Just as suspected
New Orleans Levee Reported Weak Before Katrina
From the Swamp blog
By bill
This is not good, the levees that failed were known to be built with out of spec construction methods. According to NBCs Lisa Meyers report,
NBC News has obtained what may be a key clue, hidden in long forgotten legal documents. They reveal that when the floodwall on the 17th Street Canal was built a decade ago, there were major construction problems brought to the attention of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
A 1998 ruling, by an administrative judge for the Corps' Board of Contract Appeals, shows that the contractor, Pittman Construction, told the Corps that the soil and the foundation for the walls were not of sufficient strength, rigidity and stability to build on.
. . .
The construction company said as a result of these problems the walls were shifting and out of tolerance, meaning they did not meet some design specifications. Nevertheless, the Army Corps of Engineers accepted the work.
It seems to me that the authorities really should have questioned whether these walls were safe, says van Heerden.
The judge, in her ruling, blamed the contractor for the construction errors and turned down Pittman's request for more funds.
Pittman Construction is now out of business. (A firm called CR Pittman Construction, also based in New Orleans, is a separate company.)
In a statement, the Corps of Engineers tells NBC:
"The records on the Pittman contract appeal will undoubtedly be part of any thorough investigation to determine the cause of the levee breaches in New Orleans. The Corps is preserving evidence that could be used in the investigation. The exact composition and structure of the team responsible for a potential investigation has not been determined at this time."
In plain English, the old foundation levee upon which the new flood walls were built was weaker than required by specifications. The $809,000 that was requested by the contractor to correct the problem was denied by the judge.
The strength of the sub soil and the original foundation sheet pile wall, bears directly on the strength of the final concrete floodwalls. It appears those foundations failed and the walls came tumbling down. I suspect when reports come out, the truth will be exposed. The question will then become, who allowed the floodwalls to be built with out of specification construction.
The problem for the MSM is the levees along the 17th street canal were built in the 1990s, a decade ago. Now which administration was charged with overseeing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers construction. |
