La. Governor Outraged Over Faulty Pumps

NEW ORLEANS - Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco lashed out at the Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday for installing defective pumps at three major drainage canals just before the start of last summer's hurricane season.

"This could put a lot of our people in jeopardy," Blanco said. "It begs the question: Are we really safe?"

She called for a congressional investigation into how the Corps allowed it to happen.

Citing internal documents, The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the Corps installed the 34 pumps last year in a rush to fix the city's flood defenses, despite warnings from one of its experts that the machinery was defective and likely to fail in a storm.

At the same time, the Corps, the White House and state officials were telling residents that it was safe to come back to New Orleans, which was devastated in August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina breached the city's floodwalls.

On Wednesday, Donald Powell, the administration's Gulf Coast hurricane recovery czar, said that he was never shown the memo, and that assurances he made that New Orleans was as safe as or safer than it was before Katrina were based on information he got from the Corps.

"We were asking the Corps to do the job as fast as possible to get the condition of the levee back to make it as safe as possible," Powell said. "That was the primary goal above all goals - safety in the region."

Becaue the 2006 hurricane season was mild, the new pumps were never put to the test.

The Corps and the politically connected manufacturer of the equipment, Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla., are still struggling to get the 34 pumps, designed and built under a $26.6 million contract, working properly.

The pumps have been plagued by excessive vibration, overheated engines, broken hoses and blown gaskets.

"You want to build confidence, but you have to tell it like it is," said Gwen Bierria, 65, who is rebuilding her home with her husband next to the London Avenue canal, one of two canals that were breached during Katrina and flooded vast sections of the city.

"It's like being pregnant, sooner or later it's going to show," she said. "And Katrina was a big-time show."