New Orleans Levees Petition
It is definitely time for the Corps of Engineers and the Federal Government to stop messing around in New Orleans. The Corps' latest gaffe came recently with the revelation by the Associated Press that the Corps installed 34 defective pumps at three critical drainage canals before the onset the 2006 hurricane season. The defective pumps, which experienced problems like broken hoses and engine overheating, were installed just as the government was telling New Orleanians that it was safe to return to the city. The kicker to the whole sordid story, aside from the former business partnership between Jeb Bush and the pump company's owner, is that an engineer in the Corps voiced the reservations she had about the new pumps in a 2006 memo. Lt. General Carl Strock told the Senate that he never saw the memo.
First of all, I agree with http://www.levees.org that it is high time for an unbiased investigation into the levee failures after Katrina and the subsequent failures to repair the New Orleans levees. It is high time that the New Orleans levees be strengthened so that they can actually protect the city. Almost two years after the storm, the federal government continues to play games with funding repairs and upgrades to the New Orleans levees while the state and city governments are still trying to invigorate recovery programs. In spite of the recent pumps report, federal Gulf Coast hurricane recovery czar Donald Powell claims that the city's hurricane protection system is, "better than it has ever been." I hope that he was just trying to instill a false sense of security in New Orleanians like last year and that he does not actually believe that New Orleans is ready for a major hurricane.
The time to take action on the New Orleans levees is coming in 2008. Not too long ago, Senator Barack Obama led a Congressional delegation down to New Orleans to hold hearings about the recovery while former Senator John Edwards launched his Presidential campaign from the 9th Ward. The nearly 18,000 people who signed this petition are a powerful statement that Americans want to build a Category 5 hurricane and flood protection system for New Orleans and that such a system must be on the front burner for the next President of the United States.
