[StBernard] Protect levee sheet pilings from rust, officials urge Corps of Engineers

[Westley Annis]

Protect levee sheet pilings from rust, officials urge Corps of Engineers 
Published: Monday, September 20, 2010, 6:11 PM     
Updated: Monday, September 20, 2010, 6:12 PM
 Sheila Grissett, The Times -Picayune 
 
A frustrated group of regional levee authority commissioners has ramped up
efforts to convince the Army Corps of Engineers to reverse its decision not
to coat steel sheet pilings against corrosion, a change federal
levee-builders made last fall to speed up some floodwall construction.

After wrangling internally with the corps for months, the Southeast
Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East and state coastal officials joined
ranks in mid-July to ask that the corps have independent experts quickly
evaluate the decision to forego painting the pilings with a corrosion
retardant and instead use oversized steel to build 23 miles of floodwalls in
St. Bernard Parish.

The corps argues that using slightly larger-than-required pilings so that
the extra metal in each can be sacrificed to rust is a standard practice in
the industry and won't put the walls at risk for corrosion to the point of
failure.

That position is adamantly opposed by state and levee authority engineers,
as well as a consultant they hired to evaluate the use of sacrificial steel
in the marine environment where these new floodwalls are being constructed
to hold back the salty surges out of Lake Borgne and the Gulf of Mexico.

It is those positions and the science behind them that a full-blown
independent expert peer review would take apart and analyze in hopes of
resolving what has morphed into an intensely, controversial issue between
engineers on different sides of the argument.

But at this point, the peer review still hasn't started, and levee authority
members late last week not only challenged the corps to get that evaluation
going, but to also advertise immediately for a corrosion contractor capable
of setting up shop in St. Bernard Parish to start treating the uncoated
pilings now being driven by contractors racing the clock to complete
construction of new walls atop the Chalmette Loop Levee.

"With the work (coating) being done on site, no transportation is required,
so that would take care of their scheduling problems," said engineer and
levee commissioner Tom Jackson.

The construction of the walls, where untreated pilings are one element of
the foundation, is part of a multibillion-dollar levee system expansion
designed to provide increased flood protection by the June 1 start of
hurricane season 2011.

Corps higher-ups granted its New Orleans district a waiver of design
guidelines that allowed the use sacrificial steel, in lieu of coating, but
only if it was necessary in order to meet the construction schedule.

The St. Bernard walls are being built under three corps contracts. One may
be finished in October, and the other two will be less than halfway finished
by then, according to a recent corps report.

Levee engineers readily admit that trying to get the corps to start coating
this late in the game still leaves miles of untreated pilings in the ground.
But engineer Bob Turner, the authority's regional executive director, said
it is too critical an issue to walk away from.

"It's my opinion that it would be wrong to abandon this fight, because if
they can do it here, they can do it on other parts of our system and on
other projects throughout the United States," he said. "It needs to be
resolved here, and it needs to be resolved now."

Although small amounts of untreated sheet pilings have been used in one West
Jefferson project and another in New Orleans, corps representatives have
announced no plans to use it elsewhere. And an official overseeing projects
in East Jefferson and St. Charles Parish previously said no untreated
pilings would be used in those areas.

Although levee commissioners cannot compel the corps to act, they passed a
resolution Thursday demanding a number of actions from the corps::
accelerate the peer review process ; develop and pay for a robust testing
and long-term monitoring program to detect potential corrosion issues before
they become critical and begin developing a remediation plan that addresses
the future corrosion of untreated pilings already driven.

"We have counseled them for months that ... the use of untreated steel in
the marine environment was an imprudent decision, and we asked people with
more expertise to look at it, and they agreed it was imprudent," said levee
commissioner Steve Estopinal, an engineer and surveyor who authored the
resolution.

"We want future steel coated, and if the external peer review comes back and
agrees with us . . . the federal government should be required to pay for
the (monitoring) and maintenance of those walls."

Estopinal called the use of untreated pilings "a design flaw".

Levee and state coastal engineers are also concerned about other aspects of
the design. In particular, they fear that the St. Bernard levees rebuilt
since Katrina will settlement more than the corps has accounted for and, as
a result, voids will form under floodwall slabs andfurther expose uncoated
steel to salt water.

"There's another high-cost maintenance issue that flows from a design flaw,"
Estopinal said.

Col. Robert Sinkler, commander of the corps' Hurricane Protection Office
overseeing St. Bernard floodwall construction, and other corps officials
have said repeateldy that the design is solid and the use of untreated steel
a standard practice.

He also told levee commissioners last week that the agency is fast-tracking
the peer review process, but that it can't begin until corps officials at
division headquarters finish making some final changes to expand the
review's scope.

"We want to roll up all issues regarding the reduction of corrosion
throughout the whole system" instead of examining piecemeal, Sinkler said.

"I think we're at an impasse and need an independent third party to either
say that we're wrong . . . or to say that we're right," said levee authority
president Tim Doody. "And f we're right, the corps and federal government
should have to pay for all the monitoring and maintenance that our engineers
and experts think be needed."

Sheila Grissett can be reached at sgrissett at timespicayune.com or
504.717.7700