Louisiana

I remember when some of the breached levees were being rebuilt and there were reports of a contractor, who was reinforcing one of the new levees, who got caught putting trash in the levee instead of select fill, per the specifications. This was probably in 2009 or 2010.

I was at a meeting about an airport project and a bunch of folks from the NO District of the Corps of Engineers happened to be there. The topic of garbage being put in the levees as fill came up because it had been in one of the local papers. We were all just idly speculating about what could be done to prevent this in the future.

The COE folks confirmed what I already knew about such large construction projects: an inspector had to be present at all times to verify that the proper material was being used as fill, but apparently the contractor paid off the inspector so that he could use cheap garbage instead of the correct material, which was much more costly. The local news reported that old washing machines, tires, and other bulky crap was being tossed in and then overlaid with the correct fill material. This would, of course, cause the levees to fail again in the future. One of the COE guys offered that maybe they needed to hire an inspector to watch the first inspector. Jeez, where does the corruption end?

So this particular contractor and inspector were caught, charged and fined (don't know about jail time). But how many other levee contractors did the same thing and weren't caught? That bothers me. I guess we will find out.