Louisiana Governor Lashes Out at Bush

It is easy to point the fickle finger of fate at the Corps of Engineers for something that was designed and implemented long before most of us were born......The problem arises from the fact that, over time, Lousyana politicians (among the most corrupt in the country) saw a means to make some money and keep themselves on the public dole by wresting control of the levees away from the Corps of Engineers, but keeping them responsible for the levees.,

I think that if you go back and read my posts, you will be hard pressed to find me pointing a finger at the Corps. I simply don't know enough facts to make that call. However, as noted above in Post 79, the Corps has already 'admitted to its blunders in the design of storm walls and earthen levees that were supposed to protect the New Orleans area.' I'm not sure what needs to be said after they came out with that statement. As for your comment that 'the politicians found a way to keep themselves on the public dole while keeping the Corps on the hook for responsibility of the levees' (paraphrasing), what exactly are you saying? That the Corps got taken to the cleaners? Someone falsified technical documents after the fact? Or are you saying that the Corps did an inadequate job of properly specifying what they were and were not responsible for and the State of Louisiana exploited that perhaps because all that was available were 'unwritten agreements' covering off some of the basic understandings as to who was responsible for what? If the latter, one has a hard time having sympathy for the Corps - with a group like this and the long history of their experience, the one thing they should have known something about was how to properly establish the Scope of Work and Terms of Reference.

As for your comment that 'the politicians found a way to keep themselves on the public dole while keeping the Corps on the hook for responsibility of the levees' (paraphrasing), what exactly are you saying?

Lousyana established a commission whose sole responsibility was the maintenance of the levees. The way this commission was structured, they could make a show of requesting maintenance or requesting upgrades and improvements, but leaving the responsibility for it all in the hands of the Corps. That includes often rejecting counterproposals the Corps made in response to the commission's request. IOW, the commission put its show on for the voters, pretending to actually be proactive on the levees. In typical fashion, they would usually demand something stupid or unsound, then blame the Corps for not doing what they wanted. That's simply the politics of the area. The commission was simply there to make people believe that they were in charge of overseeing the levees, but the Corps was responsible for implementing the requests of the commission. It was a classic doublebind scenario.

As we have seen with the state government in Lousyana, everything that has happened in the state has been the fault of the Bush Administration and Blanco, et al, hold themselves completely blameless. A search of articles from the Times-Picayune going back to the 60s, will demonstrate the concern that was routinely being expressed over the status of the levees and the lack of response by anyone to correct the problems.

We can talk about crappy designs, etc., but by doing so, we are ignoring the fact that these levees were designed and built a very long time ago in accordance with the engineering standards of the day. Unless I miss my guess, standards and building materials have improved substantially since then, otherwise we would still be using the exact same building standards and materials today. Blaming the Corps for the lack of maintenance on levees as old as those (due to the Levee Commission obstructing it) is disingenuous.

By the way, not all of my comments are about you. "Pointing the fickle finger of fate" was directed at a host of MSM articles trying to shift the blame for the levees breaching to the Corps as opposed to blaming those who got to be on the commission, but prevented the Corps from doing what needed to be done to maintain the levees. They wanted the glory, they just don't want the responsibility. Typical for politicians in general.

Well, at the risk of making this look like we are going around in circles, let me ask you some specific questions....

1. The fact that the commission's main MO was to try and push off all the responsibility to the Corps and then not give them the tools to get the job done is so typical. It happens all over the place..... however, it takes two to tango. First there is the party that tries to do this and then there is the party that lets it happen to them. As professional engineers, one simply can't be involved in projects where the non-engineers impose conditions that negate proper engineering. Why didn't the Corps simply walk away from it? After all, it's their engineering credentials that are being put on the line, not the politicians. Once someone has accepted that responsibility, it's theirs and that's all there is to it.

2. With regards to your comment that 'there was regularly demonstrations of concern .... but a lack of response by anyone to correct the problems.' Do you have evidence that the Corps regularly issued reports that stated that this or that is necessary 'to preserve the integrity of the levees' but these were rejected? Have you seen a report from the Corps that warned of imminent danger because of the commission's rejection of a recommendation?

3. In conjunction with question 2, why as noted earlier did the Corps then accept responsibility for the failure?

4.With regards to your comment that 'levees were designed and built a very long time ago in accordance with the engineering standards of the day', this might very well be true. However, that doesn't really mean very much from the perspective of the liability of the Corps depending on how the original and subsequent Terms of Reference for the project were established and carried out. Once something is unable to do the job anymore with the required margins of safety, it is incumbent on the engineers to let the 'owners' know. Was this properly and formally done? If it was and the politicians chose to blow through all the red lights anyway(which means that THEY are now taking responsibility for it), why did the Corps accept responsibility in the resulting inquiry? Personally, I don't think the engineering ethics issues here are much different than the decision by senior management people in Morton Thiokol and NASA to launch Challenger. The only ones who looked good in the resulting inquiry were all the engineers who were protesting the decision to launch but were overruled. In the case of the flooding of New Orleans, where does the buck stop?

5. You made the comment about 'shift the blame for the levees breaching....'. This was the point of the link in Post 26. Do you know for certain that the levees were breached? And do you discount the evidence shown in the link that indicates that water ended up in New Orleans as a result of a levee failure as opposed to them being breached (which I assume means over-topped)?

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