NationStates Jolt Archive

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20050916%2FNEWS0110%2F509160369%2F1260

Whoever is behind the e-mail may have spotted the Sept. 8 issue of National Review Online that chastised the Sierra Club and other environmental groups for suing to halt the corps' 1996 plan to raise and fortify 303 miles of Mississippi River levees in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas.

The levees that broke causing New Orleans to flood weren't Mississippi River levees. They were levees that protected the city from Lake Pontchartrain levees on the other side of the city.

So, in other words, the very people playing the "let's not play the blame game," game are pointing to environmentalists who had nothing to do with the actual levees that crumbled..

I never blamed the Sierra Club. That's a pretty cowardly way to shift blame from the real failures (local, state, and national governments) to some group who had nothing to do with it in the first place.

Ironically enough, the wetlands are what keep New Orleans from flooding; by trying to halt their development, they were likely making the situation better.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-money17sep17,1,5736422.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

The smoking gun.


WASHINGTON — Senior officials in Louisiana's emergency planning agency already were awaiting trial over allegations stemming from a federal investigation into waste, mismanagement and missing funds when Hurricane Katrina struck.

And federal auditors are still trying to track as much as $60 million in unaccounted for funds that were funneled to the state from the Federal Emergency Management Agency dating back to 1998.

In March, FEMA demanded that Louisiana repay $30.4 million to the federal government.

The problems are particularly worrisome, federal officials said, because they involve the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the agency that will administer much of the billions in federal aid anticipated for victims of Katrina.

Earlier this week, federal Homeland Security officials announced they would send 30 investigators and auditors to the Gulf Coast to ensure relief funds were properly spent.

Details of the ongoing criminal investigations come from two reports by the inspector general's office in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, as well as in state audits, and interviews this week with federal and state officials.

The reports were prepared by the federal agency's field office in Denton, Texas, and cover 1998 to 2003. Improper expenditures previously identified by auditors include a parka, a briefcase and a trip to Germany.

Much of the FEMA money that was unaccounted for was sent to Louisiana under the Hazard Mitigation Grant program, intended to help states retrofit property and improve flood control facilities, for example.

The $30.4 million FEMA is demanding back was money paid into that program and others, including a program to buy out flood-prone homeowners. As much as $30 million in additional unaccounted for spending also is under review in audits that have not yet been released, according to a FEMA official.

One 2003 federal investigation of allegedly misspent funds in Ouachita Parish, a district in northern Louisiana, grew into a probe that sprawled into more than 20 other parishes.

Mark Smith, a spokesman for the Louisiana emergency office, said the agency had responded to calls for reform, and that "we now have the policy and personnel in place to ensure that past problems aren't repeated."

He said earlier problems were largely administrative mistakes, not due to corruption.

But federal officials disagreed. They said FEMA for years expressed concerns over patterns of improper management and lax oversight throughout the state agency, and said most problems had not been corrected.

They point to criminal indictments of three state workers as evidence the problem was more than management missteps. Two other state emergency officials also were identified in court documents as unindicted co-conspirators.

"The charges were made after some very extensive reviews by FEMA investigators and other authorities, who identified issues they felt were of the severity and magnitude to refer them to the U.S. attorney's office," said David Passey, the spokesman for FEMA's regional office in Texas.

Passey, while acknowledging that the state had made some administrative changes, said it had not completed the kind of overhaul FEMA said was needed.

"It concerns us a lot. We are devoted to the mission of helping people prepare for, prevent and recover from disasters and we want these federal funds — this taxpayer money — to be spent and used well and in accordance with the rules," he said.

Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington watchdog group, said recent Louisiana history showed that FEMA "money earmarked for saving lives and homes'' was instead squandered in "a cesspool of wasteful spending."

Louisiana's emergency office receives money directly from FEMA. It passes on much of the funding to local governments that apply for assistance.

The audit reports said state operating procedures increased the likelihood of fraud and corruption going undetected.

