Army Corps of Engineers: Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity	 
Hurricane Protection Project (28-SEP-05, GAO-05-1050T). 	 
                                                                 
The greatest natural threat posed to the New Orleans area is from
hurricane-induced storm surges, waves, and rainfalls. A hurricane
surge that can inundate coastal lowlands is the most destructive 
characteristic of hurricanes and accounts for most of the lives  
lost from hurricanes. Hurricane surge heights along the Gulf and 
Atlantic coasts can exceed 20 feet. The effects of Hurricane	 
Katrina flooded a large part of New Orleans and breached the	 
levees that are part of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) 
Lake Pontchartrain, and Vicinity, Louisiana Hurricane Protection 
Project. This project, first authorized in 1965, was designed to 
protect the lowlands in the Lake Pontchartrain tidal basin from  
flooding by hurricane-induced sea surges and rainfall. GAO was	 
asked to provide information on (1) the purpose and history of	 
the Lake Pontchartrain, and Vicinity, Louisiana Hurricane	 
Protection Project and (2) funding of the project. GAO is not	 
making any recommendations in this testimony.			 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-05-1050T					        
    ACCNO:   A38562						        
  TITLE:     Army Corps of Engineers: Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity 
Hurricane Protection Project					 
     DATE:   09/28/2005 
  SUBJECT:   Construction costs 				 
	     Cost analysis					 
	     Flood control					 
	     Hurricanes 					 
	     Program evaluation 				 
	     Natural disasters					 
	     Disaster planning					 
	     Cost estimates					 
	     Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection		 
	     Project						 
                                                                 
	     New Orleans (LA)					 
	     Hurricane Katrina					 

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GAO-05-1050T

United States Government Accountability Office

GAO Testimony

Before the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, Committee on
Appropriations, House of Representatives

For Release on Delivery

Expected at 2:00 p.m. EDT ARMY CORPS OF

September 28, 2005

ENGINEERS

          Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project

Statement of Anu Mittal, Director Natural Resources and Environment

GAO-05-1050T

[IMG]

September 2005

ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project

  What GAO Found

Congress first authorized the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity, Louisiana
Hurricane Protection Project in the Flood Control Act of 1965. The project
was to construct a series of control structures, concrete floodwalls, and
levees to provide hurricane protection to areas around Lake Pontchartrain.
The project, when designed, was expected to take about 13 years to
complete and cost about $85 million. Although federally authorized, it was
a joint federal, state, and local effort.

The original project designs were developed based on the equivalent of
what is now called a fast-moving Category 3 hurricane that might strike
the coastal Louisiana region once in 200-300 years. As GAO reported in
1976 and 1982, since the beginning of the project, the Corps has
encountered project delays and cost increases due to design changes caused
by technical issues, environmental concerns, legal challenges, and local
opposition to portions of the project. As a result, in 1982, project costs
had grown to $757 million and the expected completion date had slipped to
2008. None of the changes made to the project, however, are believed to
have had any role in the levee breaches recently experienced as the
alternative design selected was expected to provide the same level of
protection. In fact, Corps officials believe that flooding would have been
worse if the original proposed design had been built. When Hurricane
Katrina struck, the project, including about 125 miles of levees, was
estimated to be from 60-90 percent complete in different areas with an
estimated completion date for the whole project of 2015. The floodwalls
along the drainage canals that were breached were complete when the
hurricane hit.

The current estimated cost of construction for the completed project is
$738 million with the federal share being $528 million and the local share
$210 million. Federal allocations for the project were $458 million as of
the enactment of the fiscal year 2005 federal appropriation. This
represents 87 percent of the federal government's responsibility of $528
million with about $70 million remaining to complete the project. Over the
last 10 fiscal years (1996-2005), federal appropriations have totaled
about $128.6 million and Corps reprogramming actions resulted in another
$13 million being made available to the project. During that time,
appropriations have generally declined from about $15-20 million annually
in the earlier years to about $5-7 million in the last three fiscal years.
While this may not be unusual given the state of completion of the
project, the Corps' project fact sheet from May 2005 noted that the
President's budget request for fiscal years 2005 and 2006, and the
appropriated amount for fiscal year 2005 were insufficient to fund new
construction contracts. The Corps had also stated that it could spend $20
million in fiscal year 2006 on the project if the funds were available.
The Corps noted that several levees had settled and needed to be raised to
provide the level of protection intended by the design.

