Report Examines Path to Failed New Orleans Levees

The levee system that was designed to protect New Orleans, but failed
catastrophically during Hurricane Katrina, was completed under severe financial and political pressure, including opposition from local officials and environmentalists, according to a federally sponsored report set to be released today.

The study commissioned by the Army Corps of Engineers details how Corps officials facing budget pressures cut millions from the construction of key flood walls by shrinking their support pilings. Under pressure from rising waters during Katrina, those walls toppled, causing much of the city flooding.

According to the report, the Corps also pressed ahead with the plan authorized by Congress in 1965, even after later information about potential hurricane dangers indicated that the system provided less protection than promised.

"There was a general sense that what was being built wasn't up to snuff," said Leonard A. Shabman, a resident scholar at Resources for the Future, an environmental think tank. But Corps and local officials "were basically saying there is a budget cap and we are going to build what we can with that." Shabman co-authored the report with Douglas Woolley from Radford University.

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