Today, LSU professor Ivor van Heerden will testify before the U.S. House Committee on Science at a field briefing on the current state of levee reconstruction at NASA’s Machoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. This fact must be slightly embarrassing to those LSU administrators and faculty who claim that van Heerden is not qualified to do so. Van Heerden, an associate professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, is the spokesperson for Team Louisiana and deputy director of the LSU Hurricane Center. Team Louisiana is a group of engineers and coastal scientists that are conducting comprehensive research on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with an important focus on the failures of the New Orleans levee system. Since 1994, he has been warning the public of the dangers and potential catastrophe New Orleans faced with regards to hurricanes and flooding. After Katrina, van Heerden became an outspoken critic of the failures of politicians and has helped to expose the inherent flaws of the design, construction and maintenance of the levee system that contributed to its failure and the consequential disaster. However, these flaws were not the only thing van Heerden has exposed; and he has certainly had more to criticize than politicians. In a May 30 New York Times article, van Heerden criticized and exposed two LSU administrators, Vice Chancellor Michael Ruffner and Vice Chancellor Harold Silverman, for attempting to silence him during a meeting that took place last November. Van Heerden was asked not to talk to the press because his actions could supposedly jeopardize LSU’s chances of obtaining future federal funding. Van Heerden said he felt his career as an untenured professor was being threatened. In response to that article, Ruffner submitted a letter to the New York Times attempting to defend LSU from the perception that the University had tried to trample van Heerden’s freedom of speech. In the letter, and reaffirmed later in a telephone interview, Ruffner claims that the whole issue had started over complaints from the Engineering department that van Heerden was “going beyond” his field of expertise when commenting on levees and construction “because he is trained in geology and botany, not civil engineering.” This prompted van Heerden to write a letter to Ruffner in which he asks for a public apology for the criticisms in Ruffner’s letter to the New York Times. In his letter – which was released to the media on Monday – van Heerden extensively defends his credentials and qualifications to do research and comment on the levees and other matters related to Hurricane Katrina. Van Heerden is not a professional engineer. He is an associate professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. Even if his technical and professional credentials do not qualify him as an “actual” engineer, the key point that needs to be understood about van Heerden’s research is that he is the leader of a team of experts. According to his letter, this team includes “scientists and engineers from LSU as well as two experienced retired Louisiana geotechnical engineers and one experienced construction engineer.” As spokesperson for this comprehensive research group – the work of which has been agreed upon and approved by other independent research groups investigating the failures of the levee system – van Heerden is clearly qualified to comment on levee construction. Gordon Boutwell, a member of the American Society of Civil Engineer’s Levee Assessment Team, concurs. Boutwell also will testify today, alongside van Heerden, to the House Committee on Science. In my interview with him, Boutwell noted the controversy over van Heerden was centered on the fact that he is not a professional engineer. However, he also said that the work of van Heerden and Team Louisiana has been excellent. “Dr. van Heerden is clearly relying on the expertise of the engineers on his team,” he said. Boutwell has worked with some of these engineers before and claims they are more than qualified to comment on levee construction. As for van Heerden’s qualifications, Boutwell has said he has no problems with it and feels that as a team, Team Louisiana is doing an important job that it is well qualified to do. After being invited to testify before the U.S. House Committee on Science and receiving approval and support from other prominent researchers, engineers and scientists, van Heerden has proven his critics wrong. Van Heerden said in an interview that he wants to put all of these unfortunate events behind him so that they can move forward with trying to fix the real problems at hand, namely, the New Orleans levee system. He feels that if Ruffner makes a public apology and recants his statements, this entire issue can be put to rest. At an extraordinary time like this, what is more important: being concerned over whether vocal criticisms from a member of the LSU faculty is going to jeopardize the administrations relationship with federal officials or supporting research that is essential to protecting and securing the city of New Orleans and other gulf cities? Interdepartmental squabbles should be dealt with interdepartmentally. I’m sure the administration, and in particular Michael Ruffner, could more effectively spend their time ensuring that important research is conducted that benefits the citizens of Louisiana rather than undermining these efforts by blasting members of the LSU faculty in the pages of the New York Times. Academic freedom and New Orleans are too important for this nonsense.
Dr. Ruffner, it’s time you apologize.
_____Contact Erik Browne at ebrowne@lsureveille.com
Time for an apology, Dr. Ruffner
July 6, 2006