradley. It states:

"Would like to establish a QC/QA program for field testing of the engines and pumps. Need some help to determine what testing is needed; parameters of the field test and what should be recorded for these tests and what is deemed an acceptable field trail [sic] run. What field tests will be run? How long? Acceptance criteria? Flow measurements? Can anyone develop a document so that we may record pertinent data and information. Such items as pressure; temperatures of system ??? Any help would be great."

Mr. Thomas appears unaware of Colonel Bedey's supposed (read: fictional) plans for full performance testing of all pumps.

Next is a May 17, 2006 response email from Maria Garzino, the Pump Team Leader who was then on site in New Orleans, and would obviously be the person best qualified to know if there had been any plans to move the factory testing to the field. It is sent to a bunch of people, including Jim St. Germain's cohort, Dan Bradley. The tone of the email is almost pleading.

"I do not have any information on how we are to proceed with field testing – I am unaware of any direction given by MWI as to what they envision for field testing (I have asked on many occasions for this info and have not to date received it – if it has been sent, possibly Dan [Bradley] has it then?) – I am also unaware of any direction that Task Force Guardian has given on how we are to proceed on our own as far as field testing of the Pumps and Drive Units – I have heard there is discussion in this area, but I am unaware of any direction given."

The person who would be responsible for overseeing field testing that should mimic the factory testing (which she herself witnessed) had no information about field testing.

There still remains the remote possibility that Ms. Garzino just didn't have the right memo in her inbox. That possibility is foreclosed by the email to which her email is attached. That email, dated May 31, 2007, is from Jim Bartek to Steve Farkas and Bob Hoffman (why in the world is Ms. Garzino not included?). It states,

"I have not received a memo from Jim [St. Germain] regarding testing. All I have received is the email below that I think you sent out [Ms. Garzino's May 17th email]: I would agree with the recommendations except to add monitor vibration. Keep in mind this was a supply contract and the spec is very vague regarding field testing. It just says 'The pump manufacturer shall provide for final inspection and testing of the system and shall make necessary adjustments to the control system prior to actual start-up tests. Start-up tests and demonstration shall be performed by the pump manufacturer’s representative and the Contractor, and witnessed by the Government…'"

Notice what Mr. Bartek is citing when referring to field testing: the original contract! He's not referring to this phantom modification that Bedey is making up that somehow justified speeding up and eviscerating the factory testing. Bartek's citing the original contract.

So the contemporaneous emails show no evidence of what Bedey asserts.

The exhibits lead to one conclusion

Thus, we have the internal investigation, the relevant contract modification, and internal emails all saying the same thing: the Corps New Orleans District willfully ignored a vital part of its own contract; after P00004, there was no plan for full performance testing of the pumps, and there still isn't a plan for full pump-and-drive performance testing to this day.

Put another way, Colonel Bedey has made up a fairy tale to cover up something far more disturbing. The Corps was flying (is flying?) by the seat of their pants when it came (comes?) to the on-site testing, working without the paperwork to back themselves up and safeguard the government's (and the taxpayers') interests. Bedey, St. Germain, and Bradley know this. This is a major, major violation of construction contract administration. But it gets worse.

In the next part we'll look at why they're doing this and the consequences of not conducting full performance tests.

AC360

2007-06-13T11:50:00.000-05:00

Colonel Bedey popped up on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Monday night. You can find the transcript here. It was his first interview after the release of the Corps internal investigation into the floodgate pumps. Cooper interviewed him while standing on the deck of the 17th Street gates (talk about home field advantage).

He put out more than a few falsehoods in the interview.

Lie #1: [speaking about the internal investigation] "BEDEY: That report -- that report that was just published last week was actually a snapshot in time of September of last year."

What? Um, the date on the front of the report is May 11, 2007. There are pieces of correspondence attached to the report which are as recent as May 7, 2007. There are ten technical recommendations for work which (according to the report) have not been completed, including raising the hydraulic reservoirs - which was supposed to be done over a year ago.

My guess at what Bedey meant? I'm not really sure. Frankly, it sounds like something a crazy person would say, like pointing at the sky and saying, "What a lovely shade of green!" Maybe he slipped and let out an old talking point that referred to a previous draft of the report which only examined September conditions (the report shows a flurry of work last September, including site visits and document collections). But the report now is most definitely written in the present tense, not the past.

Lie #2: "Well, we're absolutely stronger today than we were pre-Katrina. This pump, this interim closure structure is an example of that."

Again I say, huh? While the gates themselves might be stronger than the outfall canal walls (emphasis on might, since the system has yet to be battle tested), everyone locally knows there's less pumping capacity at the gates than at the Sewerage & Water Board pumping stations. That's why there's more pumps being put in at 17th Street and London Avenue, and even then there won't be enough pumps to match the interior stations' outputs. So in a fundamental way, we're weaker today than we were pre-Katrina. We can't evacuate rainwater during a hurricane as fast as we could pre-Katrina.

It's easy to slip stuff like this past reporters that are only in New Orleans for the day.

By the way, what's this "we?" Bedey lives on the North Shore. He should really refer to "New Orleans" rather than grouping himself in with the city.

Lie #3: "The commitment of the administration of the United States and the Congress of the United States was to provide the 100-year level of protection for the people of this great community and of the nation."

I really don't like straying into political territory, but I have to just put a toe in here.

This is what President Bush said in Jackson Square on September 15, 2005:"City and parish officials in New Orleans, and state officials in Louisiana will have a large part in the engineering decisions to come. And the Army Corps of Engineers will work at their side to make the flood protection system stronger than it has ever been."

Now, if the flood protection system was supposed to be able to handle a 100 year storm (the basis for the FEMA flood maps), then wouldn't "stronger than it has ever been" refer to greater protection than a 100-year storm?

I know I'm being a little obtuse here. I recognize the realities of Congress, the Administration, budgeting, and politics have whittled the stated goals of improving New Orleans' flood protection down to, "We're going to give you what we said you had for 40 years." But it's still wrong.

There's more to come from this interview...

Credibility

2007-06-11T21:56:00.000-05:00

The Corps internal investigation is the gift that keeps on giving. And, as with any government report, the tasty tidbits are in the appendices. Here's three that I've found so far.

Note that I refer to page numbers by "Adobe page so-and-so" That's the page number in the box at the bottom of Adobe Reader.

