Highlight Text, Ctrl C, Ctrl V

Hey, I can do that:

When the Army Corps of Engineers solicited bids for drainage pumps for New Orleans, it copied the specifications - typos and all - from the catalog of the manufacturer that ultimately won the $32 million contract, a review of documents by The Associated Press found.

The pumps, supplied by Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla., and installed at canals before the start of the 2006 hurricane season, proved to be defective, as the AP reported in March. The matter is under investigation by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

We’ve seen this before:

Two other recent deals where MWI received work as a subcontractor also drew controversy.

In both projects, district officials discounted complaints from MWI rivals, who said they suspected that pump specifications were skewed to favor MWI.

Last year [2001], when the agency [the South Florida Water Management District] put out a thick volume of requirements for a federally funded flood-control project near Miami International Airport, an engineer for Flowserve, a global pump manufacturer, questioned them. He asked why the district would require contractors to use a costly pump with an unconventional type of motor.

"Flowserve pump division . . . will not be able to bid the project, since the specs as written limit the pump suppliers to 1-2 bidders," Flowserve's John Ondrejack wrote.

On May 10, 2001, the water board handed the $3.1-million project to Murphy Construction Co. of Palm Beach, which named MWI as the pump supplier for the job. The payday for MWI: at least $492,655.14, invoices show.

Last month, it happened again. The water board commissioned a $3.5-million flood protection project in Miami-Dade County with some very specific pump requirements.

One potential bidder, Skip Dorton of Tampa-based Custom Pump & Controls, wrote: "The specification, if left the way it reads, will be, in a sense, a sole source specification that no other manufacturer will be able to compete with."

Another complaint came from FPI, a Pompano Beach pump manufacturer, which called some of the requirements gimmicky and a waste of money.

"It is blatantly obvious to us that the specification has been crafted verbatim by and for one favored pump manufacturer," wrote Robert Purcell, FPI's marketing director. "Your engineering staff has done everything but name their favored supplier."

Purcell is the former MWI vice president who blew the whistle on the company in the Nigeria deal, prompting the U.S. Justice Department to intervene.

When he complained, district engineers countered that all the specifications were appropriate. They awarded the contract to Widell Inc. of Fort Lauderdale -- which then hired MWI to supply the pumps.

When Taylor asked his staff why they repeatedly pushed MWI for various projects, he said the reply was, "These are the people we work with all the time."

Emphasis mine.

Now, these are not US Army Corps of Engineers contracts, although one does use federal funds. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if, right after Katrina, someone from the USACE got a email from Jeb Bush recommending his old friend David Eller and MWI for the job.

We’ve seen that before.

Interestingly, FEMA did something else we’ve seen before in the Carnival Cruise Lines deal. From Rep. Waxman’s letter to Jeb Bush [PDF]:

The Military Sealift Command took over the issuance of the contracts on September 1 and insisted that the contracts be competitively bid. FEMA, however, specified the contract requirements, which included that each ship have enough berths to house 1,000 or more passengers and be available for delivery by September 10. These requirements effectively excluded all bidders except Carnival Cruise Lines and the operators of the Scotia Prince, a ferry ship docked in North Carolina. Out of 13 proposals submitted to the Military Sealift Command, only two met the requirements: the Carnival proposal involving three Carnival ships and the Scotia Prince proposal. Both proposals were accepted.

The History of the Pumps

Government issued:

In January 2006, the Corps placed an order for 34 60-inch temporary pumps -- 12 for 17th Street Canal, 12 for London Avenue Canal, and 10 for Orleans Avenue Canal. The new pumps began arriving in New Orleans in late spring, before the 2006 hurricane season.

As soon as the pumps arrived, they were immediately installed by construction crews working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In addition, the contract was modified in early summer to add six more pumps to the 17th Street Canal, bringing the total for all three canals to 40 pumps, with 18 of those for 17th Street.

"We installed the new temporary pumps as fast as we received them," said Mr. Jim St. Germain, a senior project manager in the Hurricane Protection Office. "We had crews working at the outfall canals around the clock; they were even doing some of the work at night, under lights. We were determined to make our pre-hurricane season goal, and we did."