For instance, a Nov. 30, 2004, report by Tonda L. Hadley, a director in the Denton field office, examined $40.5 million sent to the Louisiana agency, mostly for the Hazard Mitigation program. The report found that the state's emergency office did not have receipts to account for 97% of the $15.4 million it had awarded to subcontractors on 19 major projects.

The report also said the Louisiana agency had misspent $617,787 between May 2000 and September 2003.

Questionable expenditures identified by the inspector general included $2,400 for sod installation, several thousand dollars for a trip to Germany by the deputy director, $1,071 for curtains, and $595 for an L.L. Bean parka and briefcase. The inspector general also challenged unspecified spending for camera equipment, professional dues and a 2002 Ford Crown Victoria.

The day before the report was issued, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Louisiana obtained an indictment against Michael L. Brown, deputy director of the Louisiana office of emergency preparedness. (Brown is no relation to former FEMA director Michael D. Brown who resigned this week.) Louisiana's deputy director oversaw the state's Hazard Mitigation program.

Brown was charged with conspiring to obstruct the inspector general's investigation and for making a false statement to a federal investigator.

Michael C. Appe, another senior state agency official, also was charged with obstructing the audit. Months earlier, Appe had been appointed as head of a "surge team" to review projects funded with FEMA money. The team's mission was to help spot abuses.

Both Appe and Brown hold the rank of colonel for their roles in overseeing elements of the state National Guard.

Appe was arrested in Baton Rouge last November, as was Daniel J. Falanga, the state agency's flood-mitigation officer. Falanga was accused of committing perjury before a grand jury investigating misuse of FEMA funds.

All three men have pleaded not guilty to the charges and deny wrongdoing, according to their lawyers. Trial dates remain uncertain because the hurricane disrupted court schedules.

According to the indictment, Brown and Appe conspired in 2000 to use $175,000 in FEMA funds to cover a shortfall in a related agency's budget. Later, when the inspector general began investigating the agency's use of FEMA money, the two men conspired to create a fake, backdated memo to cover up the earlier diversion of funds, the indictment says.

State agency spokesman Smith said Brown had traveled to Germany, but to attend a conference. He declined to answer questions about alleged improper spending, citing the pending trial. Smith said at the time, state officials believed the trip to Germany was a proper expenditure.

Brown's lawyer, Elton Richey, said his client tried to spend federal disaster funds wisely despite job turnover and confusion between state agency officials and FEMA overseers. He said FEMA kept changing the rules.

Marty Stroud, a lawyer who represents Appe and Falanga, said, "There are no charges that anyone in this case enriched himself at the expense of a federal program."

Hadley, of the inspector general's office, issued a second report on Feb. 25, 2005, which tracked state spending of FEMA money to pay for "extraordinary costs," a special category used for the administration of disaster assistance programs. It said the agency had improperly spent $247,166 for items such as a car, computers, membership dues and travel to seminars.

In addition to alleged misspending reported in the two audits, FEMA has asked for the return of $10.7 million allocated to a program for buying property in high-risk flood areas. Most of that money was passed on to local communities to determine which property owners would benefit.

FEMA alleged the Louisiana agency had not properly monitored expenditures, and failed to ensure that properties receiving the funds were eligible.

About $2.8 million of the refund sought by FEMA went to consultant fees. Most of that money went to Aegis Innovative Systems, a Baton Rouge firm hired by many parishes to administer the flood buyout program. Aegis owners include Mark Howard, a former official at the Louisiana agency.

State Sen. Reggie Dupre said it appeared that parishes employing Aegis were especially successful in winning money from the state emergency preparedness agency.

"It smells like a horrible brother-in-law deal to me, " he said in a phone interview.

An Aegis attorney did not respond to a request for comment.


It mainly falls to state officials, who to mention were indicted.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-money17sep17,1,5736422.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

The smoking gun.



It mainly falls to state officials, who to mention were indicted.
Wow, Mesatecala is quoting the LA TIMES!!!!!
What a day, what a day!!! Cheers and beers for all!!!!!

