Bricks, rebar, huge rocks inside the 17th Street canal levees (which is no surprise)

The photos showing the unearthing of massive amounts of unsuitable debris from the outfall canal levees this spring and summer bring into stark relief the true nature of flood protection in the greater New Orleans area. By the Corps' own standards, a deeply inadequate system remains in place - a system which under current design and construction guidelines would never get built today. We know this - not by having to plumb endless internal emails or looking through musty, decades-old records - but by simply comparing today's pictures to the records of the last 17th Street canal remediation project conducted just three years ago.

A new round of photos of the Corps of Engineers' 17th Street canal work site taken in late June detail more fully the debris that was piled into the 17th Street canal levees years ago:

Bricks and rebar:

...which we can see after moving closer to the area in red:

Bricks and large rocks:

...which are visible after zooming into the area in red:

None of this should come as a surprise, since the same junk was pulled out the levees a bit north of this year's work site three years ago during the first round of remediation (which I wrote about in 2012). That project offers insights applicable to this year's project.

Extensive "unsuitable" material found inside 17th Street canal levees in 2011

The 2011 17th Street canal remediation project consisted mostly of deep soil mixing of grout with existing soil to improve the strength of the soil along both east and west banks of the canal. Columns of dirt below the base of the levees were mixed with injected grout down to -20 to -40 feet. The contractor had to excavate a few feet off the top of the levee to give a flat platform on which to mount the drilling rigs and other work equipment. Here's the generic cross-sectional detail from the project issued-for-construction drawings showing this:

The excavated material is shown with the single hatching on top of the levee. It was expected to be reused as backfill for the same area at the completion of the project. That's not what happened.

Right from the start and throughout the entire 2011 project, the Corps' contractors continually found the levees on both sides of the canal were riddled with, shall we say, non-dirt objects. The greatest concentration appears to have been on the west - or Jefferson Parish - side. On the very first day of construction on the west bank (March 7, 2011, which was also Lundi Gras), the contractor dug into the levee near the intersection of Orpheum and Rosebud. The contractor's Quality Control report (all reports from the 2011 project are linked from this post) for that day said:

"Visually inspected the construction of the West Bank production pad. Material removed from the existing levee between stations 588+00 and 590+00 contained significant debris (rocks, concrete, bricks, shells, asphalt). Informed Bill and Derrick [Corps employees Bill Richardson and Derrick Parker] and they came over to look. We asked they to determine if this would be considered "unsuitable" to reuse in the construct of the levee"

Four days later, March 11th, a decision was made on this "significant debris:"

"Got a verbal answer from [Corps employee] Bill Richardson concerning the 'unsuitable material' encountered during the excavation of the West Bank platform. We are to excavate to the required depth to build the production platform only. All excavated material will be hauled offsite and replaced with suitable clay material from the Bonnet Carre borrow pit."

The 2011 project involved excavating the top of the west bank of the canal from Georgia Court to the Old Hammond Highway bridge, a distance of 3/4's of a mile. Thus, this statement implicitly said that the entire levee along that stretch  - at least as deep as the Corps wished to dig but no deeper - was made of dirt not suitable for levee construction:

The Corps' wink-and-a-nod instruction ("excavate to the required depth to build the production platform only") indicated they believed the rest of the levee was similarly riddled, but didn't want to bother dealing with it. That means there's likely still junk in the 17th Street canal levee today, just further down than where the 2011 project dug. Returning to the detail from the drawings, we can see this graphically:

Two weeks after the implicit acknowledgement of the unsuitability of the west side levees, the contractor made it explicit. In the March 24, 2011 Quality Control report they reported on excavation of the west bank levee along Orpheum between Chestnut and West Esplanade:

"Excavation (degrading/construction of production platform) on West side of canal today from station 581+80 to 579+00 to an elevation of +1.8 to +1.5'. All degraded material was hauled to laydown area on the East side of the canal. Material was considered unsuitable by USACE and will be stockpiled in laydown area on east side of the canal. The material will then be spread throughout the laydown yard at the end of the project per USACE direction."

