Print is dead

Not too long ago we were beside ourselves with indignation to learn that Army Corps of Engineers contractors were stuffing our floodwalls with old newspapers. Friday afternoon, we learned what kinds of materials one might substitute in the post-print era.

Test trenches cut into a problematic levee being raised south of Marrero unearthed logs, concrete chunks, tires, hubcaps, a hot water tank and a shopping cart, according to a blistering report by the West Bank levee authority that questions the levee’s structural integrity. The testing also revealed sections of wet and poorly compacted clay that prompted a levee authority official to dub it the “jelly doughnut levee,” according to the report released Friday.

I guess that once we've decided we can call pizza a vegetable and pepper spray a food product, we're not really that far off from making jelly doughnuts out of old water heaters and shopping carts, much less calling them levees.

But that's not the interesting part. What's interesting is this little bit that comes in at the end.

Officials with Phylway Construction of Thibodaux, which has a $28.8 million contract to raise the levee, have not returned repeated calls seeking comment in the past several months.

The corps’ own inspectors had faulted the company for refusing to cooperate with efforts to resolve the debris problem.

In August, the corps directed Phylway to stop using a Waggaman borrow pit owned by the River Birch landfill in favor of the Willow Bend pit in Donaldsonville.

A River Birch official said the landfill had simply leased out a portion of its corps-approved pit and that it was up to Phylway to ensure any woody debris was removed from the clay.

That's not just any jelly doughnut. That's a River Birch filled jelly doughnut. There's bound to be all sorts of interesting things stuffed in there.. although mainly bullshit and money. But this is all very much in line with the flavor profile at the Slabbed kitchen so we'll let them sort this out for us.