                 United States Government Accountability Office

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee:

We are pleased to be here today to discuss the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers (Corps) Lake Pontchartrain, and Vicinity, Louisiana Hurricane
Protection Project. This project, first authorized in 1965, was designed
to protect the lowlands in the Lake Pontchartrain tidal basin within the
greater New Orleans metropolitan area from flooding by hurricaneinduced
sea surges and rainfall. As you know, the effects of Hurricane Katrina
breeched the levees that are part of this project and flooded a large part
of New Orleans.

In my testimony, I will discuss (1) the purpose and history of the project
and (2) funding of the project. To conduct this work, we reviewed GAO's
past reports on the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity, Louisiana Hurricane
Protection Project and on the Corps' flood control efforts in general.1 We
interviewed Corps personnel responsible for the Lake Pontchartrain project
to obtain information on the Corps funding of the project and its current
status. We did the work reflected in this statement during September 2005
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

In summary, the Lake Pontchartrain hurricane project was designed to
protect areas around the lake from flooding caused by a storm surge or
rainfall associated with a standard project hurricane, which is roughly
the same as what is now classified as a fast moving Category 3 hurricane.
The project, when designed in the mid-1960s, was expected to take about 13
years to complete and cost about $85 million. Over the years, the project
has undergone some significant design changes as a result of a successful
court challenge, local opposition to certain aspects of the proposed
design, and changed Corps thinking about the most cost-effective approach.
None of these changes, however, are believed to have had any role in the
levee breaches recently experienced as the alternative design selected was
expected to provide the same level of protection. In fact, Corps staff
believes that flooding would have been worse if the original proposed
design had been built. As of early 2005, the project was not expected to
be completed until 2015-nearly 50 years after it was first

1GAO, Cost, Schedule, And Performance Problems Of The Lake Pontchartrain
And Vicinity, Louisiana, Hurricane Protection Project, GAO/PSAD-76-161
(Washington, D.C.: Aug. 31, 1976) and GAO, Improved Planning Needed By The
Corps Of Engineers To Resolve Environmental, Technical, And Financial
Issues On The Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project,
GAO/MASAD-82-39 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 17, 1982).

Background

authorized-and cost about $738 million, much of the cost increase is due
to inflation over the years and changes to the scope and design of the
project. In recent years, questions have been raised about the ability of
the project to protect the New Orleans area from hurricanes greater than
Category 3. This issue was only beginning to be studied by the Corps when
Hurricane Katrina hit the area in August 2005.

Since its founding in 1718, the city of New Orleans and its surrounding
areas have been subject to numerous floods from the Mississippi River and
hurricanes. The greater New Orleans metropolitan area, composed of
Orleans, Jefferson, St. Charles, St. Bernard, and St. Tammany parishes,
sits in the tidal lowlands of Lake Pontchartrain and is bordered generally
on its southern side by the Mississippi River. Lake Pontchartrain is a
tidal basin about 640 square miles in area that connects with the Gulf of
Mexico through Lake Borgne and the Mississippi Sound.

While the area has historically experienced many river floods, a series of
levees and other flood control structures built over the years were
expected to greatly reduce that threat. The greatest natural threat posed
to the New Orleans area continues to be from hurricane-induced storm
surges, waves, and rainfalls. Several hurricanes have struck the area over
the years including Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Hurricane Camille in 1969,
and Hurricane Lili in 2002. The hurricane surge that can inundate coastal
lowlands is the most destructive characteristic of hurricanes and accounts
for most of the lives lost from hurricanes. Hurricane surge heights along
the Gulf and Atlantic coasts can range up to 20 feet or more and there is
growing concern that continuing losses of coastal wetlands and settlement
of land in New Orleans has made the area more vulnerable to such storms.
Because of such threats, a series of control structures, concrete
floodwalls, and levees, was proposed for the area along Lake Pontchartrain
in the 1960s.

  Purpose and History of Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Flood Control Project

Congress first authorized construction of the Lake Pontchartrain and
Vicinity, Louisiana Hurricane Protection Project in the Flood Control Act
of 19652 to provide hurricane protection to areas around the lake in the
parishes of Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, and St. Charles. Although
federally authorized, it was a joint federal, state, and local effort with
the federal government paying 70 percent of the costs and the state and
local interests paying 30 percent. The Corps was responsible for project
design and construction and local interests were responsible for
maintenance of levees and flood controls. The original project design,
known as the barrier plan, included a series of levees along the
lakefront, concrete floodwalls along the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal,
and control structures, including barriers and flood control gates located
at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur Pass areas. These structures were
intended to prevent storm surges from entering Lake Pontchartrain and
overflowing the levees along the lakefront. The original lakefront levees
were planned to be from 9.3 feet to 13.5 feet high depending on the
topography of the area directly in front of the levees.

