Probe: New Orleans flood control pumps not reliable

 Is there a chance that another hurricane Katrina could devastate New Orleans?

By Peter Eisler, USA TODAY

Huge flood-control pumps installed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina don't protect the city adequately and the Army Corps of Engineers could have saved $430 million in replacement costs by buying proven equipment, a federal investigation finds.

The investigation by the federal Office of Special Counsel finds there was "little logical justification" for the corps' decision to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the "untested" hydraulic pumps, which are meant to empty millions of gallons of water from the below-sea-level city during storm-related floods.

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READ MORE: Investigators' letter to Obama

2007 photo by Bill Haber, AP

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(Shown above)The pumps put in by the Army Corps of Engineers take water from New Orleans' 17th Street Canal to Lake Pontchartrain and are supposed to help control water levels in drainage canals.