NEW ORLEANS (AP) - After a bitter battle over money to rebuild
the hospital that served the city's poor before Hurricane Katrina,
state officials won a major victory Wednesday - an arbitration
panel said FEMA must pay more than $470 million to replace it.
The unanimous decision by the three-judge Civilian Board of
Contract Appeals gave the state all but about $17 million of the
money it wanted.
"They gave us what we asked for, because they excluded fixed
equipment and said that should be applied for separately," said
Ray Lamonica, attorney for the LSU System, which runs Louisiana's
public hospital system. "We're very happy."
Gov. Bobby Jinal was expected to address the future of the
hospital later Wednesday.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency had estimated damage at
$124 million and offered $150 million as a settlement.
There was no immediate response from preservationists who have
been fighting to force renovation of the existing building, which
the state said was too damaged to reopen.
"The panel understands that differences of opinion exist in New
Orleans as to whether the public is better served by rebuilding
Charity Hospital in its present location or by constructing a new
hospital elsewhere in the city," the arbitrators wrote. "This
issue is not relevant to our determination in this case."
The settlement will help pay for a 424-bed, $1.2 billion
hospital proposed next to a new Veterans Affairs hospital.
The ruling doesn't change the 2013 construction start announced
earlier, said Marvin McGraw, spokesman for the Louisiana State
University Health Care Services Division. "Nothing changes. The
planning, architectural drawings - the process is under way," he
said.
The judges weren't particularly impressed by FEMA's experts
compared with those from Blitch Knevel Architects and RSMeans
Business Solutions, which testified for LSU and the state.
"The FEMA representatives who testified at the hearing were
less experienced and less credible than the BKA and RSMeans
representative. They had spent far less time in the building than
had the BKA witnesses," the judgment said. "Unlike the BKA and
RSMeans witnesses, most of them were unlicensed."
At least some of FEMA's information was incomplete, and the
agency's witnesses didn't have evidence to back up their doubts
about whether some damages were caused by the storm.
As an example, the judgement noted that toxic wastes filled
pipes for drinking water, but nobody knew just how many floors up
that contamination went. Original construction drawings were lost
in the flood, so "the number and location of dead ends was
unknown."
BKA's engineers found that all the pipes would have to be
replaced, but FEMA's thought it was possible that pipes on upper
floors might be usable. However, the judges said, those witnesses
didn't know how many floors might have usable piping "or, given
the large number of unknown dead ends, whether one could say with
any confidence that flushing the system would really render it
capable of carrying potable water."
Katrina struck Aug. 29, 2005, smashing levees and flooding 80
percent of New Orleans. The hospital, known historically as Charity
Hospital, suffered flooding and wind damage. It did not reopen
after the storm though its operator, LSU, opened what it has called
an interim hospital at a nearby location.
The building, in the city's business district, dates back to the
1930s. As part of the state's charity hospital system, it was the
principal place of care for many of the city's poor residents
before Katrina.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