Wow, Mesatecala is quoting the LA TIMES!!!!!
What a day, what a day!!! Cheers and beers for all!!!!!

*takes beer and leaves*

Careful, Mesatecala might've shook that beer up.
Ask how!

:eek:

No need to worry that the Sierra Club's name is slandered. The hype is all hype. Anyone in their right mind would know that not building up the levees would be MORE of an environmental problem than to not build them up. Lake Ponchartrain is already a disgusting nightmare (ok maybe not a "nightmate", but its gross). I also doubt that the Bush administration is attempting to slander the Sierra Club, cause they would only convince the truly ignorant. This appears to me to be media hype that people want to hear. They want all the gossip on whoes to blame right now.

Also, to put blame on anyone, I would agree with that the state and city are mainly to blame. The city of New Orleans, inherent in its design, requires extensive fortifications and pumps to counteract nature. What they were lacking was an emergency action plan, a city wide alarm system in case of a catastrophic levee failre (as happened). My grandfather, an old Creole from the French Quarter, used to talk about how he wanted to be around when the "big one" hit. This flood was no surprise to anyone except those that arent familiar with the city. I was appalled that the city had no idea what was going on when the flooding occurred. After 911, the big scare was that the "terrorists" would blow the levees at the SuperBowl. Did they have a EAP then? Cause they sure didnt after a hurricane that was obvioulsy going to hit happened.

--snip--

And yet, Mesa never bats an eye at the $8 billion that has gone missing in Iraq.

And yet, Mesa never bats an eye at the $8 billion that has gone missing in Iraq.

your argument is irrelevant. Oops.. clicked submit to quickly. That has been investigated, but it is not relevant to the topic at hand.

Did they have a EAP then? Cause they sure didnt after a hurricane that was obvioulsy going to hit happened.
Both city and state have evac plans that were relatively up to date, but they were not implemented. And then Blanco takes 24 hours to come up with what should have been a quick decision. And people wonder why New Orleans is in the trouble it's in.

Wow, Mesatecala is quoting the LA TIMES!!!!!
What a day, what a day!!! Cheers and beers for all!!!!!

People can't say I got it from an ultra-right wing source like they usually do. The investigation is starting to show who was mostly at fault for the mishandling.

Bah. The Sierra Club burned down a house my uncle was building a few years ago, so they aren‘t innocent by any means. I blame them and the rest of their ilk for a lot of things wrong in the world today, but the levees breaking in New Orleans isn’t one of them.

Both city and state have evac plans that were relatively up to date, but they were not implemented. And then Blanco takes 24 hours to come up with what should have been a quick decision. And people wonder why New Orleans is in the trouble it's in.

Well, there is the answer then. Fatally poor leadership.

I don't think that the sierra club is to blame either. I blame Clinton, Carter and Johnson.

But mostly FDR, who thought the idea of a bowl surrounded by soup was a good idea in the first place.

Enough shit about the evacuation, okay? The best evacuation plan out there had New Orleans only getting 60% of their people out, and they got 80% out, so take any criticism you have of that, fold it up until it has at least five very pointy edges, and jam it in a very uncomfortable place, okay? I'm tired of this slander.

As to the buses--because I know that's going to come up--the number 2,000 is bullshit. It was 324 buses, and 70 of them were down for repairs. That left 250, assuming that drivers were available and that they had somewhere to go.

And if you want to talk about real failure--FEMA still can't get their shit together. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/17/national/nationalspecial/17fema.html?hp&ex=1127016000&en=f3c0a5321cb09237&ei=5094&partner=homepage)The struggle to return parishes, towns and individual lives to some semblance of working order is visible throughout the region.

The president of St. Tammany Parish, Kevin Davis, is praying that it does not rain in his sweltering corner of Louisiana, because three weeks after the storm severely damaged his drainage system, FEMA has yet to give him approval to even start the repairs.

Up north in the poor parish of Washington, residents are sleeping in houses that were chopped in half by oak trees. The promised wave of government inspectors have not shown up to assist them.

