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NEW ORLEANS — A system of floodgates and pumps built since Hurricane Katrina to help alleviate flooding in several New Orleans neighborhoods may not be as much help as authorities first said.

The Army Corps of Engineers released flood-risk maps on a block-by-block basis June 20 but didn't include some technical data, preventing independent assessments of the maps' accuracy.

The maps showed that the improvements made to the city canals' drainage systems would reduce flooding during a major storm by about 5.5 feet in Lakeview and nearby neighborhoods. The maps were based on a storm that has the likelihood of occurring at least once in 100 years.

But in a report released Nov. 7, corps scientists estimated that the actual benefit the system would provide would be just 6 inches.

The discrepancy was tucked into the voluminous report's appendices, and neither the corps nor the scientists hired to conduct the study brought the changes to the public's attention when the report was released. It wasn't until New Orleans television station WWL-TV asked an engineer involved in the assessment about the discrepancy that it became known.

"We've made some corrections," the engineer, Ed Link, told the AP Friday night. Link said the mistakes were apparently made in the calculations for two sub-basins that include Lakeview and nearby neighborhoods. In one, a minus sign was used instead of a plus sign.

Ivor van Heerden, a hurricane and levee expert with Louisiana State University, said the mistakes are the latest example of sloppiness and a lack of scientific peer review in the corps' work.

Walter Baumy, a chief corps engineer in New Orleans, said he was unfamiliar with the mistakes, but said, "I wouldn't contest what Dr. Link says."

But he added that the floodgates installed on the canals have given New Orleans "far superior" protection.