April Repairs Vowed for New Orleans Canal Pumps

[cal04]

The head of the Army Corps of Engineers said yesterday that vibration problems with pumps at three major drainage canals in New Orleans will be fixed within seven weeks, before the hurricane season opens.

"By the end of April, we will have those pumps operating effectively," Lt. Gen. Carl Strock told members of a Senate subcommittee. "We know what the problems are, and we have the solutions in place."

The Associated Press, citing an internal memo, reported Tuesday that the Corps went ahead with installation of the 34 pumps last year in a rush to fix the city's flood defenses before the 2006 hurricane season despite warnings from one of its experts that the machinery was defective and likely to fail in a storm.

Because of the pumps' size, there was no protocol for testing them in the factory, Strock told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on energy and water development. "We chose to accept a calculated risk with something that would have an effect at the beginning of the hurricane season," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/15/AR2007031501829.html

[robinlynne]

1. and who is going to pay for this?

now that the proud pump owners have stuffed their pockets.

[youngdem]

2. Payment is not yet released. The contract terms state function first before payment

The company - however politically connected - was the ONLY company that submitted a bid that could have the pumps in place last year (theoretically, even though it didn't quite happen) before hurricane season. Fortunately, we lucked out and had no storms last year. Fortunate because we now know that a strong storm would have caused the pumps to malfunction, and numerous rains since Katrina have shown our pump capacity here in the city to still be WAY too low.

They are working all over the region to build back the levees, but every investigation shows the need for more work, more height, more strength, more work, more money.

Hopefully the pumps will be in working order, and I hope is is another 100 years before New Orleans is hit by a huge storm.

[gratuitous]

3. By the end of April, huh?

Did anyone think to ask April of which year?

[sutz12]

4. C'mon now, it's only been 18 months....

What do you expect, miracles?
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:sarcasm:

[durtee librul]

5. Ya know when I first heard this

all I could think of was that in my industry (auto) before ANY part is placed on a car, no matter how minor a part it may be, it is ALWAYS tested to FAILURE!!! In other words, the test runs until the gizmo quits and there is always a representative sample to make sure the design is robust.

And these clowns can't run a pump to failure when people's lives depend on it? Unnnnnnnreeeeel. But then I guess I shouldn't be surprised. More bungles in the jungle from chimpy's boys. I am sure the ACOE tries to do what they can with the crap they are given, but someone should have spoken up sooner.