"It's not the preferred technique"

Call me crazy but this explanatory press conference called by the Corps yesterday doesn't make me feel any better about the substandard construction methods (old newspapers) used in 2006 to create the Donald Powell's "Best levee system known in the world"

After reading Celcus yesterday, I (yes gloomy skeptical I) was all set to accept that this was an isolated case of contractor boo boo and that the Corps next move should be to a) correct the problem and b) take legal action against an errant contractor.

As it turns out, however:

Corps officials said Friday that three panel gaps in a flood wall near the Paris Road bridge in New Orleans, near the St. Bernard Parish line, were plugged with newspaper instead of rubber in May 2006, as an "expedient" method to do minor repairs the year after Katrina. Those three gaps were the only ones where such a method was used, Kurgan said.

"It's not the preferred technique," he said.

Because the waterstop is in place, and because the outside of the newspaper filling was sealed, the risk of leaking is minimal, he said. Several engineers pointed to the black rubber filling being installed on one of the Harvey Canal floodwall gaps.

Corps officials said it used its own hired workers in 2006 to put in the newspaper filling, not a contractor.

So in December 2005, Donald Powell commits to building the "best levee system known in the world" and by May 2006, that's already devolved into "expedient method to do minor repairs" by something other than the "preferred technique"

Today we're at "Those three gaps were the only ones where such a method was used" At this rate we'll be at "Rebuild it. Tear it down. You know... whatever it is" probably by.... oh just after inauguration day.

Update: Celcus, again, has more suggesting that there is something supernatural at work in the Corps' methods.

...when they say such-and-such has been built to “industry standards” or the like, that can include newspapers stuffed into joints. Perhaps whatever the Corp does automatically becomes the standard, in some sort of transubstantiation.