James McGehee, the mayor of Bogalusa, a small Louisiana city near the Mississippi border, could barely contain his rage in an interview on Thursday.

"Today is 18 days past the storm, and FEMA has not even put a location for people who are displaced," he said. "They are walking around the damn streets. The system's broke."
.........
Tempers are already flaring among many of the thousands of people displaced by the storm who have had a hard time getting through to FEMA on the telephone or finding centers where FEMA representatives can answer questions about various federal assistance programs. Only 8 of 40 promised sites have opened in Louisiana.

"I still do not have a firm date as to when they will put a site," said Mr. Taylor of Washington parish. Baton Rouge, which has received a huge influx of evacuees, did not get such a center until this Thursday. Evacuees and local officials also complain that FEMA's request for them to register on line or via phone is unrealistic, given that as of Wednesday 310,000 households in Louisiana were still without telephone service and 283,231 were still awaiting power, or nearly 30 percent of the state's households. And the phone lines are almost always jammed anyway. As such, those with cars drive miles to operating help centers in other counties, where the lines are sprawling. Confusion is rampant.

"FEMA don't communicate with you very well," said Tommy Nelson, as he cleaned out the home of his girlfriend's mother in Waveland, a Gulf Coast town now more of a memory than a place. "You got to learn things second-hand. We just happened to be in a post office line and we just happened to learn you got to register down here for a trailer. I was talking to a FEMA representative about trailers yesterday and she didn't have a clue." The best way to reach FEMA is about 2 a.m., various evacuees said.

Meanwhile, truck drivers carrying tens of thousands of tons of ice and driving water have been sent on a cross-country tour, from city to city, only then to be told to wait for up to a week in a parking lot in Memphis, with their engines, as well as their tabs as drivers running.

"It is a sad experience," said Frank Link,, who was sent from to Missouri, then to Mississippi, then to Alabama and then to Tennessee - all with the same load of 41,580 pounds of ice that he had loaded in Chicago. "I went down there to help. All I did was get the runaround from FEMA."

So I don't want to hear shit about the local officials anymore--when your buddies in the federal government are this damn incompetent, nothing that Nagin or Blanco did comes close.

I don't think that the sierra club is to blame either. I blame Clinton, Carter and Johnson.

But mostly FDR, who thought the idea of a bowl surrounded by soup was a good idea in the first place.

Whaaaaaaa?

NO was built in FDR's time?

How is Clinton to blame at all, much less Carter? You're new here, apparently, but you should know that if you're going to make statements like this, you better be prepared to back them up with reasoned hypotheses and citations.

"Sierra Club not at fault for Levees Collapse"

Well, no, they're not. The Sierra Club use to be ( past tense ) a fairly decent organization until they sold out to the far left, Hollywierd, Land-of-the-Fruits-and-Nuts crowd. I actually use to be ( past tense ) a member!

Whaaaaaaa?

NO was built in FDR's time?

How is Clinton to blame at all, much less Carter? You're new here, apparently, but you should know that if you're going to make statements like this, you better be prepared to back them up with reasoned hypotheses and citations.

You didn't back your statements up. Why should I?

Anyway, it's all the democrats fault. They decided that putting a city there and devopling it was a good idea. So they are are to blame.

So, in other words, the very people playing the "let's not play the blame game," game are pointing to environmentalists who had nothing to do with the actual levees that crumbled..

Do you actually have any ideas of your own? Or are you just everything not Bush?

Since you are plainly an expert in hydraulics, I demand that you tell me now how the city of NO should have been protected from this event; what methods you would have used to obtian this; and, on what cycle you are basing these calculations.

You didn't back your statements up. Why should I?

Anyway, it's all the democrats fault. They decided that putting a city there and devopling it was a good idea. So they are are to blame.

WTF? I started this thread with a report that pointed out actual facts. You, on the other hand, blamed NO on FDR, Clinton and Carter without saying why. You also seem to be laboring under the impression that NO was founded by a member of the Democratic party...when it wasn't even founded by Americans!!!