As I noted when I wrote about this in 2012, at least the Corps didn't try to reuse this junk dirt. But they also didn't bother to tell the public and their government representatives in any meaningful fashion there were "rocks, concrete, bricks, shells, and asphalt" inside 3/4's of a mile of 17th Street canal levee that had been there since it was built decades ago. Or that such debris would remain within the levees even after the project was completed. They just proceeded to conduct business as usual, like it was a normal thing to discover - six years after the fatal failure of their levees - that the levees along the 17th Street canal were built out of trash. Day after day for months, they hauled dirt off the Jefferson Parish levee across the canal to their laydown yard on Bellaire Avenue along the east bank of the canal - in front of the 2005 New Orleans breach location - and told no one in the public the extent of the problem. Some of that bad dirt was spread out at the laydown yard during the summer, 2011 and literally buried under grass. The rest of it, including some stuff too big to be buried, was trucked offsite. The August 23, 2011 quality control report describes this disposition:

"East side of the canal - Spreading unsuitable material in laydown yard per USACE's direction. Large debris is being removed and stockpiled to be hauled off at later date."

Fortunately, three years later during another project involving digging into the Jefferson Parish side of the canal, we have pictures showing us just how poorly these levees were constructed - and indicating how much junk remains inside them today, so there's no way this information can be buried or hauled away again.

Debris so huge it couldn't be removed in 2011, or ever

Some of the junk was so huge in 2011 it couldn't even be moved out of the levee. An extreme example of this was documented by the contractor logs starting on March 25, 2011. That day, there came discovery of a very large concrete "object" just below the west bank levee near the intersection of Orpheum and West Esplanade. From the contractor's quality control report:

"During the construction of the production platform on the west side of the canal, a large concrete structure was exposed at approximately station 577+80. CKY excavated around object to try and see the size of the object and how to remove object. The size of the concrete object was found to be approximately 20'x13' with rebar protruding out of the concrete. Object was unable to be removed. USACE was contacted about the object and pictures were taken. GPS was used to mark the location of the object. The USACE will be asked in an RFI [request for information] if only elements ABC can be installed at this location due to the large concrete object."

The Corps quality assurance report has a little more detail:

"The concrete footing is quote [sic] thick, it could exceed 2 feet. The footing consists of spread footings that cover the area between stations 577+81.5 and 577+90.5. The depth, below levee grade, is near the elevation of the adjacent road."

That's right: a room sized chunk of concrete buried under the levee that didn't get discovered until the levee was dug out. This was so huge that even the Corps owned up to it, taking pictures two months later when they dealt with the thing:

This mass of concrete was in an area that had been extensively explored by Corps test borings. No fewer than 11 test bores and cone penetrometer tests had been drilled into the levee within 200 feet of this location, 10 of them since the 2005 levee failures, as seen on this detail:

One must ask how such a giant chunk of concrete could be unearthed as a surprise. It also raises the obvious question about the quality of the information gleaned from the test bores and other exploratory drilling the Corps does before a project.

In this particular case, the obstruction was so huge they actually left it in place. After covering it back up in March, they went back in late May. They uncovered the obstruction and then backfilled and compacted the affected area between May 24, 2011 and June 1, 2011. Presumably some work crew 20 years in the future will dig it out again.

Comparing the 2014 project to the 2011 project

Going back and reviewing all the records from the 2011 project has given me a little different perspective on what we can see in the 2014 project photos. During the 2011 project, all the construction on the levee was done with dirt from the levee. This included building of platforms and ramps - things occurring right now during the 2014 project. Clean dirt was not brought into the site in 2011 until all substantial work was completed. I have no reason to think the 2014 project is proceeding any differently.

So unlike what I wrote a couple of weeks back, I now believe that all the soil currently piled up on the levee came out the levee, including the stuff near the base that is acting as a "road" for the crane. This means giant boulders are also coming out of the levee, not just chunks of concrete, brick, and pieces of rebar. Here's a couple of the pictures from my prior entry, relabeled to include that conclusion:

In comparing the progress of the 2014 and 2011 projects, what do we make of the fact the Corps started removing bad dirt from the site within days of unearthing it in 2011, but the junk has remained on the levee for weeks in 2014? Some of the reason might simply be how this year's site is set up. The dirt at the bottom of the levee this year remains in use for access to the entire site, with only a single point of entry or exit for heavy equipment at the south end of the site. The crane using the platform at the levee bottom is needed for the entire duration of the project, which has not been completed yet (the contractor is moving from south to north). So the bad dirt making up the platform  probably can't be removed until all the sheet piling has been placed.

Debris throughout the entire 17th Street canal west side levees?