1) The hydraulic oil is not environmentally friendly.

Back on September 16, 2006, when there was hydraulic oil spilling everywhere, Colonel Bedey was quoted in the Times-Picayune as saying, "We're using environmentally friendly hydraulic oil."

That may have been true back then. The National Response Center spill report for the September 14, 2006 spill shows the material spilled as "MOBIL 67 BIODEGRADABLE HYDRAULIC OIL." (the 67 is probably a typo; the next nearest ISO grade is 68). Possibly, it was one of the lubricants on this Mobil page, all of which are advertised as environmentally friendly. But with such a paucity of information, I could never narrow it down, or even verify the claim.

Since that time, I've been curious to find out exactly what kind of hydraulic oil is being used, in order to find out if it really is "environmentally friendly." Thanks to the internal report we now know. On Adobe page 100 is a May 7, 2007 memo from Denison to the Corps' Dan Bradley. It calls out the specific brand and type of hydraulic oil. According to the memo, the hydraulic oil is Exxon-Mobil Nuto H 68.

Taking a look at the product information page for Exxon Mobil Nuto H, I can't see anything in there that mentions "environmental friendliness." In fact, it appears on a webpage with a family of products that is notable for its lack of "environmental friendliness." Such a quality is a big marketing tool, and if it were part of the makeup of the oil, Exxon Mobil would definitely mention it. It appears the Corps and MWI are no longer using environmentally friendly oil. Someone should tell Colonel Bedey.

2) Water in the hydraulic oil

Buried inside a field report by a contractor about a visit this past February to the hydraulic motor manufacturer, Rineer, is a yummy morsel about the hydraulic oil having water in it.

On Adobe page 88, Corps contractor John Ehlers describes the teardown of three Rineer hydraulic motors. These are three of the motors which were vibrating severely, and which have had stronger springs installed in them since then. This was, for months, the only problem to which the Corps would admit when it came to the floodgate pumps. What we have been told publicly was that springs in the motors were replaced with stronger ones at MWI's rep, Associated Pump & Supply in Houma, LA.

What has not been publicized until now is that the motors were not in as-new condition when they were reinstalled at Associated. Specifically, Mr. Ehlers writes this:

"The writer notes that the coil spring material is 'piano wire', which is a high carbon alloy. Any high carbon alloy is a candidate for rust when exposed to water and warm temperature and other contamination. The rust evidence on the timing plates suggests that there was some water contamination within the motor. Since the motor seals were all good, it is probable that the water was introduced by hydraulic fluid which had been exposed to water or moisture."

He also wrote in his conclusions section:

"All 3 motors had slight signs of rust on the timing plates. There was evidence that the hydraulic oil was less than perfect, in that a contaminant, most likely water, was present in the hydraulic oil."

So the hydraulic motors were put back together with rusty parts inside them.

But what's more interesting is the fact that at some point between installation of the pumps in the May-June-July timeframe and their initial startup testing during the same period, the hydraulic pipes were contaminated with water.

This has large consequences. The following is just theory, but it's what I think would normally happen in the case of contamination of the hydraulic fluid. There's only one source for water to get into the hydraulic lines. It was there to start with.

You might say, "What if the system had leaks?" A system running at any appreciable internal pressure is not going to allow water in while it's running. And while it's conceivable that water leaked into the system, it seems unlikely to have done so in three separate pump systems in exactly the same concentration (Mr. Ehlers writes of similar "slight" amounts of rust in each motor). So I'm going with the theory that the water was in the pipes to begin with.

As everyone knows, water and oil don't mix. When the pipes arrived on site they were supposed to have been pickled and oiled, according to the specification. The pickling process involves dipping the pipe in vats of acid and other chemicals to passivate it (I think - I'm a little hazy on pickling). Then I believe the pipes are supposed to be coated in oil and then capped and shipped. Theoretically (I think), the lines should be flushed completely before startup to ensure there was no debris or other crap in there before the final charging of hydraulic oil was placed. Feel free to correct me on this.

I'm betting that the lines were either not pickled and oiled properly or not flushed properly. What would this lead to? Once it was determined there was water in the oil (it would have showed itself in other ways during startup operations), all of the pipes would have had to have been completely flushed and refilled with new hydraulic oil. The change in oil described above - from the "environmentally friendly" grade to the Nuto H grade - could be explained by this. This work would have been at great expense and would have been backcharged to MWI if they didn't do it themselves.

All of the above is theory, but I like to think of it as deductive reasoning based on the available facts. Anyone who has evidence to back up or dispute my theory about flushing of the lines is encouraged to contact me.

3) When was it decided to raise the hydraulic reservoirs, the so-called "critical fix?"

The critical fix that remains undone is the raising of the hydraulic reservoirs. With that modification, hydraulic oil would flow downward from reservoirs into the Denison hydraulic pumps, instead of having to be sucked out the top of the reservoirs. Pulling the oil out the top of the tanks guaranteed entrainment of air in the lines. Denison pumps do not tolerate air very well. They were failing like crazy in the factory with the lines coming out of the tops of the reservoirs. And apparently, they continued to fail after they arrived on the sites (from Adobe page 24):

"The hydraulic oil pumps, since the delivery to the site [emphasis mine] have been removed and inspected by the manufacturer to determine premature failures, similar to the ones that were happening at factory testing of the pumping units."

This single sentence is huge in its implications. It totally rebuts the Corps' entire defense that they were installing "some capacity instead of none." Colonel Bedey and others have repeatedly used this line with the press, with the public, with policymakers in Congress, and even got the GAO to buy it.

That defense is BS. How could you have any capacity if the most critical part of your system was continuing to fail even after you installed it? It is very important that we find out the extent of the damage to these Denison pumps after their arrival on site. 74 (two on each of the 34 skids) were installed across the three canal sites. How many were determined to have failed after they were installed in New Orleans? 3? 30? 60? Knowing that would blow a giant hole in the Corps' credibility, because it would mean that there really wasn't any capacity to begin with - and there probably still isn't any, because the reservoirs haven't been raised in order to put the kibosh on the air-induced failures.

Yes they can turn them on for a little while, but how about for six, or eight, or 12, or 24 hours? What happens when air gets in the lines and the Denison pumps fail and send their bits and pieces down the line to the Rineer motors to gobble up? What then?

