Corps to test protection of London Avenue Canal

Using crack meters, prisms, piezometers and a slew of other sensitive instruments, the Army Corps of Engineers turned a small slice of the London Avenue Canal into a $4 million laboratory Friday to determine how much water it can safely hold.

The two-week test calls for gradually pumping water into a dammed-off section of the canal's east side and monitoring the pressure it exerts on the levee, floodwall and bottom of the channel, all the while guarding against a structural failure.

"We've got enough instrumentation that we would never even begin to approach failure," said Maj. Nick Nazarko, the corps officer in charge of safety in the 5700 block of Warrington Drive.

Although long on detail and complexity, the goal of the exercise is simple.

The corps wants to raise the designated "safe water elevation" above 4 feet, a level so low that it has on occasion interrupted drainage even during routine rains. But the level cannot come up without convincing evidence that the repaired canal, which broke at two spots during Hurricane Katrina, can handle additional water.
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