However, the logistics of this year's project are not nearly as important as the larger point: everywhere the inside of the 17th Street canal west side levee has been revealed - whether in 2011 or this year - massive amounts of debris have been found. And even more troubling, there are very long stretches which remain untouched:

Given the shallow depth it was found in 2011 and 2014, it makes sense some of the debris was part of the I-wall and levee construction in the early 1990's. That work did involve placement of dirt on top of the existing levees at the time. It extended the entire length of the canal (all the yellow and red lines shown above). Other, deeper debris has likely been there far longer. The records of nearly every soil boring taken in 1981 along the west bank - long before the I-walls were put in - have numerous mentions of shells, wood, bricks, and other "miscellaneous fill." Those records were used in the basis of design for the Corps' early 1990's work. This junk has been known to the Corps for a very, very long time. It also very likely extends the entire length of the canal on at least the Jefferson Parish side.

How it got there doesn't really matter now though, because all the junk is still there today, and the integrity of the outfall canals remains the responsibility of the Corps. As the decision recorded in the contractor quality control log of March 11, 2011 indicates, there is no way the 17th Street canal west bank levees would be built today with the debris-riddled dirt that is currently sitting in them. That dirt is - according to the Corps - "unsuitable." Yet there the levees sit.

Thus, this is what the Corps considers the recipe for sufficient levees along possibly the most well known stretch of levee in the nation:

These levees do not care what water presses against them - storm surge or rainwater. Thus it make no difference that the outlets of the outfall canals are "protected" by gates now. These levees still see pressure from stormwater during major rainfall events. One must wonder what local government officials and Corps personnel living behind these levees think seeing the true condition of the Corps' flood protection.

Hidden in plain sight

[Update, 7/7/14: Based on photos taken after this post was published, and a review of the records of the 2011 17th Street canal remediation project, revisions have been made to this post. It is now believed the large rocks seen at the base of the 17th Street canal west side levee in photos taken June 15, 2014 did indeed come from within the levee. Text and photo captions have been adjusted accordingly. Further details and analysis are available at subsequent Fix the Pumps post published July 6, 2014.]

Unreported by anyone, the Corps has begun major work along two outfall canals in New Orleans in the last month. Very long sheet pile is being driven on the 17th Street and London Avenue canals, and rock is going to be placed at the base of the levees inside the canals starting in June or July. These are the same outfall canals that breached in three places in 2005 due to poor design. The ensuing floods of New Orleans devastated hundreds of thousands of lives throughout the greater New Orleans area and beyond.

The Corps' irrational need for secrecy about any work along the outfall canals is long known, but their actually beginning structural work without any public pronouncements, press releases, or whispers in the ears of the mainstream media is unprecedented, especially considering the scale of the work - which is extensive. I think they would rather nobody paid any more attention. But attention should be paid to work at the sites of the cause of the worst engineering disaster in American history.

The work underway already is for seepage control due to existing sheet piling being too short. Seepage happens when water works its way through sand below the bottoms of the I-walls along the canals. Should that water then percolate upward through the land-side (the side where people  live) soils, the levee and I-wall can fail. This was the primary mode of failure for the south breach of the London Avenue canal following the 2005 passage of Katrina dozens of miles to the east.

Problems have emerged just weeks into the project, as the soil being dug out of the levees appears to be packed with unacceptable debris like rocks and chunks of concrete. The Corps' own specifications forbid such debris in a levee since it decreases the strength of the soil. However, they have shown they are willing to ignore such specifications during many previous projects both before and since 2005, including a round of projects on all three outfall canals in 2011.

Those 2011 projects included similar seepage remediation work to this present project along the London Avenue canal and the Orleans Avenue canal. The 2011 17th Street project remediated against different modes of failure than seepage, and thus included different technologies than sheet piling.

For calculation purposes, the Corps and their consultants have broken each side of each canal into individual "reaches," based on differing soil and canal bottom conditions. The reaches are numbered sequentially, starting at the south end of the west side of each canal and finishing at the north end of the east side of each canal.

Here's the locations previously remediated along the London Avenue canal in 2011:

And here's the new locations in the 2014 project:

As you can see from the above map, after they are done with this round at London Avenue, nearly the entire canal north of Mirabeau will have had sheet piling placed outside the existing, too-short piling. It points up how poorly the I-walls were designed the first time around, and how inevitable their failure was.

The contract - which includes work at both the London Avenue and 17th Street sites - was awarded February 28, 2014 to Conquistador Dorado JV (aka Dorado Services) out of Sanford, Florida. There are indications Cycle Construction in Kenner is the local partner in the joint venture. The contract - actually a task order on a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) contract awarded to a pool of four companies -  is worth $13,642,238.50 and is scheduled to be completed October 30, 2014, meaning construction will proceed throughout the 2014 hurricane season. Construction along the London Avenue canal started in late May with Reach 12, just north of Filmore Avenue on the west side of the canal.