Anyway, as far as the time that the real solution (raising the reservoirs) was reached, it appears to be in an email found on Adobe page 114. It was from Jim St. Germain and addressed to nearly everyone on the project. It is dated June 18, 2006 and says,

"A meeting was held with MWI to discuss weld repairs and the Denison hydraulic motor. MWI has proposed to redesign the hydraulic tank and hoses to form a flooded suction for the two Denison hydraulic pumps. MWI will raise the hydraulic fluid tank and reposition the hoses to the Denison pump. This fix should prevent air from entering the motor and eleminate [sic] the need for the priming valve. MWI will also remove the suction strainer.

The proposal says that MWI will perform the work at no cost to the Government provided Government onsite contracts load and inload the skids. They propose to take the engines skids at 17th that are not installed and the spares first and then swap engins [sic] at other sites to try to avoid pump outages. They estimate a week to do a set (6 to 10) units.

This presents some problems. First, the preliminary time frame is not going to allow completion without impacts on scheduled pump completion dates. Second, once the fencing on the engine deck and building is installed it may be difficult to remove the engines. We should immediate[ly] have MWI retrofit the engines at 17th that are not installed. Coordinate with the three contractors on swap outs to minimize impacts to buildings. Avoid any impacts to pumping capacity. Have MWI develop a plan to retrofit in place."

Well, that work never took place, at least on the original 34 pumps. The roofs were put on the buildings and the fences were erected. Somehow, the reservoirs were raised on the extra six pumps puchased long after the original 34.

This June 18, 2006 email shows that Jim St. Germain - the guy responsible for driving the project - and the manufacturer - MWI, who apparently proposed the idea - had a clear appreciation of what needed to be done. Heck, St. Germain's the author of the email. Yet it took over a year to get this work going (we're still not sure what its status is), never mind how the public was in the dark about it. Why didn't it get done? Unfortunately, the report is silent on the why's of many things, including this mystery.

And it's not like they were pulling this solution (raising the reservoirs) out of the air. Two weeks earlier, the New Orleans Corps had discussed how they didn't like the quick fix of evacuating the hydraulic lines during startup. This comes from a May 31 email from Jim Bartek to Jim St. Germain, Dan Bradley, and Steve Farkas (but oddly, not Maria Garzino, the Pump Team leader on site):

"Just a few thoughts...It appears to me that MWI is just trying to 'make it work' to get by. Everyone agrees that the Denison pumps are operating in a dry run condition. While the priming procedure described below may work as a one time or short term fix. I feel, and I think Steve agrees, it will not hold up over the long term. There will be entrained air that will percolate out and also air leaking in through the tank etc that will get trapped. They need to look more at root causes than quick fixes of the problems. This could be pump sizing or relocating the suction intake to a more suitable location. Why has this design successfully worked on other pumps but not these units?"

The priming procedure referred to by Mr. Bartek over a year ago is the same procedure under which the Corps is now operating the pumps.

Mr Bartek goes on to presciently rebut Colonel Bedey's current assertions that the field testing the Corps is doing today (turning the pumps on and then turning them off in less than hour with low water in the canals) is adequate:

"These pumps must be field tested with design water levels to ensure acceptable operation."

Like I said, this report is the gift that keeps giving. I'll be back with more analysis in future posts.

Testing, Testing

2007-06-11T15:58:00.000-05:00

Updated 6/22/0, 7/28/07, and 8/13/07. See below.

The Times-Picayune actually managed to put together a sensible article on the upcoming London Avenue canal tests this past Saturday, June 9. I say that, because it's the first time that anyone in the media or at the Corps New Orleans District has admitted the following obviousness:

"Corps officials say they don't know if the load test will provide enough information to change the safe water level and, if it doesn't, what they might suggest doing next.

[Geotechnical engineer for the Corps' St. Louis District Pat] Conroy won't even guess at the outcome.

'We reserve the right to make no prediction at all,' he said. 'We may recommend raising the water level or not changing it or even lowering it.'"

Finally! Someone at the Corps actually admitted they don't know the results of the test two months ahead of time. It's better than the near constant pablum from Bedey, Wagenaar and others that implies that the test is a formality and that the Safe Water Level will be raised to 5 feet.

The article mentions that a contract has been issued for the test. You can find the official notification of the contract award buried on page 5 of this notification.

The article didn't really have anything to say about further testing after the localized test. However, a June 2, 2007 article in Engineering News-Record about General Van Antwerp's "truth and victory" tour through New Orleans at the end of the month provides the necesary information:

"The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, one of the consolidated levee boards formed in January, has been very vocal in questioning the safety and validity of the London Avenue load test. Antwerp gave assurances that the Corps will have ample personnel on the ground to monitor the test. If the test doesn't provide enough evidence to support increasing the SWE, 'any additional testing will not be performed this hurricane season,' Bedey says."

Considering that the testing won't occur until well into hurricane season, and also considering that it took the Corps over six months just to get to the point of contract issuance, it's a guarantee there won't be any further testing.

[The link inside the quote comes from ENR's webpage. ~~Unfortunately, one must be a subscriber to get access to most of their articles. That's too bad, because they've done a ton of coverage on the London Avenue canal testing.~~ Update, 7/28/07: All the ENR articles are linked below.]

One other note: this article says that the four foot safe water level has led to shutdowns of PS#3 pumps "at least once in recent months." This is just the T-P getting snotty over my breaking news that they missed. Of course, we all know that pumps at PS#3 on the London Avenue canal have been shut down twice because of exceeding the Safe Water Level, once on December 30, 2006 (that's the one I broke, and which the T-P took days to catch up to), and once on May 4, 2007.

[Update: 6/22/07]
Today the T-P ran an article about the East Bank Levee Board (officially known as the SLFPA-E) meeting yesterday (see 8/13/07 Update below for minutes of meeting), at which the independent experts brought in the review the Corps' plans for the London Avenue canal testing presented their findings.

While the experts gave a thumbs up to the existing plans to examine the canal walls' susceptibility to gap formation, they also strongly recommended expanding the testing to look for problems with seepage:

"...Specialists brought in at the behest of levee authority members for a second opinion reported Thursday that they are even more concerned about a second potential mechanism for failure, one in which water would seep through sandy soils in the bottom of the London Avenue Canal, causing heaves or blowouts in the earthen levees on the land side of the floodwalls.

