The Office of Special Counsel has awarded an engineer from the Army Corps of Engineers in Los Angeles its annual Public Servant Award.
The engineer led the pumping systems installation team in New Orleans from March – September 2006, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
It said that the engineer in 2007 raised concerns with OSC about the reliability of the New Orleans’ pumping equipment system, which would be used to help prevent flooding in New Orleans, alleging that USACE lacked proper management and contract oversight over a contractor tasked with the design, testing, and installation of pumping equipment.
OSC said the engineer also disclosed that attempts to address these serious management and public safety issues were consistently thwarted by contractor and Corps employees.
OSC took the matter to DoD, which investigated and partially substantiated the allegations but concluded that the findings merely amounted to poor performance, and that there was no "serious violation of law or regulation, abuse of authority, or gross mismanagement," and that it found no "waste of funds or a danger to public health or safety."
Disagreeing, OSC took the mater to the White House and congressional oversight committees.
OSC argues that there was scant justification for the Corps to restrict solicitation bids to untested hydraulic pump systems, spend millions to install 40 hydraulic pumps in 2007, which are scheduled to be replaced within three to five years at a cost of over $400 million, when more reliable and less costly direct drive pumps could have been used, and install hydraulic equipment without containment protection to prevent hydraulic leaks from polluting waterways, potentially violating the Clean Water Act.
OSC indicated that its persistence on the matter prompted the White House in August to begin assembling an interagency federal task force to oversee the flood protection system and restoration of the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines.