I have had interested neighbors photographing the work as it proceeds. This photo is from what I believe was the first day piles were driven at the London Avenue canal site, May 29, 2014:

Sheet piling is being driven down to clay approximately 55 feet below sea level. The new sheet piling is being driven a few feet to the protected side of the existing I-wall. The existing sheet piling inside the I-walls goes down to sand about 15 feet below sea level. The Corps is using a pile pressing machine rather than a standard pile driving hammer. The pile presser supposedly creates fewer vibrations and is quieter. It's a machine they've used extensively in the dense urban environment of New Orleans and its surrounding metro area, especially where space is at a premium:

Here's piling being placed the following day:

To make room for the pile presser, the top couple of feet of levee soil next to the I-walls will be stripped off to make a level surface and the dirt stockpiled on the levee itself. Here's the excavators at the London Avenue site:

The sheet piling machine travels along the newly flat section and presses the piling in. This June 6, 2014 photo shows the first few linear feet of piling already driven:

Afterward, the soil will be placed back on top of the piling and grass will be planted. This was done at adjacent Reach 13 in 2011.

If we move closer to the stockpiled soil, details emerge. Worrisome details:

Here's enlargements of the photo above:

All the white bits are broken concrete. This next photo shows it best:

Here's the concrete debris highlighted:

The dirt coming out of the levee is absolutely shot through with the stuff. That's bad. Having debris like concrete in the clay decreases its strength because it cannot compact properly. Finding debris in these levees is not a surprise, since it was reported on either side of this stretch during the 2011 London Avenue project as well:

It is one thing to read about it months afterward, and another thing altogether to have pictures of it happening live.

After receiving the pictures of the London site, I asked for pictures of the 17th Street site. Based on those pictures - taken on June 15th, I believe the story is much the same.

The site location on the 17th Street canal is on the west side, just south of I-10:

It is reach 16, which I wrote about extensively 3 years ago. At that time, the Corps was considering placing dirt at the base of the levee on the protected side (outside) of the canal to prevent failure from underseepage. The idea was to provide enough weight on the landside to resist the upward motion of underseeping water. It's an indirect, cheaper way of addressing seepage, as opposed to the direct solution of cutting off the seepage with sheetpile driven into the clay below the sand. It's noteworthy nothing was done in the intervening three years. It's also noteworthy the Corps New Orleans District consultants' calculations in 2010-11 (as well as the Corps' District Engineering folks' marching orders to their consultants before any calculations were performed) claimed there were no seepage problems on reach 16 - or anywhere along the 17th Street canal. Because of that, this newest remediation project is the first one to address seepage concerns along the 17th Street canal. We'll get into what likely changed their mind in future postings.

Here's reach 16 in 2011 (photos taken from the June, 2011 Corps update on that year's remediation projects along the outfall canals):





Construction at the 17th Street canal site also started in late May. The contractor began at the southern end of the site, which is what is shown in the "before" pictures above.

Here's that same end of the site snapped June 15, 2014 (Update, 7/7/14: bottom caption used to read "Dirt placed to make 'road' for crane to travel. Dirt likely not from inside levee"):

I believe that the dirt toward the bottom of the levee is - I hope - fill brought from offsite and placed to allow the crane (which holds the piling vertically) to travel along the levee with the piling pressing machine. I do not think it, and the huge boulders in it, came out of the levee.

[Update, 7/7/14: Based on subsequent photos and a new review of the 2011 remediation project records, it is now believed the material at the bottom of the levee is from inside the levee. This includes the large boulders now visible.]

However, I believe the soil toward the top of the slope is from inside the levee. Even from a distance, we can see the chunks of debris. Getting a closer look shows a large amount of concrete and rocks (Update, 7/7/14: bottom caption used to read "Dirt placed to make 'road' for crane to travel. Dirt likely not from inside levee"):

Here's an enlargement of the above photo:

There's even a stump that appears to be about 2 feet long, just sitting on top of the levee. It seems very likely it came from within the levee (though I suppose it could have come from somewhere else, but then why would it be sitting on the top of the levee?):

Dirt taken out of the southern part of the site is also being stockpiled on the levee near the northern end of the site in front of the end of Lemon St. The copious debris - all the white bits - is obvious (Update, 7/7/14: bottom caption of first two photos used to read "Dirt placed to make 'road' for crane to travel. Dirt likely not from inside levee"):

By any standard, including the Corps', the dirt coming out of the levees at both these sites would be unsuitable for use in any levee. How do we know that? The Corps themselves said so just four years ago, during a different debris mess that made the news.

