Comments on: More on seepage - and what the Corps is holding back

By: Matt McBride

Matt McBride — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:39:51 +0000

Correction: the SLFPA-East meeting was on May 15th, not the 19th.

By: Matt McBride

Matt McBride — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 15:38:29 +0000

Since I wrote this, I’ve been bugging the principals involved in the load test to issue the final report. I got a response late last week from one of the Corps engineers in St. Louis that the peer review took longer than expected. He said to expect the report to be publicly issued in the next couple of weeks.

On May 19th, the Corps told the East Bank levee board to expect the report by June 1. Then a couple of days before June 1, they said to expect the report by June 15th. Now on June 26th they say to expect it by July 10th. See a pattern?

I will keep banging on them until it gets squeezed out. If I don’t don’t get an adequate response from one level, the web makes it very easy to find people’s bosses and go right up the chain, all the way to Gen. Van Antwerp.

I’ve actually been asking for this report (as have many others) since at least March. It’s been over 10 months since the test.

By: New Orleans News Ladder

New Orleans News Ladder — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:34:25 +0000

Mr. McBride,
I went ahead and cross’posted this onto today’s Ladder as it continues to offer much needed, continuous salient rebuttal to the Corps ongoing PR shotgun that they did not build these levees which are failing before our lyin’eyes.
That is the story that they are very effectively telling the nation.
Bubbas with bulldozers, muskrats, global warming, Katrina the Clown…everyone but the Corps is responsible for our failing flood control infrastructure.
All the while that 17th Street Canal Levee is LEAKING.

Surprised that I missed this one on the 12th I fanged back through the Ladder to find out why. I always try to snag your word on the Corps. Well, we got the Koz article on duct tape and rusty pumps. The only excuse I can proffer is that we have been all up in the flooding upstream, though I have a hard time apologizing for an obvious risi’aqua phobia.
Please check back through this weeks Ladder, mainly the past few days, to follow the development of this leak.
My email is in the profile.

Thank you,
Bruce
Eiditlla~New Orleans News Ladder

By: Editilla

Editilla — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:34:49 +0000

Thank you, Mr. McBride. If London Ave were to fail again along with the 17th Street Canal Breach Repair (which is actively leaking), would that mean the complete reflooding of everything in between…again?

Could you please direct your considerable acumen onto the Leaking 17th Street Canal Levee “Repair”. You can find extensive coverage on this at the Ladder. I myself went and stuck my arms up to my elbows in one of these on May 26th, and could feel the flowing water, smell the canal. It turns out that the water is in fact brackish. As of June 22nd, that one leak (of 4 I saw) has grown 5 times the size it was then.

Could you also discuss those new pumps right next to this Breaching Levee “repair” as to the pressure they might exert on the base of this repair job underwater, ergo wherever this leak is entering the levee repair to emerge where we find it on the other side heading for Lakeview? Those are huge pumps which were not there before the storm. Have they been tested?

I wish that more people could go see this leak and document it. I fear that the Corps will attempt to cover the evidence, like right now, today. This is actively flowing water. Will that levee hold even for a tropical storm like Gloria the summer of Katrina, let alone a hurricane?

I appreciate your work on all of this, and hope that you can exuse my ignorant terror at the notion of seeing those levees fail again. Been there, done that, and all I gots to show for it?
Well, I do got me a Living Ladder.

Thank you,
Bruce
Editilla~New Orleans News Ladder