Large sheets of newspaper that two years ago were placed inside of the expansion joint of a floodwall near the Orleans/St. Bernard Parish line were removed earlier this week.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is moving quickly to repair a joint that it says is still structurally sound but, with the newspaper, doesn't follow Corps specifications.

“We used a substitute for what is called for in the specs,” said Col. Jeffrey Bedey of the Army Corps of Engineers. “It's not pretty.  It's newspaper.  It has no effect from a structural or safety factor.”

Two weeks ago, Eyewitness News aired a report showing an unidentified St. Bernard Parish resident who, two years ago, witnessed a day laborer, hired by the Corps, stuffing newspaper into the expansion joint.

“He basically told me when Congress sent down the money, it would be repaired the proper way,” the man told WWL for that initial report.

Two years later, when the unidentified man returned to the site, the newspaper was still there.

A diagram of what an expansion joint looks like from an overhead view shows the waterstop, and in the middle, the main line of defense: a sealer on the outside of the floodwall.  In the middle, what's called a rubber joint, or backer, is on both sides of the waterstop.  Corps officials told Eyewitness News that in the three expansion joints they inspected earlier this week, five of the six spots had newspaper instead of the proper backing material.

Corps officials say it took about four hours to remove the newspaper, install the rubber material, then seal the joint.

“Cost was not an issue.  It was about getting the repair work done and move on,” Bedey said.

Local engineer Subhash Kulkarni credits the Corps for moving swiftly on the repair work.  Kulkarni has been recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers and inspected the joint for Eyewitness News last month.

A Corps of Engineers diagram of what the inside of an expansion joint is supposed to look like. But in several of the joints tested recently, newspaper was inserted in place of the “backer” material.

“There are what we call standard details, details we use in our construction,” Kulkarni said.  “Based on the experience we have gained over the years, it's a good policy to follow those details.”

Kulkarni says, even with the newspaper in the joint, there were no short term structural concerns, but he did say the missing rubber joint could place added pressure on the waterstop in the long term. “You don't want anything to go inside and damage the waterstop,” he said.  “That may damage the lifespan of that material.”

The Corps thinks this was an isolated instance and says there is no newspaper in any of the other expansion joints in the state's hurricane protection system. They say the material they used to replace the newspaper this week wasn't even available when the work was initially done back in 2006.