Women of Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana Give Back

Steep added costs driving Corps pilot program that could result in more risky levees in some areas~Mark Schleifstein
~The increased expense is largely the result of new rules the corps developed after an extensive, 1 1/2-year (self) study of the reasons earthen levees and floodwalls failed during Katrina. That study concluded problems stemmed largely from a failure to understand the quality of the soil beneath the levees.
Ray Seed, a civil engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said the pilot study plan is flawed because it may not adequately consider some of the causes of levee failures in New Orleans, such as floodwaters seeping underneath earthen levees, causing them to collapse or move.
Robert Bea, another civil engineering professor at Berkeley who teamed with Seed in producing an independent forensic analysis of levee failures during Katrina, said the initial description of the new pilot places too much reliance on overtopping of levees by storm surge as the key cause of levee failure:
“If overtopping was the only mode of performance that leads to failure, then there would not have been the Katrina flood protection system failures disaster.”

Groundwork NOLA Invitation to 3rd Annual Meet Our Raingardens - October 22nd 5-8 p.m
~Watershed NOLA