The pair told authority members on Thursday that both failure mechanisms should be examined during the same test period. "

This is smart. Seepage - contrary to the article author's totally incorrect assertion that gap formation led to both London Avenue canal breaches in Katrina - is what caused the blow out at the London Avenue South breach just north of Mirabeau Avenue. It is also suspected as a contributing failure mechanism in the London Avenue North breach. It is wise to look at seepage in this test.

However, one has to wonder why the testing plan didn't call for seepage testing to begin with, since top engineers in the Corps' New Orleans District were already citing seepage last year as a problem on London Avenue. Here's a quote from a September 12, 2006 Times-Picayune article (by the same author as the others - one has to wonder if she even reads her own clip file):

"Although most public attention since Katrina has focused on the 17th Street Canal, [Corps chief engineer Walter] Baumy said protecting the London [Avenue] canal from surge is more problematic because sand layers are closer to the surface there and seepage -- with potentially catastrophic results -- is a threat."

Also, that Corps guy Pat Conroy from St. Louis was quoted extensively in a Corps article just last June (yes, that's post-Katrina, post-IPET report release) about ... wait for it ... seepage! Here's one of those quotes:

"In fact, investigations into the occurrence and control of underseepage are a major consideration of the geotechnical design of a flood protection system"

Why wasn't control of underseepage even a factor in the Corps' testing of the London Avenue canal until outside, non-Corps experts brought it up?

I get the idea that these guys at the Corps really don't know what the hell they're doing.

Anyway, the Corps said they would incorporate the additions to the testing plan, and the SLFPA-E (that's tough to type!) approved the testing plan.
[end 6/22/07 update]

[Updated 7/28/07]
Engineering News-Record did a fabulous job in April and May covering this and other canal wall-related issues with a series of articles. They did much better than the Times-Picayune. Here they are:

Corps Wants Coffer Dam Test Nola Flood Board Wants Action - 4-12-07
Levee Board Gives Corps Conditional Permission for Levee Load Test - 4-20-07
Levee Board Holds Corps To Peer-Review Standards - 5-2-07
17th St. Canal OK Corps Says But Not So for London Ave - 5-25-07
Load Ratings of Drainage Canals Become Sore Point in New Orleans - 5-30-07

My favorite quote from these articles comes courtesy of Tom Jackson, then-president of the SLFPA-E. In the May 25th article, he says,

"'London is a problem,' says Tom Jackson, SLFPA-east president. 'Taxpayers paid for +12ft of protection and we got four,' he says. 'The whole thing about this exercise is the calculations for safety are 1.3, and they want to perform more tests to raise levels on levees that are absolute junk at best. The problem with this is this is not a storm-event-situation but every-time-it-rains situation. That’s why I keep telling them to fix the damn levees. If the peer reviewers are worth their salt, they will have the same reaction we do. Fix the damn levees.'"

Hmmm... where have I heard something like that before?

Previous posts that I've written about the London Avenue canal testing:
London Avenue canal tests, originally posted March 27, 2007
It's May in New Orleans - that means rain , originally posted May 7, 2007
Prepare for more PS#3 pump shutdowns, originally posted June 1, 2007
[end 7/28/07 update]

[Updated 8/13/07]
Here's more information about the London Avenue load test.

First, here's the minutes from the June 21, 2007 SLFPA-E meeting. That's the meeting at which official approval of the test was granted. The minutes contain all the nitty-gritty technical details of the testing plan. Since they are a primary document, they are far more informative than media reports.

Second, the Washington Post wrote about the test in its August 11, 2007 editions. The article treads much of the territory I've covered here, but it's still good for those folks in the rest of the country to get an introduction to real-time oversight of the Corps. The article by Peter Whoriskey, titled "Engineers to Test Flood Defenses In New Orleans," is here.

Finally, the Corps Hurricane Protection Office put up a "fact sheet" on its website this past Friday, August 10, 2007 (they always sneak this stuff out on Fridays). It too includes much previously reported information, with one important difference. It gives the start date of the test as Friday, August 17, 2007. It also reports the test's duration to be two weeks. The Corps fact sheet is here. Of course, in the section on "Why Test?" they don't mention that they don't have the money to actually fix the canal the way it's supposed to be.
[end 8/13/07 update]

Bombshell

2007-06-08T16:30:00.000-05:00

Updated 6/8/07 and 6/9/07, see bottom of post

The Corps internal investigation into the floodgate pumps is out. Big surprise, it comes on a Friday afternoon. But let's move past that bit of PR manipulation... The report is stunning in its breadth and depth. Things are way worse than I knew.

First off, I have to applaud General Crear (of the Corps Mississippi Valley District) for convening this team and allowing them to go as far as they did. The amount of crap this investigation uncovered is breathtaking. I know a lot of people don't like the Corps investigating themselves, but when put up against the GAO report, there's no comparison. It appears the GAO report was a total waste of time, and is pretty much useless in the scheme of things. Were I in Landrieu's office, I'd be calling on the GAO Inspector General to look into how an investigation that had to have looked at the same information the Corps did could have come up with such radically different (and obviously wrong) conclusions. We can only hope they now go back and expand their investigation, or maybe the FBI will look into things...

I never would have guessed that of the two investigations, the Corps internal one would be the one with the most shocking dirt. But that's simply the truth. The Corps independent investigative team - as well as Ms. Garzino and some of the Jacksonville District QA's and probably some others for who we'll never know names - have really tried to do the right thing here, and I salute all of them for it. This can't have been easy.

Frankly, it's easy for me to sit back and lob rhetorical bombs at the Corps and pat myself on the back (even if my neighborhood would suffer some of the worst consequences when the pumps fail). It's a lot harder to uncover this stuff from the inside, and to have to confront the fact that people to whom so much has been entrusted appear to be massively incompetent and corrupt. I've been on a few internal forensic investigations in my time. It's gut-wrenching stuff, but it is necessary, especially in this case. In fact, this case screamed for it. The folks involved in this effort deserve a ton of credit.

However, I must also take General Crear to task, because his cover letter doesn't really match the actual words in the report. He downplays the deeply, deeply serious findings on both the technical and commercial side of things. Honestly, one must look at his cover letter with a jaundiced eye, because the text of the report is very critical, but his cover memo is not. It reads more like a press release, and it even seems to contradict the report in one key respect. More about that below.

So on to my initial impressions...