This project plan was selected over another alternative, known as the
high-level plan, which excluded the barriers and flood control gates at
the Rigolets and Chef Menteur Pass complexes and instead employed higher
levees ranging from 16 feet to 18.5 feet high along the lakefront to
prevent storm surges from inundating the protected areas. In the 1960s,
the barrier plan was favored because it was believed to be less expensive
and quicker to construct. As explained later in my statement, this
decision was reversed in the mid-1980s. The cost estimate for the original
project was $85 million (in 1961 dollars) and the estimated completion
date was 1978.

               2Pub. L. No. 89-298, S: 204, 79 Stat. 1073, 1077.

Figure 1: Flood Protection Control Levees In and Around New Orleans, LA.

Source: Staff graphic by Emmett Mayer III/[email protected].

The original project designs were developed to combat a hurricane that
might strike the coastal Louisiana region once in 200-300 years. The basis
for this was the standard project hurricane developed by the Corps with
the assistance of the United States Weather Bureau (now the National
Weather Service). The model was intended to represent the most severe
meteorological conditions considered reasonably characteristic for that
region. The model projected a storm roughly equivalent to a fast-moving

Category 3 hurricane. A Category 3 hurricane has winds of 111-130 miles
per hour and can be expected to cause some structural damage from winds
and flooding near the coast from the storm surge and inland from rains.

Even before construction began on the project, it became evident that some
changes to the project plan were needed. Based on updated Weather Bureau
data on the severity of hurricanes, the Corps determined that the levees
along the three main drainage canals, that drain water from New Orleans
into Lake Pontchartrain, would need to be raised to protect against storm
surges from the lake. The need for this additional work became apparent
when Hurricane Betsy flooded portions of the city in September 1965.

During the first 17 years of construction on the barrier plan, the Corps
continued to face project delays and cost increases due to design changes
caused by technical issues, environmental concerns, legal challenges, and
local opposition to various aspects of the project. For example,
foundation problems were encountered during construction of levees and
floodwalls which increased construction time; delays were also encountered
in obtaining rights-of-ways from local interests who did not agree with
all portions of the plan. By 1981, cost estimates had grown to $757
million for the barrier plan, not including the cost of any needed work
along the drainage canals, and project completion had slipped to 2008. At
that time, about $171 million had been made available to the project and
the project was considered about 50 percent complete, mostly for the
lakefront levees which were at least partially constructed in all areas
and capable of providing some flood protection although from a smaller
hurricane than that envisioned in the plan.

More importantly, during the 1970s, some features of the barrier plan were
facing significant opposition from environmentalists and local groups who
were concerned about environmental damages to the lake as well as
inadequate protection from some aspects of the project. The threat of
litigation by environmentalists delayed the project and local opposition
to building the control complexes at Rigolets and Chef Menteur had the
potential to seriously reduce the overall protection provided by the
project. This opposition culminated in a December 1977 court decision3
that enjoined the Corps from constructing the barrier complexes, and

3Save Our Wetlands v. Rush, Civ. A. No. 75-3710 (E.D. La. Dec. 30, 1977).

certain other parts of the project until a revised environmental impact
statement was prepared and accepted. After the court order, the Corps
decided to change course and completed a project reevaluation report and
prepared a draft revised Environmental Impact Statement in the mid-1980s
that recommended abandoning the barrier plan and shifting to the highlevel
plan originally considered in the early 1960s. Local sponsors executed new
agreements to assure their share of the non-federal contribution to the
revised project. These changes are not believed to have had any role in
the levee breaches recently experienced as the high-level design selected
was expected to provide the same level of protection as the original
barrier design. In fact, Corps staff believe that flooding would have been
worse if the original proposed design had been built because the storm
surge would likely have gone over the top of the barrier and floodgates,
flooded Lake Pontchartain, and gone over the original lower levees planned
for the lakefront area as part of the barrier plan.4 As of 2005, the
project as constructed or being constructed included about 125 miles of
levees and the following major features:

o  	New levee north of Highway U.S. 61 from the Bonnet Carre Spillway East
Guide Levee to the Jefferson-St. Charles Parish boundary

o  Floodwall along the Jefferson-St. Charles Parish boundary

o  Enlarged levee along the Jefferson Parish lakefront

o  Enlarged levee along the Orleans Parish lakefront

o  	Levees, floodwalls, and flood proofed bridges along the 17th Street,
Orleans Avenue and London Avenue drainage canals

o  Levees from the New Orleans lakefront to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway

o  	Enlarged levees along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the
Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet

o  New levee around the Chalmette area.

