More Awards for a Corps Job Well Done
I thought you’d like to know that the head of the Corps at the time Katrina struck, Carl Strock, will be accepting an award from the American Society of Civil Engineers next month at their Black Tie gala in Washington:
Henry L. Michel Award for Industry Advancement of Research
The award is being given for “industry advancement of research.” Of course, one of the primary causes leading to the failure of the 17th St canal floodwals was the Corps’ ignoring their own research on failure modes of those walls in the infamous “E-99″ study.
Strock left the Corps last year for a project director job at engineering, construction, and management giant Bechtel:
Bechtel hires another ex-government official
This is not the first award he has received in the time since he left the Corps. ASCE gave him the inaugural Professional Practice Ethics and Leadership Award in November:
Former Corps of Engineers Chief Honored with National Civil Engineering Award
From that press release:
“The award honors Strock for his dedication to learning the truth about why the hurricane protection system in New Orleans failed during Hurricane Katrina, and his commitment to sharing all lessons learned with the profession, industry and public.”
The actions described in Dr. Seed’s letter to the ASCE would seem to contradict that:
Re: New Orleans, Louisiana, Hurricane Katrina, And the Soul of a Profession
The results of ASCE’s internal investigation into Seed’s complaints are supposedly due next month.
Update: By the way, the study doesn’t actually make any recommendations. In fact, here’s an excerpt from the end of the report:
“Efforts to date do not point to a single effective risk reduction strategy. No single strategy for comprehensive hurricane damage risk reduction, other than entirely abandoning communities in South Louisiana, will guarantee safety for the population along the coast.”
Basically, what this study has done is just collect all the alternatives, so that more meetings can be held. The Corps has placed a paragraph in the report meant to blunt criticism that the public was expecting recommendations from this report, and there are none (and, yes, I am aware that was reported earlier, but that doesn’t mean that every member of the public in South Louisiana will remember or care about it):
“Congress also directed a technical report rather than a reconnaissance or feasibility report as described by normal USACE policy. The technical report will contain many of the same components as a reconnaissance or feasibility report, such as presenting the results of the formulation and evaluation of alternatives. As outlined by the Congressional direction, the technical report will contain a ‘comprehensive hurricane protection analysis and design…to develop and present a full range of flood control, coastal restoration, and hurricane protection measures…for comprehensive Category 5 protection.’”
Expect to see that argument when people start asking, “why are there no recommendations other than, ‘have more meetings?’”
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Another huge waste of money.. nice find