GAP Client Completely Vindicated; Half-Billion Dollar System Originally Pegged for 50-Year Lifespan in Need of Replacement

(Washington, D.C.) – An independent evaluation released in June by the Office of Special Counsel (OSC), relying on the assessment of an independent engineer, has determined that there are serious safety and reliability issues with hydraulic pumps that were installed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. These pumps are designed, in case of emergency, to move flood water away from the city to the lake side of the floodgates. Despite repeated internal reports that the pumps were faulty, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and Department of Defense Inspector General (DoDIG) have repeatedly denied inherent flaws in the hydraulic pumps since 2007.

Click here to read the OSC letter to President Obama detailing the report
Click here to read the full report of the independent engineer: http://bit.ly/HENJy (Part 1), http://bit.ly/IZwns (Part 2)

GAP client Maria Garzino, a USACE mechanical and civil engineer, was the Pump Team Installation Leader who blew the whistle on several problems that render the pumps ineffective. After unsuccessfully taking her concerns to the Army Corps in August 2006, Garzino made a whistleblower disclosure in August 2007 to the OSC – the federal agency charged with investigating whistleblower disclosures and defending such employees. After assessing Garzino’s charges and the DoDIG’s response, the OSC determined in August 2008 that “…it appears that the pumps remain inadequately untested, and vulnerable to failure in the event of a hurricane.”

Click here to read the 2008 OSC letter to President Bush

On the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and during Hurricane Gustav’s rapid approach toward New Orleans last August, the OSC reopened the case, and in a rare step, hired its own independent professional engineer to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation. This second report, released in June 2009, completely validates Garzino’s allegations about the effectiveness of the pumps.

“The citizens of New Orleans are at serious risk in the event of a next hurricane because these hydraulic pumps don’t work as intended – that is, as emergency operations pumps,” said Jesselyn Radack, GAP Homeland Security Director and counsel for Ms. Garzino. “It’s been four years since Hurricane Katrina and the Army Corps still hasn’t protected the city from floods, and at the same time is telling residents that they are safe.”

Detailed Background

In August 2007, Garzino, unable to find resolution for the issues she raised through her agency, contacted the OSC, which concluded its initial investigation in August 2008.

The OSC, in its initial investigation, concluded “that there is a substantial likelihood that the information Ms. Garzino provided discloses a violation of law, rule, or regulation, gross mismanagement, a gross waste of funds, and a substantial and specific danger to public safety” and required the DoDIG to evaluate and investigate the situation itself. The Inspector General (then Claude Kicklighter) substantiated more than half of Garzino’s claims, but ultimately concluded that the deficiencies were “…performance related short-comings that did not rise to the level of a serious violation…”

Garzino submitted comments strenuously disputing the Inspector General’s report and, after examining both, the OSC concluded that:

After reviewing the agency report, one finds that the agency’s findings and conclusions are hollow and incomplete, despite compelling evidence that would lead one to conclude that USACE employees are responsible for wrongdoing. The agency report appears to avoid holding people accountable for documented deficiencies in how USACE managed the design, installation, and oversight of the pump units in New Orleans, all at a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety to the people of New Orleans…

The OSC further found that “The government and the public cannot reasonably trust that the flood control system in place in New Orleans possesses reliability and integrity.” The OSC then concluded that:

…apparent defects in the agency’s report lead me to question the impartiality of the investigation into Ms. Garzino’s allegations and conclude that many of the agency’s findings are inconsistent with available evidence…I am particularly concerned about the public safety risk created by the assumption that the pumps will adequately operate during a hurricane….I must concur with Ms. Garzino’s recommendation that an investigation be conducted by independent professional engineers, not subject to the supervision of DoD management, in order to ascertain reliably the scope of past and present dangers of the defective pumping units to determine appropriate remedial actions.

The OSC then reported its results to the Bush administration and relevant Congressional committees, and closed the case (as protocol dictates).

A few weeks later, the DoDIG, then headed by newly-appointed acting Inspector General Gordon Heddell, announced it was re-examining the case. After months of investigation, the DoDIG found the pumps to be safe, relying on an independent assessment performed by Parsons Corporation, a defense contractor with long-standing ties to the USACE.

In an unprecedented move, the OSC reopened the case and hired its own independent engineering expert to review and analyze the DoDIG report, the Parsons report, Garzinos’ response to the Parsons report, and an overall analysis of the hydraulic pumping system, and then make a determination as to who was right.

Upon conclusion of the review and analysis of the above-cited material, the independent engineering expert submitted his independent technical opinion in a report detailing his findings, and concluded: “Based on a review of the documents and communications with the whistleblower, Apariq believes the allegations of the whistleblower have significant merit and should be seriously considered by OSC.”