1) Colonel Bedey, Jim St. Germain, and Dan Bradley have been lying to us in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish, all of the media (local and national), and the entire nation for a year, right up to and including Bedey's assurances during General Van Antwerp's "Truth & Honesty" tour last Thursday. There is a critical fix (as in, the pumps could fail without it) that needs to be applied to the drive units. The New Orleans Corps has known about it and has not performed that fix since June of 2006! I don't see how these men can keep their jobs.

2) That critical fix involves raising the hydraulic reservoirs on all 34 drive skids so that hydraulic fluid flows into the Denison hydraulic pumps without introducing air. Air is deadly to these pumps (a ton of pages in Denison's troubleshooting manual is devoted to just such problems). As a reminder, the Denison hydraulic pumps - which are supposed to raise the pressure of the hydraulic fluid to 3000 psi or more - were one of the centers of gravity that Ms. Maria Garzino was identifying as seriously flawed in her memo from May, 2006. They make numerous appearances throughout the shop inspection records as well. They were failing left and right during the factory testing.

What this report shows is that the Corps (specifically Jim St. Germain and Dan Bradley) were keenly aware of the fix as early as May, 2006, and have done nothing to implement it. There's actually a change order to do the work that's been in place since July, and it remains unfulfilled! It is a strong possibility that those Denison pumps remain at risk for failure, since the flooded suction fix has not been implemented. A temporary fix is in place (which I'm sure Colonel Bedey will try to hang his hat on), but the internal investigators eviscerate its effectiveness:

"The flooded suction intakes have only been accomplished on the new additional contracted 6 pumps, the original contracted 34 pumps have not been revised to add the flooded suction intake as was agreed upon to be revised in June 2006. MWI has only provided a vacuum type check valve for priming the suction to the Denison Hydraulic Pumps. This is only a façade in addressing the real issue and requires the operation of vacuum equipment to prime the hydraulic pumps. If the vacuum is not drawn properly, then the pumps will aerate and create irreversible damage to the components of the pumps. The bilateral contract modification to change the intakes to a flooded suction at no cost to the Government has been in place since 12 July 2006 and has not been accomplished as of this date on any of the original 34 pumps."

Yeah, that's right. MWI and the Corps were so aware of the problem that they implemented it on the six extra pumps at 17th Street, but never bothered to retrofit the other 34, leaving them in the same danger of failure that they've been in since they left the factory.

So according to the report (dated May 11, 2007), this flooded suction inlet work has yet to happen. Oddly, General Crear's cover letter (dated June 4, 2007, or four days ago) says the following:

"...Work is currently underway to modify the plumbing so that the hydraulic pumps can never experience a 'dry start up condition'"

Either way, the work has waited for over a year. Why should we trust them? They lied to us for a year by not even mentioning a critical flaw in the pumping systems, let along not mentioning they weren't implementing their own agreed-upon fix.

I'd like to mention a couple of other things about Crear's cover letter. The report itself mentions the following ten problems on the technical side of things:

1) Lack of flooded suction inlet on Denison pumps

2) Unreliable hydraulic piping

3) Lack of automatic clutch on drive units (a clutch would allow for true unloaded starting)

4) There are still welds that need to be checked (only critical ones have been fixed, and it was at government expense)

5) Lack of confidence in flange bolts (the flanges might not be able to hold the weight of the pumps)

6) Inlet strainers should be removed on drive units

7) Installation of hydraulic cones at London Avenue & Orleans Avenue

8) Lack of hydraulic monitoring device on drive units

9) The flowmeters are unreliable

10) MWI still hasn't supplied certified information, over a year after the scheduled end of their contract.

General Crear, in his cover letter, only mentions TWO of these ten items (flooded suction inlets and welds), and even then in a tangential fashion. He gives absolutely no indication that the remaining eight recommendations will be implemented, or even if they will be acknowledged as problems.

In fact, other than his cryptic mention of work on the drive unit "plumbing," the only action he says he will implement is formation of a team to bring the contract file up to date (as if the contracting improprieties enumerated in the report are simple clerical errors, not misappropriation of millions of dollars). No other actual actions are mentioned in his letter. He even has the gall to say the pumps "are working well." I doubt it.

Let me put my doubt about that this way: if you were in the Tour de France, a grueling 21 day, 2000 mile race, would you consider a brief toodle around the Champs Elysses the day before the race enough of a test for your body and your bike? No. You'd train over the actual course for months beforehand, maybe even climb L'Alpe D'huez a couple of times. Well, the 45 minute pump tests the New Orleans District has run are the equivalent of that toodle around the Champs Elysses. We still have no idea how they will perform in Hurricane L'Alpe D'Huez. If the investigative report is any indication, I'd say the answer is "not good."

By the way, the rusty pipes come in for it too in this report. The report basically says they can't be trusted and need to be seriously examined from stem to stern. That's 17,000 feet of pipe they're talking about.

3) The Corps' New Orleans District's contract administration has been a travesty - perhaps even criminal - and there appears to have been an active effort to cover that up. MWI was writing change orders - including prices - and the Corps was sending them back to MWI with a bow on them. Duplicate payments have been made to MWI. There appears to be no written justification for most of the payments. There appear to be millions of dollars unaccounted for. Cynthia Nicholas, the Contract Officer on this job, has to be squirming today. One has to wonder about the 50 or so other Task Force Guardian contracts administered by the New Orleans District, some of which were much bigger than this one, and how much "impropriety" there was in them. Where have our tax dollars gone?

4) Curiously, there are no names named in the body of the report. But it is obvious who is on the hook, from the emails that are attached: Corps New Orleans District engineers Jim St. Germain (mechanical) and Dan Bradley (electrical). They need to be hung out to dry, as well as their boss, Col. Bedey. After reading this report, there is absolutly no way these folks should be trusted with fixing a bicycle pump, let alone pumps upon which tens of thousands of people are depending for protection of life and property. When it comes to the New Orleans District and the Hurricane Protection Office, houses need to be cleaned, grand juries empaneled, and perp walks televised.

