Thursday, May 17, 2007

Landrieu: GAO probe found no fraud

NEW ORLEANS - Congress's investigative arm found no evidence of fraud or improper influence in the placing of faulty pumps along New Orleans' drainage canals before the start of last year's hurricane season, Sen. Mary Landrieu said Thursday.

Landrieu said the Government Accounting Office found that the Army Corps of Engineers was in a rush to get pumps in place prior to the June 1 start of the 2006 hurricane season. The 2005 season had produced Hurricane Katrina, when failures in the city's flood protection led to inundation of 80 percent of New Orleans.

A May 2006 memo by a Corps inspector working on the pump project, provided to The Associated Press earlier this year, warned that the pumps were faulty and would not work if needed to remove water during a hurricane.

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