(no subject)
This is from Matt McBride, the man who busted the Corps and turned their memos over to the press when they got exposed for the failing pumps. This shit is important so give it a once over.
-Loki
Dear New Orleanians and those who care about the city,
Below you'll find an email I sent to the local media about two upcoming events related to hurricane protection in the city. Neither has been widely publicized, but they are important milestones.
1) July 31, 2007 (tomorrow): "Partnering" session to discuss scope of permanent pumping stations project. Omni Royal Orleans Hotel, 621 St. Louis St., 1:30 - 5 PM.
Results of July 17, 2007 outfall canal partnering session: http://www.box.net/shared/nlefsvvbcd
Above is a link to an internal Corps document that has been circulated to various "partners" in the construction of three permanent pumping stations at the end of the outfall canals in New Orleans. Those partners include members of the Jefferson Parish administration and council, representatives from the Sewerage & Water Board, and representatives from the Jefferson Parish Drainage Department, all of which will be attending the session tomorrow, along with Corps representatives from New Orleans, Vicksburg, and Washington (!). Congress called for the construction of these stations in the Fourth Katrina Supplemental bill, passed last year. The latest schedules call for these stations to be completed some time in 2012, a deadline which has already slipped from 2010 and 2011.
The document was generated at a similar "partnering" session on July 17, 2007, and will be used for reference at tomorrow's session.
This document shows that, after two years, the Corps remains at only the most rudimentary level of engineering, evaluating broad-stroke options. The document - according to the "document properties" was generated by Black & Veatch, a large engineering consulting firm often brought in for these types of jobs.
They appear to only be considering three options:
1) Construction of pumping stations at the lake and keep existing upstream pump stations.
2) Construction of pumping stations at the lake, regrade canals, and demolish existing upstream pump stations (also includes a pump to the river project in Jefferson Parish (JP) to take JP stormwater out of the 17th Street canal).
3) Fix all the outfall canal walls and do not construct the permanent pump stations.
Option 3 would appear to be in direct contravention of Congressional mandates found in previous legislation, yet it is being considered. The irony of this option is off the scale, and also brings into question why in the world hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on the current floodgates if fixing the walls was always - and still is - an option. The answer is - of course - money, but one has to wonder how much it would have cost to fix the walls instead of erecting the gates, with their permanent shortfalls on pumping capacity?
All this also appears to different from what is being told to the public, as shown on this document:
http://www.nolaenvironmental.gov/nola_public_data/projects/usace_levee/docs/original/Static%20Displays%2021%20June%2007.pdf
Which on page 4 just shows pump stations at the lake, with no discussion of not building them or ripping down the existing stations.
Options which apparently are not being considered are building culverts or pipes along the outfall canal rights-of-way to convey the water from the existing stations to the new lakefront stations, thus eliminating the weakened canal walls altogether. This is how much of the drainage is set up all over the greater New Orleans area, with subsurface culverts and pipes conveying a large portion of stormwater before it gets to the outfall canals. Most wide streets in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish have large drainage culverts beneath their neutral grounds.
Also notable is that the primary citizens advocacy group pushing the Jefferson Parish pump-to-the-river plan, the Hoey's Basin Drainage Alliance (their webpage is: http://hoeysbasindrainagealliance.com/HOEYSPAGE2ndpage.html), has explicitly been excluded from tomorrow's partnering session (though representatives of local governments will be championing their cause). In fact, there will be no representatives of citizens groups at all, and there will also be no members of the New Orleans City Council either.
These types of sessions play a very large role in how decisions get made, and they are normally not made public. I hope you see fit to publicize this stuff, and let the public know what's going on behind the scenes.
2) August 1, 2007, 2 PM (Wednesday): Corps receives bids for first phase of work to protect the Industrial Canal from storm surge.
The Corps is planning the construction of one or two gates to the east of the Industrial Canal (officially known as the Inner Harbor Navigational Channel, or IHNC), with a third gate possibly to be built at the channel's outlet at Lake Pontchartrain (a location known as "Seabrook").
The project is estimated to cost $1 billion. The Corps is engaging in a somewhat novel procurement process. In the first phase, they have suggested four different alignments of levees and gates for protection of the IHNC. Bidders are to submit costs only for designing and constructing these alignments. August 1 is the deadline for receipt of the Phase 1 bids. From those bidders, 3 to 5 will be "short-listed" to move on to phase two of the bidding process.
In the second phase, the short list of bidders are free to propose whatever solution they desire for the problem; they are not limited by the Corps' initial four ideas. However, it appears the companies - not the Corps - might also be completely responsible for the final design, which makes a lot of companies very nervous for liability reasons.
Also interesting is the extensive degree to which the Corps is leaning on the contractors during the bidding process, including having them write sections of the final phase 2 solicitation.
You can find out more about this process at this website:
http://usace-no.arcadis-us.com/default.aspx
where a tremendous amount of documentation has been posted, including internal Q&A's between Corps officials and contractors and PowerPoint presentations laying out the entire process. If you don't have a lot of time, I'd recommend breezing through two documents:
a) The PowerPoint presentation titled "IHNC Project Info Presentation v5.ppt" found under the heading "Announcements: Phase One RFP Industry Brief and Amendments." This heading was just updated today with Amendment three to the official Corps solicitation.
b) The Word document titled "Industry Forum Notes w-o names," found under the heading, "Announcements: Contracting Information Forum Post-Event Briefing & Notes." This document is a record of conversations between potential contractors (apparently very big ones - one claims to be the second biggest engineering firm in the country) and Corps officials. It's a fascinating glimpse into decisions being made right now, not in the distant past.
I hope you find this helpful.
Best regards,
Matt McBride