Data mistake blamed for levee failure

NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 4 (UPI) -- The investigation into the failure of the levees in New Orleans finds that a mistake in transferring data during design may be to blame for one breach.

Investigators for the National Science Foundation found that soil borings for the 17th Street Canal levees had a layer of peaty soil that extended down to 30 feet below sea level, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. But a cross-section drawing puts the maximum depth of the layer at 11 to 16 feet.

J. David Rogers, an expert on levee and dam failure and a member of the investigating team, said that the layer of organic soil determined the depth of the sheet pilings.

"They saw this marshy deposition, they recognized it as potentially dangerous, so they specified sheet piles that went just beyond the bottom of that line," Rogers said. "So it's easy to deduce that if they saw that peat layer going to 30 feet, they would have placed the piling at least that deep."