Corps looks to strengthen flood walls

Reported by: Jennifer Van Vrancken, Reporter
Email: jvan@fox8tv.net
Last Update: 11/17/2009 8:47 am

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Army Corps revisits flood control measures

(Donny Pierce, FOX 8 News)

New Orleans - The Army Corps is taking another look at the floodwalls along the outfall canals to see what it can do to strengthen them.

Critics of the Corps think that is right on track but also offer another suggestion. Making sure the walls of outfall canals stand strong isn't just important to those who live along them. It was the failure of these walls in Katrina that flooded most of the city.

“We are currently revisiting the analysis on all the outfall canals,” said John Grieshaber with the Corps.

After Katrina, the Corps did extensive testing to determine how much water each canal could safely hold. The Corps is now going back over the data to see how the walls might be strengthened.

“There are a number of possibilities and they are unique to different situations. Deep soil mixing is one, driving new sheet pile to cut off seepage is another, modification of the internal walls of the canal and putting relief wells,” Grieshaber said. “Deep soil mixing is when you actually go into the foundation and you mix cement and form columns which changes the strength of the soil. It makes the soil a lot stronger.”

H. J. Bosworth, Jr., a civil engineer for levees.org, said “modifying the soil, making sure water can't go through the soil and off into people's neighborhood and the streets. It is not new technology but it something that needs to be done on an area by area basis.”

Bosworth is glad to see the Corps looking to strengthen floodwalls and potentially raise safe water elevations in the canals.

“The safe water elevation needs to be as high as it possibly can. The safety of the property of people of the city depends on getting water out of the streets and into those canals and ultimately out to the lake,” Bosworth said.

As city pumps suck water off the streets the canal walls need to be strong enough to hold it until the corps, pumps it into the lake. Which brings Bosworth to suggest what he'd like to see the Corps look at next.

“We have some pumps at the London and 17th street canal that are very good, Mercedes quality and others that are Yugo quality,” Bosworth said.

If the Corps makes the walls strong enough to hold more water it also needs to make sure it has pumps sturdy enough to move it into the lake. As for constructing permanent pump stations at the outfall canals. The Corps tells us it is waiting for the state to sign off on the agreement so it can begin work immediately. Even if the work starts now, permanent pump stations won't be built until 2014.

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