That is not the usual means for manufacturing and installing massive equipment like these pumps. Under normal circumstances, whether for government or private industry, performance tests would be done on the equipment at the factory by the manufacturer before delivery, without observation by the government. Any operational problems would be repaired or adjusted there, and the equipment would be tested and re-tested until it meets performance expectations. When the performance is satisfactory, then the equipment would be installed in its intended location.

That's what happens under normal circumstances.

But following Katrina, the Corps did not have the luxury of working under normal circumstances. To quickly reduce the public risk, Corps personnel were placed at the factory to document manufacturer's tests, resulting in a series of reports regarding the pumps' capabilities.

"When we installed the new pumps, we knew they weren't operating to full effectiveness," said Col. Jeffrey Bedey, Hurricane Protection Office commander. "We had numerous engineering reports which told us that. But if we had done this in the traditional manner, it would have taken four to five years to get the pumps in place. Instead, we put the pumps in at the sites in a matter of months. To reduce the risk to the community for the next hurricane season, we wanted the pumps on the ground. We decided we would work out the final testing on the pumps in place."

It was reported that the new pumps vibrated when first tested at the outfall canals.

"Some of them did, but we did not see failure when the pumps vibrated," Col. Bedey said. "They would not have operated perfectly, but they would have provided pumping if we had needed it in 2006."

Col. Bedey compared the pump situation to an automobile. "When you know your car engine has a problem, you would prefer to repair it rather than drive it. But if you're in an emergency situation, you'll go ahead and drive it and get where you need to be, and then fix it when you can. That's basically what we did with the pumps."

There you go.

It’s Like When Buffy the Vampire Slayer Was On the Air

I can’t wait for the next episode.

The latest from Fix the Pumps: the pipes are all rusty.

Previous episodes: the pipes are not thick enough; duct tape and other things that should not be on submerged pipes; the Corps wants to test a weak spot on the London Avenue Canal; testing pumps in the dark; and a memo with the title “DEFECTIVE PUMPING EQUIPMENT.”

It would make a great soap opera if it weren't real.

GAO Investigators “Meet” with USACE Officials

Because that’s what investigators do. They “meet” with you:

Government Accountability Office investigators are meeting with Army Corps of Engineers officials here and in Washington, D.C., to discuss drainage pumps that were installed before the start of last year's hurricane season even though they apparently were defective.

***

Anu Mittal, the GAO's director for water resources, said a large team of investigators has been assembled "to get it done expeditiously" to satisfy a request by U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu to have a report in hand by the middle of May.

In a March 15 letter, Landrieu, D-La., asked the GAO, Congress' investigative and auditing arm, to look into "disturbing suggestions of possible improper influence" in how the job was awarded and handled.

Middle of May. Mark your calendars.

If A. Baldwin Wood Were Still Around…

… would he have allowed a Florida company to give us pumps that one engineer described as defective? Pumps that still aren’t all installed nine months after the original deadline? Pumps that can’t pump water out of the canal as fast as the city’s pumps can pump water in?

I don’t think so. I think if A.B. Wood were still around, 18 months after Katrina, we would be well on our way to having pump stations at the canal closures capable of keeping New Orleans dry.

We’ve heard much about the memo by USACE mechanical Engineer Maria Garzino describing the performance of MWI’s pumps after being tested:

Put simply, if the intent of the contract requirements is to have pump equipment capable of being turned on and used for prolonged periods of time in the event of a hurricane, then I believe the pump equipment will not function as intended. In fact, without extensive follow on supplemental operation of the pumping equipment after installation, and subsequent likely follow on repair of failed pumping equipment components (hydraulic pumps, hydraulic pump motors, failed high pressure hydraulic lines, etc.), I believe significant failure of the pump equipment can be expected.

Here’s a memo by Professor W. H. Creighton (pdf), Dean of the Department of Technology at Tulane University, written in 1915 describing the performance of A.B. Wood’s pumps after being tested:

He summed up “that while the pump surpasses in efficiency, under normal conditions, those of previous installations, the superiority is much greater just when the greatest service is required. Emergency service is probably the weak point of the old pumps. It is the forte of the new. Results show that the pumps easily answer all requirements and that they are the largest and most efficient low-lift pumps in the world.

***

His report showed the pumps to have such remarkable efficiency and revealed features so superior to previous pumps that a complete description was included for the information of other engineers who would have to deal with massive pumping problems.

World Class pumps for a World Class city. Is that too much to ask?