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You Tube Video Causes Stir With Levee Officials |
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By Meredith Mendez (ABC 26 News)
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Wednesday, November 14 2007 |
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NEW ORLEANS, La. - A New Orleans grassroots organization was hoping some show and tell would give people the inside scoop on a levee investigations.
However, now the video, created by Levees.org is being yanked off the popular Youtube website and threats of legal action are swirling.
The video shows Newman School Government class students portraying workers from the Corp of Engineers and the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Levees.org members wrote and produced the spoof to demonstrate how the Corp conducted it's own peer review of performance according to Sandy Rosenthal, "We thought that putting together a very clear, fun video would take some very intricate, very difficult information and explain it in a way that's more accessible for people."
The Corp asked the ASCE to look at the levees and how the Corp handled Katrina. Levee.org members say the ASCE's report claimed that a lot of the death and destruction would have happened without the levee failure and members say they felt it was important the public know just how the Corp selected the ASCE to do the peer review.
According to the video on Youtube, levee.org members believe the Corp paid ASCE almost a million dollars to conduct the review and them gave them medal of honor awards for their findings.
Rosenthal said, "The people that they worked with to peer review their work, they were chosen by the corp, paid by the corp and given medals of honor by the corp so we feel it's a clear conflict of interest."
After ASCE sent a cease and desist letter to Levees.org, Rosenthal says she pulled the video off the website. She says the move was made because Levees.org does not have enough resources or money to fight a lawsuit.
The ASCE declined requests for interviews but released a statement that the group stands behind it's findings and feels it's unfortunate that members of Levee.org misinterpreted it's work. |