Report should reveal cause of canal erosion

The cause for erosion along a portion of the Metairie side of the 17th Street Canal is to be disclosed today in a report from an Army Corps of Engineers contractor, but corps officials say there is no reason to think the floodwall may fail.

Despite the tentative assessment offered Tuesday that the erosion doesn't threaten the stability of the canal bank, the federal agency is responding with haste to a Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East request that engineers quickly determine why the damage is occurring.

Just as mysterious as the question of why pieces of the grassy bank are sloughing off along a 1,000-foot stretch of the west bank immediately north of Veterans Memorial Boulevard is the whereabouts of a report that corps officials say their agency generated in the spring of 2006 to document the erosion.

A high-ranking official in the corps' hurricane protection office said Tuesday that three district engineers doing a detailed walking inspection of the floodwalls and water-side canal banks after Hurricane Katrina saw erosion in the area, photographed it and included it in a "trip report" that should have been passed along to the East Jefferson Levee District for action.

"This scour was noted right after the storm," said John Grieshaber , executive support chief in the Hurricane Protection Office.

"We would normally consider it (scour) a maintenance issue . . . and show it to the appropriate" levee district, he said.
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