If there was a Cover-up, then what Caused the Flooding in New Orleans? New Commission Sought

The Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS: Accusations that America's foremost civil engineering society covered up catastrophic design flaws in national disasters has reinvigorated calls for Congress to set up a 9/11-style commission to investigate what caused the flooding of New Orleans.

The American Society of Civil Engineers was paid by the federal government to investigate the collapse of the World Trade Center and the levee failures caused by Hurricane Katrina. After both disasters, the society issued reports that allegedly downplayed the fault of engineers.

In the World Trade Center case, critics contend the engineering society wrongly concluded skyscrapers cannot withstand getting hit by airplanes. In the hurricane investigation, it was accused of suggesting that the power of the storm was as big a problem as the poorly designed levees.

Critics say ASCE used the probes to dilute the need to alter building standards and to protect engineers and government agencies from lawsuits.

Similar accusations arose after both disasters, but the most recent allegations by fellow engineers, including prominent academics, have pressured the organization to convene an independent panel to investigate.

The controversy also has given new life to a moribund effort to set up a commission with subpoena power to investigate levee failures during Katrina. The proposed commission is known as the 8/29 commission, named for the date Katrina hit — Aug. 29, 2005.

Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana said she intends to file a bill shortly after Congress reconvenes on March 31.

"It's very important to really understand with this nonpartisan commission what happened and make sure this never happens again," Landrieu said Wednesday.

Attempts to set up a commission so far have gone nowhere because of a political stalemate and a sense that other levee probes have exhausted the issue and that the corps' shortcomings have been resolved.

Sen. David Vitter, the other Louisiana senator, echoed those sentiments in an e-mail response Wednesday.

He said the Water Resources Development Act that was passed last year included "provisions that help further the goals of the 8.29 Commission."

According to Vitter, the bill guarantees that independent experts will peer review Army Corps of Engineers projects in south Louisiana and an independent team will make the agency more efficient and build better levees by taking in outside recommendations.

The corps paid ASCE $1.1 million (€700,000) to investigate what happened during Katrina.

But the new allegations put into question the adequacy of that work.

"Nobody will believe a study by the government that concludes that the government didn't mess up," said Clancy Dubos, a New Orleans political analyst and editor of Gambit Weekly, a weekly newspaper. His newspaper endorsed the idea of an 8/29 commission this week.

"Levees can break in virtually any state in the country," Dubos said. "This is really a national issue. People have to stop thinking of this as a Louisiana issue."

Meanwhile, Levees.Org, a group credited with proposing the idea of the commission, is stepping up its criticism of the ASCE, with letters to the society's leadership challenging statements made by ASCE's top staff about what caused the levee failures.

The group also called a news conference on Thursday to highlight alleged inaccuracies in ASCE presentations at engineering colleges and conferences.

The ASCE says it takes the allegations seriously, but it has declined to comment until completion of the panel's report and an internal ethics review.

The independent panel is expected to issue a report by the end of April and may recommend that the society stop taking money from government agencies for disaster investigations.