Dude, whose from-the-ass talking points have you been sucking up with a straw?

You didn't back your statements up. Why should I?

Anyway, it's all the democrats fault. They decided that putting a city there and devopling it was a good idea. So they are are to blame.So Bienville was a Democrat, even though there wasn't a Democratic party, even though there was no United States, and even though he was an agent of the French crown at the time. So where did you go to school again? :rolleyes:

Do you actually have any ideas of your own? Or are you just everything not Bush?

Since you are plainly an expert in hydraulics, I demand that you tell me now how the city of NO should have been protected from this event; what methods you would have used to obtian this; and, on what cycle you are basing these calculations.

Actually, you are the first person to bring up Bush. Guilty conscience,perhaps?

Also, I never claimed to be an expert on hydraulics...though what pimping my ride has to do with this, I have no idea :D

This thread was simply supposed to be about the Sierra Club and the incorrect claim that they had any effect on the actual levees that failed. Period.

Everyone else is bringing up Democrats-this and Bush-that and FEMA-the other. People often change the subject when their spoon-fed talking points are destroyed.

Actually, you are the first person to bring up Bush. Guilty conscience,perhaps?

Also, I never claimed to be an expert on hydraulics...though what pimping my ride has to do with this, I have no idea :D

This thread was simply supposed to be about the Sierra Club and the incorrect claim that they had any effect on the actual levees that failed. Period.

Everyone else is bringing up Democrats-this and Bush-that and FEMA-the other. People often change the subject when their spoon-fed talking points are destroyed.

Well then, what do you think should have been done? And how should NO have been prepared? (And for the sake of argument I am prepared to admit that Bush should have over-ridden local authority far earlier than he did and brought in full federal intervention, so I don't want to discuss what bush didn't do.)

Well then, what do you think should have been done? And how should NO have been prepared? (And for the sake of argument I am prepared to admit that Bush should have over-ridden local authority far earlier than he did and brought in full federal intervention, so I don't want to discuss what bush didn't do.)

Well, to address the subject at hand, one thing I wouldn't have done is release a talking-points memo blaming the Sierra Club.

The charges against the Sierra Club reek of politics and blame, and there will be plenty more to come. I don't care for the organization, but this looks like payback.

The single-minded blaming of only one person or one organization is rather mindless and counterproductive, in my view. This is a complex and multi-faceted problem, and we're working with preliminary information - thanks to the mainstream media who have fed us images and sound bites rather than timelines and facts. The analysis of what went wrong should be directed toward improvement of current systems.

In any event, and find whom you want to blame, here is some information regarding funding for levees and drainage in New Orleans. A story of confused priorities and lots of money, and ultimately a fatal game of russian roulette.

"In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state, about $1.9 billion; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large.

Much of that Louisiana money was spent to try to keep low-lying New Orleans dry. But hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to unrelated water projects demanded by the state's congressional delegation and approved by the Corps, often after economic analyses that turned out to be inaccurate. Despite a series of independent investigations criticizing Army Corps construction projects as wasteful pork-barrel spending, Louisiana's representatives have kept bringing home the bacon.

For example, after a $194 million deepening project for the Port of Iberia flunked a Corps cost-benefit analysis, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) tucked language into an emergency Iraq spending bill ordering the agency to redo its calculations. The Corps also spends tens of millions of dollars a year dredging little-used waterways such as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, the Atchafalaya River and the Red River -- now known as the J. Bennett Johnston Waterway, in honor of the project's congressional godfather -- for barge traffic that is less than forecast."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/07/AR2005090702462.html

Well, to address the subject at hand, one thing I wouldn't have done is release a talking-points memo blaming the Sierra Club.

In other words, nothing.

In other words, nothing.

No, I'm just not going to be baited into changing the subject.

No, I'm just not going to be baited into changing the subject.

Like I said; nothing. Now, go away and actually have a few ideas.

Like I said; nothing. Now, go away and actually have a few ideas.

Go away from my own thread, the original point of which you haven't even begun to address? Troll.