The project also includes a mitigation dike on the west shore of Lake
Pontchartrain.

4The lakefront levees in the original barrier plan were 9.5 feet to 13.5
feet high compared to the 16 feet to 18.5 feet high levees built along the
lakefront as part of the high-level plan.

  Recent Funding History for the Project

o   o   o   o

The current estimated cost of construction for the completed project is
$738 million with the federal share being $528 million and the local share
$210 million. The estimated completion date as of May 2005 for the whole
project was 2015. The project was estimated to be from 60-90 percent
complete in different areas. The work in Orleans Parish was estimated to
be 90 percent complete with some work remaining for bridge replacement
along the Orleans Avenue and London Avenue drainage canals. The floodwalls
along the canals, where the recent breaches occurred, were complete.
Jefferson Parish work was estimated to be 70 percent complete with work
continuing on flood proofing the Hammond Highway bridge over 17th Street
and two lakefront levee enlargements. Estimated completion for that work
was 2010. In the Chalmette area work was estimated to be 90 percent
complete with some levee enlargement work and floodwall work remaining. In
St. Charles Parish work was 60 percent complete with some gaps still
remaining in the levees. Closure of these gaps was scheduled by September
2005.

Federal allocations for the project totaled $458 million as of the
enactment of the fiscal year 2005 federal appropriation. This represents
87 percent of the Federal government's responsibility of $528 million with
about $70 million remaining to complete the project in 2015. Over the last
10 fiscal years (1996-2005), federal appropriations have totaled about
$128.6 million and Corps reprogramming actions resulted in another $13
million being made available to the project. During that time,
appropriations have generally declined from about $15-20 million annually
in the earlier years to about $5-7 million in the last three fiscal years.
While this may not be unusual given the state of completion of the
project, the Corps' project fact sheet from May 2005 noted that the
President's Budget request for fiscal years 2005 and 2006 and the
appropriated amount for fiscal year 2005 were insufficient to fund new
construction contracts. Among the construction efforts that could not be
funded, according to the Corps, were the following:

Levee enlargements in all four parishes

Pumping station flood protection in Orleans Parish

Floodgates and a floodwall in St. Charles Parish

Bridge replacement in Orleans Parish.

The Corps had also stated that it could spend $20 million in fiscal year
2006 on the project if the funds were available. The Corps noted that
several levees had settled and needed to be raised to provide the
designlevel of protection. For the last few years, the project generally
received the amount of funds appropriated to it and was not adversely
affected by any Corps reprogramming actions.

In recent years, questions have been raised about the ability of the
project to withstand larger hurricanes than it was designed for, such as a
Category 4 or 5, or even a slow-moving Category 3 hurricane that lingered
over the area and produced higher levels of rainfall. Along this line, the
Corps completed in 2002 a reconnaissance or pre-feasibility study on
whether to strengthen hurricane protection along the Louisiana coast. A
full feasibility study was estimated to take at least five years to
complete and cost about $8 million. In March 2005, the Corps reported that
it was allocating $79,000 to complete a management plan for the
feasibility study and a cost-share agreement with local sponsors. The
President's fiscal year 2006 budget request did not include any funds for
the feasibility project.

In closing, the Lake Pontchartrain hurricane project has been under
construction for nearly 40 years, much longer than originally envisioned
and at much greater cost, although much of that can be attributed to
inflation over these years, and the project is still not complete. Whether
the state of completion of the project played a role in the flooding of
New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 is still to be
determined as are issues related to whether a project designed to protect
against Category 4 or 5 hurricanes would or could have prevented this
catastrophe.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared testimony. We would be happy to
respond to any questions that you or Members of the Subcommittee may have.

For further information on this testimony, please contact Anu Mittal at
(202) 512-3841 or [email protected]. Individuals making contributions to
this testimony included Ed Zadjura, Ken Lightner, Omari Norman, John
Delicath, and Patrick Castellano

  GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

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