Response to Flood protection system on track, on budget: A letter to the editor from Karen Durham-Aguilera, P.E.
Senior Executive Service, Director
Task Force Hope
Mississippi Valley Division
http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2010/09/flood_protection_system_on_tra.html
Posted September 23, 2010, 1:05AM
As a Professional Engineer committed to holding safety paramount, Ms Durham-Aguilera should feel embarrassed to stoop to snake oil hucksterism when she asserts that New Orleans has the "best perimeter defense in its history." What New Orleans deserves is an adequate flood protection system.
Ms Durham-Aguilera is 100% correct when she cites the IPET's findings that Katrina taught us that flood risk reduction can only be accomplished as a system. Unfortunately, the Corps is still mired in fragmented projects, non-existent systems engineering practices, dysfunctional relations with local and state partners and an utter lack of effective, actionable communications with resident stakeholders about their residual risks.
The Corps is not expected to own these levees forever but is expected to provide the leadership to forge responsible local life cycle operation and maintenance. There are many institutions (none of them in Louisiana) that can help the Corps with proven practices to envision, define, architect, engineer and build integrated, resilient systems that deliver adequate safety to our residents against storms and hurricanes.
Without a midcourse correction, the findings and recommendations of the distinguished IPET report will go unheeded and unmet.
Its ironic to note that the Editors add Flood Protection System to the title when the Corps only refers to a risk reduction system. There's a huge difference.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Re: Don't stall on ending drilling moratorium: An editorial
In response to a Times-Picayune editorial on 16 September 2010
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/09/dont_stall_on_ending_drilling.html
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The deep water drilling moratorium was and continues to be a prudent policy that puts safety before growth. The rationale is that we don't know what happened and we don't know what responsible measures to take to prevent it from happening again. We need to wait until we see good science and engineering solutions to making offshore drilling as resilient as it needs to be.
Recent articles by your reporter David Hammer, which cite the continued lack of a safety culture have highlighted the profound uncertainty surrounding a conservative, well-engineered solution. Remember what should be the creed of all engineers - err on the side of safety when there are significant safety and uncertainty issues.
Although I have the profoundest respect for Dr Bea and his study team, I believe his recommendations of primarily fixing specific hardware problems is much to narrow and is the prevailing wisdom of today's petroleum engineers. The right line of inquiry should follow the Corp's IPET findings that pre-Katrina works were a system "in name only" and their recommendation that these works must become a true, comprehensive, integrated, holistic and resilient system in order to guard against inevitable future threats.
I firmly believe that if BP and its subs were put to the system-in-more-than-just-name test, conducted by people who have engineered proven resilient systems, they would be found wanting. Until we get the right people asking the right safety-critical questions we should continue to limit drilling in those conditions where there are no uncertainties.
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/09/dont_stall_on_ending_drilling.html
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The deep water drilling moratorium was and continues to be a prudent policy that puts safety before growth. The rationale is that we don't know what happened and we don't know what responsible measures to take to prevent it from happening again. We need to wait until we see good science and engineering solutions to making offshore drilling as resilient as it needs to be.
Recent articles by your reporter David Hammer, which cite the continued lack of a safety culture have highlighted the profound uncertainty surrounding a conservative, well-engineered solution. Remember what should be the creed of all engineers - err on the side of safety when there are significant safety and uncertainty issues.
Although I have the profoundest respect for Dr Bea and his study team, I believe his recommendations of primarily fixing specific hardware problems is much to narrow and is the prevailing wisdom of today's petroleum engineers. The right line of inquiry should follow the Corp's IPET findings that pre-Katrina works were a system "in name only" and their recommendation that these works must become a true, comprehensive, integrated, holistic and resilient system in order to guard against inevitable future threats.
I firmly believe that if BP and its subs were put to the system-in-more-than-just-name test, conducted by people who have engineered proven resilient systems, they would be found wanting. Until we get the right people asking the right safety-critical questions we should continue to limit drilling in those conditions where there are no uncertainties.
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