In late 2009 and early 2010, reports emerged about large amounts of concrete and other debris being found in the top layers of lakefront levee in Kenner during an enlargement project. That soil had been trucked there in the early 2000's and had not been systematically checked for debris. After a couple of Times-Picayune articles, the Corps held a public meeting on January 28, 2010. They showed the following slides as examples of unacceptable amounts of debris in the dirt:

Those photos look eerily similar to the pictures coming out of the London Avenue and 17th Street sites.

The 2010 slides explicitly called out concrete chunks as unacceptable:

In the 2009-10 lakefront case, the Corps' solution - after blaming the previous contractor and prior Corps employees and assuring the public these were isolated instances (which they weren't) - was to remove all the dirt with concrete in it. According to the Corps, the contaminated dirt went down 2.5 feet, so the Corps stripped it all out and replaced it with clean clay.

Here's the scary part: that might not be the plan for the outfall canals, for three reasons:

1) The bid specifications (as amended) for the outfall canal job call for the contractor to place most of the soil they remove from the levee during construction right back in the levee when the sheet piling work is done.

According to those amended specifications, 2350 cubic yards of soil is to be taken out of the levees and reused between the two canal sites. The Corps is only anticipating 650 additional cubic yards between the two sites to be "unsuitable." That is, they expect only one fifth of the total amount of dirt to come out of the levees to stay out, and the rest will go back in. That was the financial basis for awarding the job.

2) We know bad soil with debris just like what we're seeing this year was taken out of outfall canal levees and put back in during the 2011 projects. The Corps' own contractors' said so, doing so under orders from Corps employees.

3) Finally, we know the Corps has no compunction using or reusing debris-laden soil that violates their own specifications all over the greater New Orleans area. Besides the three outfall canal remediation projects in 2011, I counted 22 projects where it happened in the last few years:



For further information, you can consult my 14 (!) part series on debris in the levees. Part 1 is here, with the other parts linked from it. The Corps' use of unacceptable soil seems to be more the norm than the exception.

Why does this matter? After all, there's gates at the ends of the canals to protect them from hurricanes, right?

Well, the outfall canal walls and levees do not care where water comes from - whether it's the lake or the city's pump stations. Even if the lakefront gates are closed and secured during a high lake level event (a big "if," since during the last hurricane 5 of 11 gates at the London Avenue structure were not secured), the city still has to pump rainwater from within the city down the canals. That water level can get quite high - just as high as the water got from Katrina's surge. A levee with concrete in it instead of clay is simply not as strong, and could be prone to, um, difficulties.

In addition, there is the obvious question: if this is what the top couple of feet of the levees along both canals look like, what about the rest of the levee left untouched by these newest projects? Given that these stretches of levee have not been dug into since the failed I-walls were installed about 15 years before their 2005 failure, it is a reasonable concern that the entire levees - including previously remediated stretches - are just as bad as what we've seen here. Without exploratory trenching - as has been done on many other projects where debris was found - there exists a deep trust deficit between the Corps and the public who depend on these levees for their lives and livelihoods.

Debris Part 14

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13

Let's move along to the Orleans Avenue canal. As before, a main source of information is the contractor's Quality Control (QC) and the Corps' Quality Assurance (QA) reports. There were two projects at the Orleans Avenue canal, OFC-4A (which is what most of the work was conducted under; prime contractor IPS, same as on London Avenue) and OFC-06 (which consisted only of installation of a stability berm along one reach on the east bank of the canal between Harrison and Filmore; prime contractor Progressive, with Cycle Construction performing all actual work):

As with other projects, the Corps didn't remediate everything that had a Safe Water Elevation below their target of 8 feet (we don't know why):

Here's the QC and QA reports for both projects:

OFC-4A QC reports March 1, 2011 - May 31, 2011
OFC-4A QC reports May 31, 2011 - August 21, 2011
OFC-4A QA reports March 1, 2011 - May 31, 2011
OFC-4A QA reports May 31, 2011 - August 11, 2011

OFC-06 QC reports January 6, 2011 - March 30, 2011
OFC-06 QC reports May 23, 2011 - July 28, 2011
OFC-06 QA reports January 6, 2011 - March 30, 2011
OFC-06 QA reports May 23, 2011 - July 28, 2011

All the quotes in this post, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the QC reports.

There don't seem to be any debris problems with much smaller project OFC-06. However, the very existence of OFC-06 provides a fascinating story I'll get into later.