The OSC, relying on the independent engineering technical opinion, completely rejected the DoDIG argument. This OSC report, which was released in June 2009, stated:

There appears to be little logical justification for: (1) restricting the emergency pumping solicitation to only the untested hydraulic pump systems, (2) not requiring the installation of a reliable pumping system which would adequately protect New Orleans, (3) spending hundreds of millions of dollars to install forty MWI hydraulic pumps…which are scheduled to be replaced at an estimated cost of greater than $430 million…and (6) installing hydraulic equipment without containment protection to prevent potentially violating the Clean Water Act.

This OSC report further stated:

After a review of the agency report, and the assessment conducted by Parsons, Inc., as well as the whistleblowers comments, given the scope of the design and installation failures, I am not persuaded to reverse our previous determination…..

This report was again sent to the President, the Chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, and those committee’s rankings members.

Recent Developments

On numerous occasions USACE officers cited the original lifespan of the hydraulic pumps to be 50 years. This life span was reported to Congress in order to get authorization and funding for the project). (This information is accessible through USACE Project Information Reports)

In addition, Col. Jeff Bedey, commander of the Corps’ Hurricane Protection Office in New Orleans, informed the public in a November 2007 public meeting that the “closure structures,” which include the hydraulic pumps, were a 50-year solution:

These have something around a 50-year lifespan. These were designed to be there for 50-years. (page 3).

Click here to read Bedey’s full interview: http://www.nolaenvironmental.gov/nola_public_data/projects/usace_levee/docs/original/2_26_08MtgSummary.pdf

Furthermore, as Karen Durham-Aguilera, director of the Corps’ Task Force Hope, explained in 2007, the interim closure structures with installed pumps were supposed to be incorporated into the permanent hurricane protection solution, not scrapped:

…first, the concept is in play right now in the temporary pumps we’re putting in place. To make those permanent and to increase that solution, we are working on that now…

Click here to read Durham-Aguilera’s full transcript: http://www.lacpra.org/assets/docs/April%2012%202007.pdf

But now, after extensive investigation into the defective nature of the hydraulic pumps, the Corps is claiming that the pumps were only designed to be temporary. Brigadier General Michael J. Walsh, commander of the Mississippi Valley Division of the Corps, wrote in an op-ed that the pumps were supposed to have a “temporary service life.”

The temporary pumps and closure structures at the three outfall canals have a limited service life…The temporary pumps were built to last for five to seven years, or through the years 2011 to 2013.

Click here to read Walsh’s op-ed in the New Orleans Times Picayune: http://blog.nola.com/guesteditorials/2009/07/point_of_view_pumping_options.html

In fact, the proposed abandonment of the existing gated closure structures with installed pumps was never part of the original plan submitted to Congress. This newest plan by the Corps involves rebuilding the same gated structure with installed pumps a few hundred yards further downstream, except this time with “direct drive” pumps instead of the defective hydraulic pumps that will likely fail in the event of a hurricane. Instead of paying the estimated $275 million to correct the problems with the hydraulic pumps and roughly $200 million to increase the needed pumping capacity, the Army Corps is proposing to abandon the project they have already spent half a billion dollars on, destroy and haul away the “temporary” gated closure structure with installed pumps, and then spend almost $700 million to rebuild everything from scratch.

The Corps is also claiming that the defective hydraulic pumps have been “battle tested” by two hurricanes, Gustav and Ike. But, the OSC and their independent engineer agreed with the whistleblowers charge that the “black box” data (technically “SCADA” data) shows the hydraulic pumps were not utilized when the highest canal water levels were present in the beginning, were not allowed to run at full operating speeds/pressures, and were not allowed to run for extended periods of time; instead, they were relegated to an “also pumped” status that was then turned into a straw man for hydraulic pump performance that was offered up to the highest levels of the Army Corps as evidence that the pumps were fully functional. The recorded storm SCADA data shows clearly that the hydraulic pump runs were not examples of pumping performance that replicate that as seen in a true hurricane event, but rather examples of what can be called “demonstration/exercise runs.” The Corps offered these demonstration runs as evidence that the pumps work and keep telling the 311,800 residents of New Orleans that they are safe.

“The OSC really went above and beyond the call of duty here,” said Radack. “They should be commended in this instance for getting to the bottom of a whistleblower’s disclosure and standing up for the safety of American citizens.

Government Accountability Project

The Government Accountability Project is the nation’s leading whistleblower protection organization. Through litigating whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms, GAP’s mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government and corporate accountability. Founded in 1977, GAP is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

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