Recognizing Katrina Breaches is a Tangled Process

NEW ORLEANS — The head of an advocacy group in New Orleans is expressing frustration with delays in the effort to get recognition for sites where levee breaches led to catastrophic flooding after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The Army Corps of Engineers has jurisdiction over one of the sites and has the right to say whether it believes the sites belong on the National Register of Historic Places. But the corps has held back on giving its view, saying the matter involves facts that are still at issue in lawsuits.

Sandy Rosenthal, director of the Levees.Org organization, says the litigation shouldn't be a factor because everything in the application for historic status is already public record.