[StBernard] Point of View by Ron Chapman - Marshall and MRGO

[Westley Annis]

Point of View

Nunez Registration

Nunez Community College will be holding registration on its Chalmette campus
throughout this week and the beginning of next week.  There are a variety of
classes offered both on campus as well as online. 

If you have access to the internet go to www.nunez.edu for all of the
information you may need.  If you do not have internet, just drop in to the
college and pick-up the information about class offerings and times.

Like everyone else in Chalmette, Nunez Community College was severely
damaged by Katrina.  But through the efforts of Chancellor Warner and the
staff, support personnel, and faculty we have overcome the problems and will
be offering classes this spring.
 
If you have been displaced or have lost your place of employment, what
better opportunity than to register for classes and take advantage of an
assortment of benefits available.  The new Industrial Technology program is
especially attractive because graduation from that program almost assures a
high paying job and an attractive career.  In addition, students who may
have to return home to help rebuild the house or because families can no
longer afford off-campus expenses can take courses at Nunez and have them
transfer to the college of their choice.

Nunez is back.serving the community.  The more students we have the strong
we are.  So enroll and let us help one another recover from this terrible
ordeal.  

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This is NOT good news!!!

When residents are trying to make that all-important decision about
returning to St. Bernard and regenerating their lives, it does not help to
discover that the main obstruction to reconstruction, an adequate levee
system, remains in question.

Bob Marshall is a staff writer for a local newspaper has distinguished
himself over the years for accurate reporting on a variety of subjects, with
special emphasis on outdoors issues.   As such he has much knowledge about
the areas surround New Orleans, including St. Bernard.

On January 13, 2006 he composed an important article entitled "Engineers
have qualms about MR-Go work."   The contents of this should cause alarm all
persons living in St. Bernard Parish and the New Orleans 9th Ward.  It
raises the specter that the levee along the MRGO that failed and destroyed
our community will be no better after repair than before.  This means it can
"happen again!"  I commend MR. Marshall for his research.

To quote Mr. Marshall, the Corps fully admits that the "Army Corps of
Engineers can't repeat the mistake that allowed Lake Borgne to swallow much
of St. Bernard parish."    We all agree on that point.  In addition the
corps also freely admits to ".building the structures out of weak marsh
soils that disintegrated in Hurricane Katrina's surge."

That is past history and the present situation in our parish bears testimony
to the truth of that last comment.  The new design calls for employing soils
imported from borrow pits and topping the levee with "armor" which amounts
to a protective hardened layer of some material that will not erode should
the levee be overtopped.

This all sounds well and construction is underway.  The problem sets in when
the "checkers are checked."   It appears that a team of specialists in levee
construction from the National Science Foundation (NSF) appeared on the
scene to examine progress on present reconstruction.  Their initial findings
are chilling.  

".[S]ome of the nation's leading forensic engineers, including two who
visited the project this week, are not impressed with the results."   They
cite as examples: ".the soils being used to rebuild the levee appeared to be
unsuitable for the task, the design being employed repeats mistakes that
contributed to the failures during Katrina, and calls to armor the
levee.still were not approved (by Congress.)"

Standing in contrast to this objective evaluation is the corps position
stated by Col. Louis Setliff: " I'm confident about the layers of quality
inspection we have."  Despite the reassurances by the corps, J. David
Rogers, a top authority on levee failures  and a member of the NSF team
states: "A lot of the material you've got down there, plain and simple,
ain't (sic) good for building levees."

As it stands, therefore, that one critical variable in everyone's
calculation about returning to St. Bernard and rebuilding their homes and
businesses is still just that.a VARIABLE!  Which in math is an "unknown."

This is most frustrating.  Many of us, indeed perhaps most of us want to
come home.  We are tired of boarding our homes from hurricanes and dread the
yearly evacuations, but we love our neighbors, our neighborhoods, and our
community.  We want it back!

Our current crisis would not have happened had the corps of engineers
properly engineered, constructed, and maintained the pre-Katrina MRGO levee.
We would have experienced flooding, but not of a catastrophic nature.   We
might not have experienced flooding at all had the MRGO not been dug as we
urged back in 1957.

It is indeed disheartening to learn today, after St. Bernard Parish and the
Lower 9th Ward suffered such total destruction and significant loss of life
that the corps is going about business as usual.  Using substandard
materials, faulty engineering, and questionable inspections thereby placing
us at risk once again.

Closing MRGO and securing the levee system is priority Number 1!  Not only
for St. Bernard and the 9th Ward, but also for all of New Orleans.  We are
the last line of defense.  When we go under.they go under!   Consider.when
General Andrew Jackson established the defense of New Orleans in 1814 he
constructed three lines of defense before the British could enter the city
(two between Line Jackson and the city).Not one!

A lot of people in local government and on the Citizens Recovery Committee
are spending much valuable time and energy trying to rebuild our community.
But all of these plans are dependant upon adequate hurricane protection.  If
that is not available.all else fails!