5) A cursory investigation was performed last May in the immediate aftermath of Ms. Garzino's memo. It was called the "Farkas" investigation, after the guy who led it. It apparently didn't even involve Ms. Garzino, it took MWI's answers to its questions on faith and hardly anything came of it. There is an extensive section in the new report which rebuts most of MWI's responses and (implicitly) calls the Farkas investigation and those that received it (who were also in on the investigation) to task for not following up strongly enough. The Farkas investigation appears to have been a sham from the start, and its lack of enthusiastic follow-up from those most closely involved (Messrs. St. Germain, Bradley, & Bedey) points to a cover-up. At the very least, there was a shocking lack of honesty with the public.

6) Colonel Bedey has been tasked with implementing the recommendations of the report. But he's the guy under which all this crap happened, so why in the world should he be trusted? It's nuts. Through his inaction, he has shattered the relationship between the region and the Corps, a relationship which was already severely damaged. One has to be wondering what his, St. Germain's and Bradley's motivations have been for the last year in not performing the critical fix which would actually make the pumps run properly for the amount of time they need to run (12 to 24 hours in hurricane conditions).

7) Finally, one of the most important things on this report is its date. Why in the world are we only hearing about these problems now, over a year after they were initially identified? Does anyone really understand the massive breach of trust this evidences? It's concrete proof that the Corps New Orleans District and the Hurricane Protection Office has withheld, dissembled, and flat out lied to almost everyone, including the Corps' independent investigators.

These issues were very clearly evinced last April and May. Confronted with them, there should be evidence of New Orleans Corps folks moving heaven and earth, but instead there appears to be mostly improprieties and squandering of opportunities. Why did it take General Crear four months to start an investigation? Why has the investigation - by an agency which knows itself better than any outside body - taken over nine months to finally wend its way out to the public? And most importantly, how in the world could there still be critical work to be done, this long after the problems were identified?

Obviously, I'll be writing a lot more about this in the coming days, but let me leave you with this. It appears there have been a few guardian angels inside the Corps watching over New Orleans. Ironically, it appears none of them actually work in New Orleans. The Corps is not some massively evil monolith. It is made up of thousands of people trying to do their jobs. But there are also some bad apples. And it appears we've got them running our work. How this situation has festered for so long, I'll never understand.

Update: Senator Mary Landrieu has called for further investigation. She's asked the Justice Department to look into the contracting administration irregularities, and she's told the GAO to go beyond what they put out a couple of weeks ago.

News coverage of the report release:
WWL-TV (video from 6 PM news): Report says flaws still exist in outfall pumps
Times-Picayune (inexplicably not on the front page, instead buried on the front of the Metro section): Landrieu asks Feds to probe pumps
Engineering News-Record: Internal Corps Report Cites Procurement Flaws
Baton Rouge Advocate: Landrieu calls for review of contract
AP: Corps report casts new doubt on reliability of New Orleans pumps
Fox 8 has not put up a print version of their story

I feel I need to write a little bit about how the Corps played possum with the release of this report. The chronology is important, in order to gain an insight into how these people think.

May 11: The report itself was done.

May 24: The report was "released," according to the cover page, but one has to wonder what that really means, since the public didn't see it until June 8, 2007.

May 25: The national media started arriving in New Orleans to start putting together stories for the start of hurricane season.

May 29-31: General Van Antwerp visited New Orleans and had a big, whoop-te-doo, "We're going to tell the truth, no matter what" press conference at the 17th Street floodgates on May 31. Every news organization in town was there. Joining Van Antwerp at that press conference were (from the Times-Picayune's coverage of the press conference):

"Brig. Gen. Robert Crear, who directs the corps' Mississippi Valley Division in Vicksburg, Miss.; Col. Richard Wagenaar, outgoing commander of the New Orleans District office; and Col. Jeff Bedey, commander of the Hurricane Protection Office in New Orleans."

The Corps actually inconvenienced its own contractors that day by forbidding them from parking their cars all day on the section of the Old Hammond Highway bridge where the presser took place. The press conference took place at 4 PM, but no one could park there all day long.

Also notable about the May 31 press conference: there were a lot of other Corps folks there besides the brass described above. Those were just the ones arrayed behind Van Antwerp during his comments. In the substantial crowd of Corps folks was Jim St. Germain, as seen below.

According to reporters at the press conference, Van Antwerp actually singled St. Germain out as a guy he'd be talking to a lot because he's responsible for the pumps. Oddly, St. Germain didn't show up for the press availability yesterday that bears directly upon that responsibility. That matters.

June 1: Hurricane season started. National media starts heading home.

Monday, June 4: General Crear (or more likely one of his staff, possibly in coordination with Public Affairs) finished his cover letter (it is stamped June 4, 2007)

Thursday, June 7: After repeated inquiries all week, only local reporters are emailed the report. Many public officials are not given a copy. The reporters are told not to report on it until after 2 PM Friday - a so-called "embargo."

Friday, June 8: Early in the morning, public officials at all levels of government receive the report, but not from the Corps.

Friday, June 8: Early in the afternoon, far from the 17th Street canal and its photogenic backgrounds (where TV stations could actually point their cameras at the hydraulic reservoirs that have yet to be raised and easily compare them to the ones that were) - in a conference room at the Corps' building on Leake Avenue, the Corps holds an invitation-only round table to release the report. Colonel Bedey and Task Force Hope head Karen Durham-Aguilera are in the room, while General Crear joins by phone. Walter Baumy, a top engineer for the Corps and former Wheeler Medal winnner, is in the room, but sits to the side.

Six reporters are in the room. They represent the AP, the Baton Rouge Advocate, WWL-TV, Fox 8 (TV), the Times-Picayune, and Engineer News-Record (an industry organ, which has turned up some good reporting, but is still mainly funded through advertisements from the construction & engineering industry). No reporters, other than from the AP, represent national organizations. Two of the local TV stations - WDSU and WGNO - are not in the room. None of the investigators on the report are made available to the press. Ms. Garzino, the one responsible for kicking all this off, is not made available. None of the Corps New Orleans District prime actors (Jim St. Germain, Dan Bradley, or Cynthia Nicholas) are in the room. Notably - in what can only be expressed as a sign of no confidence - no one from MWI is made available to defend their product.

By the way, its very notable that the report does not appear on any Corps websites. Not New Orleans District, not Hurricane Protection Office, not Mississippi Valley Division, not Corps Headquarters, not the Army. These cowards are afraid to post their own report. That hardly seems like the soldierly, honorable, truthful way to do things.

