Report: DOD to again probe post-Katrina pumps in New Orleans NEW ORLEANS (AP) (wrkf) - The agency that handles federal whistleblower complaints says The Department of Defense will again investigate allegations that the Army Corps of Engineers let a contractor install faulty pumps in spite of a whistleblower's warning.

James Mitchell is a spokesman for the Office of Special Counsel. He says acting Defense Department Inspector General Gordon Heddell ordered the new probe days after a report describing his predecessor's response as "superficial and dismissive."

His office had sent a complaint by corps engineer Maria Garzino, who cautioned in early 2006 that the pumps would not work properly.

Mitchell quotes Heddell as agreeing that every effort must be made to assure New Orleans residents that flood protection pumps will perform as specified during hurricanes.

Garzino contended that pumps provided by Moving Water Industries Corporation would fail under a hurricane's stress.

The company's attorney, Bill Bucknam, calls Garzino's allegations in his words "highly inventive, scurrilous and patently false." © Copyright 2009, wrkf