At OFC-4A, there were substantial debris problems, both with the existing levee and with the new work. We'll start near the end of the project, in June, 2011.

Corps leaves jet grout spoils in levee

Part of the project involved installation of sheet piling on the west bank of the canal under the I-610 bridge. The contractor ran into problems on June 1, 2011 when they happened on existing sheet piling that could not be removed. The following day there was a meeting of the minds:

"USACE RE [Resident Engineer], PE [Project Engineer] and QC [contractor quality control rep] were on site in order to evaluate the situation of removing the existing sheet piles under the I-610 bridge. USACE PE instructed that due to the inability to remove the existing piles we will tie into them. USACE PE is looking into whether or not jet grouting will be required to ensure stabilization"

Here's a picture of the area of concern, taken from a June 8, 2011 update given by the Corps to the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - East:

They kept trying to pull out the piles for four days after that, but they eventually stopped. Another meeting was held on site on June 9th:

"Meeting held on site with Hayward Baker PM, HB Super, HPO PM, USACE RE and QA, IPS QCM and Super [i.e. Hayward Baker (the jet grouting contractor), the Corps, and IPS (the prime contractor)]. Meeting was held at the site where the jet grouting will take place. Discussed the column location and the columns' width and how many would be installed. USACE RE state that the change order request was being issued to IPS in the next 24 hours and wanted Hayward Baker and IPS to start coordinating the work to be performed. He state that the submittals needed first would be equipment and the work plan. Hayward Baker will submit same mix design as used on previous Corps project."

So they would be using jet grouting to stabilize the tie-in between the new sheet piling and the old. Jet grouting is a process where a grouty slurry is injected into the soil and allowed to harden, forming a substance called "soilcrete." Sometimes the injected substance is just grout, sometimes there's air added, and sometimes there's air and water added. It's been used all over the greater New Orleans area since the 2005 levee failures. More detail about the process is available at Hayward Baker's website.

Preparation work for the jet grouting began on June 14th:

"Sealevel began installing backfill for sheet pile trench from STA 12+10 through STA 3+80. STA 3+80 through STA 2+00 left open intentionally to backfill trench with jet grout waste"

Now there's two ways to take that. From what I've learned about jet grouting, sometimes the spoils (the stuff that bubbles back to the surface after injecting the grout down into the soil) are routed to a trench so they don't spread all over the place. Then they are disposed of. Under Corps specifications for this project, and indeed every project, jet grouting spoils (a kind of cementy, dirty slurry) were "unsuitable material," and were to be disposed of from the project site within 48 hours. They can't be left inside the levee because they're not the right density. In other words, they're trash. So the above passage could be taken as routine preps to simply contain the spoils for later disposal. Or it could be read as a CYA by the contractor to let future readers know that jet grout spoils were to be left inside the levee. I believe it's the latter.

The prep work continued for a few days, and then on June 21st the jet grouting began:

"Hayward Baker began installing jet grout columns under the I-610 bridge. Baker began with the 1st 4' diameter column. The columns installed were 65' in length...

IPS was responsible for handling the jet grout spoils. IPS dug trenches along the jet grout area so the spoils could run into the sheet pile trench. The spoils were placed from STA 1+97 through 2+45. About 30 cubic yards of spoils were removed from the trench and designated for removal from site tomorrow. The remainder of the spoils is being used as backfill."

So they were trenching to collect the spoils. But more importantly, they also deliberately left spoils in the levee. This went on for two more days.

June 22:

"IPS is responsible for handling the jet grout spoils. IPS dug trenches along the jet grout area so the spoils could run into the sheet pile trench. The spoils were placed from STA 1+97 through 2+45. About 15 cubic yards of spoils were removed from the trench and designated for removal from site tomorrow. The remainder of the spoils is being used as backfill. IPS hauled out excess spoils from the site."

June 23:

"IPS is responsible for handling the jet grout spoils. IPS dug trenches along the jet grout area so the spoils could run into the sheet pile trench. The spoils were placed from STA 1+97 through 2+45 and STA 2+45 through STA 3+70. The spoils used for backfill were left 12" below the sheet pile top elevation and 18" below the top of final grade for STA 2+40 through STA 1+98."

A subsequent paragraph in the June 23rd report gives the impression they were trying to hide the fact spoils were being used as levee backfill:

"QC Manager inspected the installation of one 4' diameter 65' jet grout columns under the I-610 bridge. Inspected the placement of the spoils from jet grout columns into the PZ27 sheet pile trench. The spoils were placed at least 18" below the final grade where dirt is to be placed and grass is to be grown."

