Amazing Device Sucks Up Sludge -- and Tax Dollars

Sure, it was a national emergency, but the Transportation Department's inspector general finds $935 an hour for a Sewer Hog a tad piggish.

In a new post-Katrina audit, the inspector general's office told the Federal Highway Administration that the state of Mississippi had overspent by $772 an hour on the Sewer Hog, a high-speed swiller used to clear flooded storm drains.

Desperate to reopen U.S. 90 along the Gulf Coast, Mississippi transportation officials turned to Texas-based Garner Environmental Services Inc., exclusive operators of the Sewer Hog. Together with its partner the Grit Gator, the mobile-home-size contraption sucked slop and sand from about 200 miles of three-foot sewer lines.

But it also hogged the budget. State highway officials -- and the feds -- paid $1.7 million for services that the report said ought to have cost $294,000.

It is not easy to estimate what a rare breed like the Sewer Hog should cost, and like a homeowner with an overflowing toilet, Mississippi highway officials opted to mop first and ask questions later. They were overcharged, the report's authors say, partly because they failed to run the Sewer Hog through a formula designed for pricing specialized equipment and negotiate in advance.

Using that formula, "the rental rate for this specialized equipment would have been $163 per hour," the report read. "In our opinion a rental rate of $935 per hour for the Sewer Hog was higher than what may be considered reasonable, even under the catastrophic conditions that were created by Hurricane Katrina."

The inspector general's office recommends that the Mississippi Department of Transportation consider taking Garner Environmental Services to court to recover part of the bill. Company representatives did not respond to repeated requests for a comment.

The Sewer Hog "was a big thing," said Todd J. Zinser, the acting inspector general, referring to the overcharge.

But it should not, pointed out IG spokesman David Barnes, be confused with a Smart Pig. Smart Pigs root through pipelines looking for leaks -- and they will star in an upcoming report on pipeline safety, he said.

-- Elizabeth Williamson