The levee systems suffer from age, erosion, and seepage issues. Routine maintenance activities have generally been performed very well by the State and Local districts based upon their levels of funding. Costly upgrades needed to enhance the design level of protection have been under-funded. As a result, the committee gave an overall grade for levees a D-.
And
The project would raise and widen nearly 25 miles of levees bordering the Natomas basin to satisfy federal flood control officials.
In 2006, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that Natomas levees don't meet new underseepage criteria.
Subsequently, the Federal Emergency Management Agency declared that the region will lose its 100-year flood safety certification, forcing the basin's 70,000 residents to buy flood insurance and likely causing development restrictions.
This statement was not about the levees in the New Orleans area. They pertain to the levees on the American River near the capital of the Golden State, that's right, Sacramento CALIFORNIA. Yes, on WWL radio, NO, LA this very afternoon was an engineer who predicted the levee failures in NO, making the same claims for the Sacramento area where he now lives. Same situation, COE levees, same complaints of leaking levees, same prediction, failure from blowouts. His prediction is 66% chance of failure within 50 yrs. Here is a link with some interesting info.
http://www.escalera.com/safelevee/ and this one
http://www.swhydro.arizona.edu/archive/V5_N2/feature3.pdf
My favorite quote is from the gentleman stating, "we should be living in a 100 yr flood plain, not a 10 yr flood plain. Predictions for catastrophic sound pretty dire, 400,000 people at risk plus salinization of large part of the state's water supply.
I know many here will join me in pointing out that A. whatever the COE builds is good enough for them, don't complain and B. only an idiot would build in such an area & that NO FEDERAL MONEY should be spent to help people this foolish. What kind of politicians are those folks electing?