Katrina Postscript: Red Tape and Sniping Leave New Orleans in Danger

Nearly four years after Hurricane Katrina, key fixes to New Orleans' levee system remain unaddressed because local authorities, members of Congress and the Army Corps of Engineers still have not agreed on which steps are necessary to protect the city from catastrophic flooding.

At a sometimes contentious Capitol Hill hearing today on the readiness of New Orleans' levee system, the head of the Army Corps of Engineers' Mississippi Valley Division told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that construction on a permanent solution for three crucial Katrina flood points has not yet begun, nor even been agreed to, because of bureaucratic red tape and disagreement among federal and local leaders over what more can and should be done to protect the city.

The Corps of Engineers has built temporary structures to protect the 17th Street, Orleans Avenue and London Avenue canals, but Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh admitted no permanent structures are in place to prevent breaches like the ones that flooded New Orleans in 2005. Breaches at those canals drowned thousands and stranded thousands more at the New Orleans Convention Center.

The dispute over what to do at the three canals pits the Army Corps of Engineers, which is moving to build permanent pumping stations at the top of the canals, against local officials and some members of Congress, who want the federal government to do more to strengthen the flood walls that protect the canals, as well as more to ensure drainage of the city, even during normal rainfall. For the Corps of Engineers to deal with drainage and to strengthen the canal walls, Walsh said, the Corps needs congressional approval and $15 million just to study the idea.

Decades of similar government indecision and delay left New Orleans vulnerable during Katrina in the first place. The key breached canals were all part of the the Lake Pontchartrain flood control project approved by Congress during Lyndon Johnson's administration. At that time, Congress called for 125 miles of levees and flood walls around New Orleans to be built by 1978 at a cost of $85 million. The project is still incomplete, and its cost had grown to more than $750 million as of 2005.

Senators at the hearing today said the Corps of Engineers has done some good work, but not nearly enough, to protect New Orleans. "We can't wait until another disaster strikes," said committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer. "We better do a better job."

Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) called the Katrina flooding a "man-made disaster" dating back to the Corps of Engineers' original design of the city's levee system. He also said the Corps is moving too slow, and is fixing the wrong problems. "We're choosing the wrong fix for the biggest thing that went wrong," Vitter said. "I don't want to repeat our mistakes."

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) echoed Vitter's worries, comparing the Corps to a car company that replaced faulty brake systems with a new set of the same brakes. "Do you think for a second I would let my family get in that car?" Landrieu asked.

Landrieu described the current approach to the levee system as a "patch-and-pray model," and concluded that the Corps' choices to repair the existing canal and levee system (rather than finding a new system) is not just puzzling, but also "aggravating, frustrating and frightening."