Let's also take a look at the Corps' efforts at stagecraft, because the visuals are just as important as what they say. Here's General Van Antwerp's very public (cars were driving by the whole time on the bridge behind the media) little victory dance on May 31 (courtesy the Times-Picayune):

And here's the Corps literally in their bunker on June 8 (from WWL's report):

That's Col. Bedey on the left and Task Force Hope head Durham-Aguilera on the right. Baumy's in the white shirt on the extreme right. The other folks are the reporters.

These things matter. The Corps New Orleans District (and apparently Task Force Hope, since Durham-Aguilera is right there next to Bedey propping up his dissembling) is desperate to control this story by minimizing the number of folks who are allowed to speak about it, as well as minimizing the number of reporters who could ask questions. They want to put their best face forward and avoid letting the truth out. If they were so concerned about truth and integrity and leveling with the people, why all the manipulation of the media? The answer is they are not concerned with any of the above. They are concerned with saving their own skin. That's going to be a lot harder with the Justice Department breathing down their necks.

Radios

2007-06-07T10:06:00.000-05:00

A little election-driven spat has been going between Orleans and Jefferson Parishes for the last few weeks. Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, the man who sent JP's pump operators 100 miles away during Katrina - causing millions of dollars of damages when those pumps didn't run (there was no provision for remote operation) - wants the Corps to run PS#6 on the 17th Street canal if the gates drop. Orleans Parish's Sewerage & Water Board (S&WB), which has owned and operated PS#6 since it was built over 100 years ago, is obviously opposed.

Broussard's made a lot of noise and even complained to the governor. He's up for reelection this fall. As a result of his complaint to the governor, a meeting was held yesterday. The Times-Picayune reports on it today.

But first, let me remind you of part of my May 11 post, in which I was writing about the Corps communication plan (and the Times-Picayune's coverage thereof):

"Also missed in all the glorification of the Corps' communications plan is this actual quote from the Manual:

'One Corps of Engineers radio will be furnished to the S&WB for communications in addition to having the Canal Captains stationed at their respective S&WB pump stations.'

Yep, that's right: the agency in charge of pumping gets all the benefits of a single radio to communicate with the Corps."

Thankfully, this has now been rectified. According to today's Times-Picayune (in an article with no attribution other than "East Jefferson Bureau"):

"The Army Corps of Engineers agreed Wednesday to place two-way radios in pump stations along the 17th Street Canal to coordinate drainage into the waterway when the corps closes its floodgate for a hurricane, Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard said.

The radios, Broussard said, will allow corps officials at the gate to instruct pump operators at three stations on shutting down their pumps. The goal is to keep water in the canal from overflowing into nearby neighborhoods.

The move came as a small compromise to Broussard's request that the corps take formal control of the pumping stations -- one owned by Jefferson and two by the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board -- during a gate closure."

This was a massive hole in the communications plan that everyone (including the Times-Picayune) had ignored until now. I'm glad to see it plugged. It's too bad it took over a year, but I guess you take successes where you can get them.

The legal agreement which governs who operates PS#6 (as well as a bunch of other things about the floodgates) is called Supplemental Agreement 2A. It was signed by the Corps, the Orleans Levee District, the East Jefferson Levee District, Jefferson Parish, and the City of New Orleans in late December. It lays out responsibility for operation of PS#6 (which is owned by Orleans), giving it (of course) to the S&WB in paragraph VI:

"The Sewerage and Water Board shall ... operate and maintain approach channels, drainage structures, drainage ditches, or canals under the control or within the geographical jurisdiction of the Parish of Orleans"

Supplemental Agreement 2A was part of the third revision of the legal framework delineating the responsibilities of each governmental body involved with the floodgates. That framework is called a Cooperative Agreement (or "CA"). Thanks to a FOIA request, I got the original and the two subsequent Supplemental Agreements ("SA") posted to the IPET website:

Original CA (October, 2005, covers all three canals)
SA 1 (January, 2006, covers only London Ave. & Orleans Ave. canals)
SA 1A (December, 2006, covers only London Ave. & Orleans Ave. canals)
SA 2 (January, 2006, covers only 17th Street canal)
SA 2A (December, 2006, covers only 17th Street canal)

The agreement was split up in order to recognize that Jefferson Parish only has an interest in the 17th Street canal, not London or Orleans.

SA 1A and SA 2A both make revisions in the language to the January agreements which reflect all the changes to the PIR's during 2006. SA 2A also clarifies the language regarding operation of the drainage pumping stations. There are other changes that I don't quite understand because I'm not a lawyer.

Should Pres. Broussard continue to attempt to get the Corps into PS#6 (an extremely unlikely event), it is SA 2A which will have to be renegotiated. Given Orleans Parish's (which includes the S&WB) status as a co-equal party to the agreement, as well as the S&WB's strongly stated opposition to any relinquishment of control of PS#6 (and the I-10 station), this renegotiation has a possibility of success that can be termed beyond remote.

Internal investigation release delayed further?

2007-06-06T15:15:00.000-05:00

I recently spoke with a very well placed Corps of Engineers official in Vicksburg. The official told me the following:

- the release of the report on the internal investigation into the floodgate pumps may be delayed into next week, due partially to the fact that General Crear is out of the office all this week. However, it might also make it out this week.

- when it is released, it will be released in its entirety and to the public.

- the exact form of the release is has not yet been decided (i.e. will it go out on the internet, or will folks have to put in requests for it through Public Affairs, or what?). My personal feeling is they should just upload the entire thing to http://www.mvd.usace.army.mil and just let it go at that.

Fun with FOIA

2007-06-04T00:45:00.000-05:00

In advance of this week's release of the Corps' internal investigation into the problems with the floodgate pumps, I thought it would be helpful for the public to have as much information as possible.

Therefore, below you will find every shop inspection record I have received through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. The shop inspection records were created by members of the Corps' Jacksonville District during their Quality Assurance (QA) efforts at MWI's facilities in Deerfield Beach, FL and Vero Beach, FL between March and May of 2006. They are the most comprehensive record we have of what happened as the pumps and drive units were assembled and tested in MWI's facility.

Some of these records were appended by Maria Garzino to her May 4, 2006 memo. However, the rest of them have not been publicly released before now. I obtained them through a FOIA request of every Shop Inspection made by Jacksonville personnel during their time at MWI's facilities.

They are a treasure trove of information, especially the pictures, none of which have been seen publicly before now. For anyone who wishes to understand the pumps, these records are required reading.