There is no doubt jet grout spoils are supposed to be disposed of. From the Corps' own specifications:

"3.7.4 Disposal of Spoil

The Contractor shall remove all waste and all spoil materials produced as a result of the ground improvement operation and remove the materials from the job site as part of the contract price."
- Section 31 32 13.00 12, 'Ground Improvement'"

Hayward Baker, the company doing the jet grouting, also has model specifications available on their website. Here's what they say about spoils:

"At completion of daily Jet Grouting operations, thoroughly clean site and dispose of all spoil debris, water, and spilled material. Spoil stockpiling overnight is permitted prior to transfer to a predetermined waste or fill location."

To put it simply, the Corps deliberately ignored their own specifications and their own contractor's published guidance and left unsuitable material inside the Orleans Avenue canal levees on June 21-23, 2011.

Stumps, light pole foundations, trash

All the following quotes are taken directly from the contractor QC reports. They speak for themselves.

March 24:

"While clearing and grubbing [subcontractor] Newline encountered chunks of concrete and 3.5" pipe that was in the soil. The debris will be removed prior to any embankment operations take [sic] place"

April 11:

[During initial excavation of area under I-610 bridge]
"[Sheet pile prep work subcontractor] Sealevel has found large obstructions in the excavated areas. Obstructions include concrete, rebar, trash, and other miscellaneous materials"

April 12

"Sealevel continued to excavate trench for sheet pile installation. Still, they are finding obstructions in the clay. Obstructions are being documented by photographs. RFI is being worked on for replacing [with] suitable material."

May 6

"[Dry soil mixing subcontractor] Hayward Baker installed test columns for ground improvements. Test columns were installed at STA 46+00. The first two test holes were abandoned due to Hayward Baker hitting concrete 4 meters into the hole."

May 12:

"[Prime contractor] IPS excavated 9' down and found a 4' in diameter cypress stump... the excavation was backfilled"

May 17:

"Sealevel began installing the 2nd PZ27 sheet pile but had to extract the sheet due to an obstruction hit 10' into the soil. Sealevel excavated the obstruction and uncovered a large cypress stump that was 5' in diameter and at least 4.5' deep. A RFI was inputted to USACE about the removal of the obstruction. Sealevel plans to mob[ilize] in a tiger tooth attachment to tear the stump up tomorrow."

May 24:

"When [sheet pile installation subcontractor] Blue Iron was driving the 10th pile for the day at STA 6+54 through STA 6+58 the encountered an obstruction 3' deep that they could not penetrate. It was too late in the day to begin excavation to investigate what the obstruction is. It seems to be concrete but IPS can not confirm until the obstruction is excavated. IPS will excavate the obstruction in the morning."

May 25:

"Obstruction at STA 6+54 through STA 6+58 was an old concrete light post foundation that was 5.5' in length and the girth was 8.5'. The concrete post was excavated and removed and the excavation was backfilled with suitable material.

At STA 6+62 through STA 6+66 Blue Iron hit another obstruction 4' into the soil. IPS uncovered the obstruction and uncovered another light post foundation the same size as the one found at STA 6+54. Total time lost due to the obstructions was 6 hours. IPS backfilled that excavation as well and compacted the fill."

June 1:

"At approximately 0930 hit an obstruction during installation of the PZC18's. Sealevel excavated and removed a 10'x12' cypress stump. It caused a delay of 4 hours.

At approximately 1700 HBI [Hayward Baker] encountered a large tree stump while installing Ground Improvement Column 62A. After several hours of trying to remove the stump the USACE RE [Resident Engineer] was contacted and we were told to move the columns 3' to the south. Due to the stump's size it broke several tools on the drill and the rest of the day was spent repairing the tools."

June 6:

"Sealevel large cypress tree stump at 2+65"

June 8:

"Blue Iron hit an obstruction at STA 10+90 while driving the PZC 18 sheet piles. The obstruction was 4' deep, IPS excavated the obstruction and found a cypress stump that was approximately 6' in diameter and 5' deep. The obstruction was removed and the excavation was backfilled and compacted."

These only represent what was found at the sections into which they dug. Are we seriously supposed to believe that the sections of levee untouched by this project are pristine after reading this stuff? 10'x12' stumps and concrete light pole foundations do not make for reliable levees.

Part of levee missing since 1997?

I recently obtained the latest iteration of the Corps' safe water elevation (SWE) reports. They've been rechristened "Mean Operating Water Level" (MOWL) reports and were issued in April, 2011:

17th Street
Orleans Avenue
London Avenue

The substance of the reports remains the same, but There have been significant revisions to calculations between the October, 2010 versions and these April, 2011 ones, plus they read much more smoothly now.

