Levees.org: "This Is Disturbing."

[Louisiana1976]

The Army Corps of Engineers spent a half billion dollars on pump stations and related structures for the New Orleans outfall canals with 40 pumps that were supposed to last 50 years, but will have to be scrapped after just 5, according to the Office of Special Counsel (OSC).

And the Corps has apparently been lying about it.

Since 2007, Corps spokespersons have been telling the public that the MWI hydraulic pumps are temporary when records clearly show that the Corps went to Congress in 2006 and requested money for improvements, including pumps that would have a 50-year life, not 5. In addition, the Army Corps' contract with the pump vendor calls for a bearing life of 50,000 hours which represents a "very long life span, likely in excess of 50 years."

Now the Corps is claiming they said from Day One that the pumps were temporary.

But here is the truth. What was temporary from Day One was the housing structures that supported and surrounded the pumps, not the pumps themselves.

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more...http://righthandthief.blogspot.com/2009/09/this-is-disturbing.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. The usual dcitum applies, FOLLOW THE MONEY.

damn.

K&R because NOLA matters

[NOLALady]

2. K and R

[Selatius]

3. So the Army Corps under Bush went cheapo on the pumps and pocketed the rest of the cash.

Is this the gist of the fraud? This sounds like the MO of people who associate with entities like Halliburton or Blackwater.

[Barack_America]

4. Didn't Jeb Bush's company sell them those pumps?

Guess they've seen their last government dime, once the Boner Bill passes.

Edit:

Answering my own question.

Yup.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/8/28/773519/-New-Orleans-Pumps-Unsafe

[bertman]

5. Of course, when the next Big One hits and the pumps fail and the levees breach, the Corpse

will start their usual lament of "we didn't have the funding to do it right".

It's way past time for the Corpse of Engineers to get a major revamping.

Recommended for all of my inlaws who live in the Crescent City.