My personal favorite page comes from the April 25, 2006 report:

The top picture shows the testing warehouse in Deerfield Beach, about a month after the fire. As you can see, there was hardly any building left (no roof!). MWI attached the bridge crane to the fire-damaged steel of the building.

The bottom picture shows what is supposed to be clear water. Its actually the oatmeal-like goop that resulted from the numerous hydraulic fluid leaks during testing that are documented in the reports. The fluid and the water emulsified into something that just looks gross, never mind that it makes one wonder about how effective it was to test the pumps putting that stuff through them.

By the way, the Corps "released" the April 25th report previously in draft form. It was attached to Ms. Garzino's memo. Here's how the picture of the oatmeal looked in that release:

This is why it's important to get everything possible, and to keep asking for it. Otherwise, the Corps New Orleans District just releases the bare minimum, and hopes people are satisfied. It's always a game with these folks.

The reports are below.

(New) March 8, 2006
(New) March 17, 2006
(New) March 21, 2006
(New) April 3, 2006
(New) April 8, 2006
(Previously released as draft, final version withheld by Corps) April 10, 2006
(Previously released as draft, final version withheld by Corps) April 11, 2006
(Previously released as draft, final version withheld by Corps) April 12, 2006
(Previously released as draft, final version withheld by Corps) April 13, 2006
(Previously released as draft, final version withheld by Corps) April 14, 2006
(Previously released as draft, final version withheld by Corps) April 15 & 17, 2006
(Previously released as draft, final version withheld by Corps) April 18, 2006
(Previously released as draft, final version withheld by Corps) April 19 & 20, 2006
(Previously released as draft, final version withheld by Corps) April 21, 2006
(Previously released as draft, final version withheld by Corps) April 22, 2006
(New) April 23, 2006
(New) April 24, 2006
(New, because it is the final version, with color pictures) April 25, 2006
(New, because it is the final version, with color pictures) April 26, 2006
(New, because it is the final version) April 27, 2006
(New) April 28, 2006
(New) April 29, 2006
(New) April 30, 2006
(New) May 1, 2006
(New) May 2, 2006
(New) May 3, 2006
(New) May 4, 2006
(New) May 5, 2006
(New) May 6, 2006
(New) May 8, 2006
(New) May 10, 2006
(New) May 11, 2006
(New) May 12, 2006
(New) May 13 through 17, 2006

Prepare for more PS#3 pump shutdowns

2007-06-01T13:45:00.000-05:00

[Updated 7/28/07, see below]

[For the latest on London Avenue canal testing, see my June 11, 2007 post, "Testing, testing." It has been updated quite often.]

I like when reporters take advantage of opportunities. It looks like the Times-Picayune's Mark Schleifstein did so by chatting up Colonel Bedey at yesterday's press conference for General Van Antwerp. To the Corps' disappointment, he apparently didn't ask, "Isn't General Van Antwerp the dreamiest?" It looks like what he did ask was, "What's the latest on the London Avenue canal testing?" Here's what he wrote:

"Bedey said the corps will delay until August a planned test of a 150-foot section of the London Avenue Canal wall to determine whether the water level there can be raised 1 foot. Another corps official said the delay resulted from high bids received for the testing contract."

Notice that it seems Schleifstein had to go to someone other than Bedey to find out the reason the testing is further delayed. Further, that other person seemingly didn't want their name used in print. It's a tiny but telling example of how the Corps struggles on a daily basis to keep the message upbeat and suppress bad or embarrassing news. It's ironic this appears in an article about General Van Antwerp's press conference, at which he hammered home his commitment to telling the truth to New Orleans no matter what.

Anyway, the New Orleans District blew their budget and their schedule (remember that this testing was supposed to be complete by now). And the testing and analysis will not be complete this hurricane season. I say that because even if they finish the testing on August 1, there's no way they and their contractors could get reliable results out of the field testing in a matter of days - it would likely take weeks of number-crunching.

So the upshot is that the London Avenue canal Safe Water Level will very likely stay at 4 feet through this hurricane season. That's just great. Whenever it comes up again, watch for the Corps to kind of toss it off like it's just a fact of life they can't do a thing about. In fact, if heaven and earth needed to be moved, they could drive sheet piles around the weak section(s) to seal it (them) off.

The quote above was follow-up to Schleifstein's article in the May 31st paper, which said,

"The corps also has struggled to strengthen walls along the London Avenue Canal enough to test whether higher water levels can be allowed in that canal during hurricane season. Delays in completion of that work could delay tests of the walls until late July, just before the height of hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico.

If successful, the safe water level in the canal could be raised to 5 feet, which means more storage of rainfall if the gate at the end of the canal must be closed during a tropical storm or hurricane."

I do have one complaint about the standard Corps line on this testing. They say they are doing it to determine if the safe water level can go up. It bothers me that they never mention the possibility that it could go down. It further bothers me that the local media doesn't call them on it, enabling the Corps to bamboozle the public.

Statements like that introduce legitimate worries of bias into how the Corps is doing things. Are they pre-judging the results of the testing before they're complete? Fortunately, the East Bank superlevee board is looking over the Corps' shoulders in an independent fashion on this one.

Finally, I have to issue a correction on this matter. On May 11th I took WWL-TV to task over a May 10th report that Lee Zurik filed about the London Avenue canal testing. At that time, I said WWL showed the wrong location for the testing. I was wrong. The testing is planned for an area on the east side of the canal just south of Robert E. Lee, not south of Mirabeau. I had been proceeding on a false assumption - based on conversations with Corps and other officials - that the weak section at Mirabeau would be the testing location. That was a mistake that I should have caught even earlier than now, because the location had already been mentioned twice, once on March 24, 2007 and again on April 20, 2007 by the Times-Picayune. The April 20th article gave the location as,

"The test calls for slowly increasing the level of water against a 150-foot-wide section of the floodwall on the canal's eastern bank, just south of Burbank Street on Warrington Drive."

Burbank Drive is just south of Robert E. Lee, not Mirabeau. You can see the approximate location here.

I regret the error.

[Update 7/28/07]
See my June 11, 2007 post, "Testing, testing," for the most up to date information on the London Avenue canal testing. The Engineering News-Record articles linked there are far better than the Times-Picayune's coverage.
[end update]