In the Orleans Avenue canal report, though, I came upon this new verbiage:

"The FOS calculated by the Spencer’s Method of analysis for Reaches 10B, 17, 18A, and 20B are slightly less than the required 1.4 with the water level in the canal at El 1.0 NAVD88. This water level corresponds with the normal Lake water level. This indicates an inadequate FOS without the influence of the canal water load. These low FOS were the result of the low shear strengths identified in the 2010 CPTs advanced at the toe of these levees. Reach 18A was designed with a protected side stabilization berm extending approximately 90 feet from the I-Wall. This berm is shown in DM-19 [6] and on the “as-built” drawings [11]. The topographic survey performed in 2010 [12] indicated that the berm width was about 30 feet in this reach."

Now it's bad enough there were at least were four reaches which could not meet the Corps' standards when the water was simply at normal tidal levels. In fact, reaches 10B and 20B were not included in the remediation project. But what I highlighted above is even worse.

What that's saying when you cut through the Corps-ese and check the drawings is that a part of the levee on the Orleans Avenue canal which was supposed to be built in the 1990's was not actually there, and the Corps didn't discover this until 2010.

Reach 18A is here, on the east bank of the canal between Harrison and Filmore Avenues, across from City Park:

It extends 1100 feet. It was supposed to have a stability berm - a bunch of dirt intended to keep the levee and I-wall in place - that extended from about 30 feet from the I-wall to about 90 feet from the I-wall. Indeed, the as-built drawings of the 1997 project - submitted in June, 1998 after the project was completed - do show such a berm on the cross sections:

What the Corps found in May, 2010 was that the berm was considerably short on width. Here's cross sections of Reaches 17 and 18A drawn from data collected during the 2010 survey. Like 18A, Reach 17 was also supposed to have a stability berm:

While the 2010 survey confirmed the existence of the Reach 17 berm extending the proper 60 feet from the levee toe (or about 90 feet from the I-wall), the Reach 18A berm extended only to about 30 feet from the levee toe (or about 60 feet from the I-wall). So a 30 foot by 1100 foot by 2 foot thick section of levee appears to have never been built, or was modified post-construction, or was modified during construction but the modification was left out of the as-built drawings. Then it went hidden in plain sight for possibly 13 years, five of which were after the 2005 levee failures. Additionally, in 1998 the contractor's Corps overseers submitted as-built drawings showing the stability berm as completed, and the Corps Engineering Division accepted them.

As confirmation, the December, 2010 construction drawings for OFC-06, a project which consisted solely of placement of a stability berm along Reach 18A in order to raise the safe water elevation from less than 1 foot to greater than 8 feet, reflect the May, 2010 survey for Reach 18A, showing no existing berm where the "new" berm was to be constructed in 2011:

The very existence of contract OFC-06 - a contract which appears to be designed solely to put in place work which was supposedly done in 1997 - raises all kinds of questions about what was going on in the Corps' offices before August 29, 2005, as well as since the storm. It also shows it may have been pure luck that none of the walls along the Orleans Avenue canal did not fail in 2005.

Summing up

So here's what we learned from the 2011 Orleans Avenue canal remediation QC reports and the new (April, 2011) "Mean Operating Water Level" (MOWL) reports:

1) The Corps went against their own specifications and industry standard - for unknown reasons - and deliberately left unsuitable material, known as "spoils," in the Orleans Avenue canal levee at the conclusion of three days of jet grouting in late June, 2011.

2) When the Corps' contractors dug into the Orleans Avenue levees during the remediation project, or when they tried to place sheet pile or deep soil mixing columns, they ran into obstruction after obstruction for months. Among the pieces of junk found in the levees were two concrete lightpost foundations, many, many cypress tree stumps (some as big as 12 feet), and assorted trash and junk.

3) Only in 2010 did the Corps discover that 1100 feet of the east bank levee between Harrison and Filmore Avenues was missing approximately 30 feet of stability berm which was supposed to have been there since the 1997 construction of the I-walls on that side of the canal. That stretch was remediated in 2011 with a dedicated contract. Nonetheless, it appears the levee along that stretch may have been unfinished for 14 years, including six years post-Federal Flood, despite as built drawings from 1998 showing the complete berm in place.

In the next entry the entry after the next entry, I'll tie up the last three posts in a bow and reveal that the Corps will be doing more remediation work along all three outfall canals in the near future.