NEW ORLEANS - An outspoken critic of the Army Corps of Engineers' storm protection work in the New Orleans area is suing Louisiana State University, his former employer, for wrongful termination.
Dr. Ivor van Heerden is the former deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center, who became a vocal critic of how the Corps maintained the metro area's levee system in the years prior to the storm.
In the months following Hurricane Katrina, Dr. van Heerden became one of the main faces and voices to point out what went wrong with levees during the storm.
"The Governor's office said, 'go find out.' I went and found out," he said.
Dr. van Heerden said his research showed, among other problems: poor levee maintenance, flawed designs and soil subsidence that was not fixed. The findings were critical of the Army Corps' pre-Katrina work on the storm protection system. He said LSU officials were not happy.
"Right from the beginning, they made it very clear: 'your talking to the media is hurting our chances to get federal dollars. Will you please stop,'" Dr. van Heerden said.
However, van Heerden didn't stop, and in April of last year, LSU notified him that his contract would end in the spring 2010. The university called it a "non-renewal" of his contract. Van Heerden said he was fired and is now suing the university for wrongful termination.
In the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday in an East Baton Rouge Parish District Court, van Heerden claims LSU officials waged a "campaign of retaliation," because of his critical comments towards the Corps of Engineers.
LSU Chancellor Dr. Michael Martin issued a statement about the lawsuit.
"LSU wholeheartedly supports its faculty and values their research," Chancellor Martin said. "LSU also values its role as the state's flagship university, and, as such, will continue its work to help preserve Louisiana's coastline, mitigate hurricane damage and search for ways to protect the state's coastal populations."
Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal said van Heerden's work is crucial for keeping an eye on the current flood protection work going on in the metro area.
"The people of New Orleans, unlike crime, unlike education, we don't see visual indicators on a daily basis that there might be something wrong with our flood protection," Rosenthal said. "We need people like Ivor van Heerden."
Van Heerden said he hopes the lawsuit provides him with some answers.
"Since I got laid off, life has definitely had its shocks because, number one, the hardest thing for me is 'why?' Why was I terminated?'" he said. "As tough as it is for me, it's nothing like the people who lost everything in Katrina."
Van Heerden is seeking unspecified damages in the lawsuit. No word yet on when court proceedings will begin.
