WWLTV.com | Business people, local politicians attend levee summit
Gibbons Burke
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Business people, local politicians attend levee
summit
02:12 PM CST on Thursday, February 23, 2006
WWLTV.com
The business community came together Thursday
morning for a levee summit to learn more about
progress being made toward fixing the levee system
in New Orleans, as well as reassure businesses
that it was safe to live and work in the city.
Senator David Vitter (R-Louisiana) and federal
recovery chairman Donald Powell spoke to the crowd
of about 80 business people in the morning.
Vitter had harsh words for the Army Corps of
Engineers for its work before Hurricane Katrina,
saying, the "same old broken flawed implementation
system" must be changed.
He says he will be presenting legislation in the
next couple of weeks that deals with creating a
council for the corps – a group of experts from
the outside that would work independently and with
the corps to move projects along.
"We need to break out of the old Corps way of
doing things; that takes way, way too long and is
utterly complicated and riddled with speed bumps,
so that the average Corps project, the average
Corps project today takes 13 years before the
first shovel is put in the ground,” Vitter said.
“That is not going to work for us."
Meanwhile, Powell told the crowd he was a banker,
not an engineer, and he wasn't an expert in levees
like everyone seems to be down here, but quickly
learned how important the levees are to this area.
Powell said a lot of money was being sent to the
Gulf Coast area and the people of Louisiana must
present a plan on how the money will be used.
"I represent the American taxpayer also and I just
share that with you to say that it's terribly
important, terribly important that the good people
of Louisiana, have a plan that is transparent,
that is detailed, that is separated from the
political winds, that will be administered for
oversight, anybody looking at it can question,
what's happening and that integrity just gushes
from that plan, terribly important,” Powell said.
“It's a lot of money that the taxpayers are
bringing forth."