A federal court judge in New Orleans who found the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers liable for damages claimed by five residents of an area inundated during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 limits the area to which his decision applies. But Judge Standwood R. Duval Jr. also blasts the Corps for putting lives and property at risk for decades by failing to properly operate and maintain a navigational channel it built between 1956 and 1968 below New Orleans. He further faults the Corps for failing to comply with the National Environmental Protection Act of 1969 for reporting on environmental degradation caused by that channel and accuses some of the Corps’ witnesses of manipulating scientific data to bolster the Corps’ defense.
Duval issued his scathing 156-page ruling on Nov. 18 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana following a 19-day bench trial conducted last spring.