A discrepancy in the cost of several sewer pumps for New Orleans could increase the final cost of the city's Hurricane Katrina clean-up efforts, experts say.

The firm Parson & Sanderson Inc. has told the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board that the 20 pumps whose brand and model were specified by the board will cost nearly $900,000, The New Orleans Times-Picayune said Saturday.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency initially estimated the costs of the pumps at nearly $450,000, but only one vendor in Louisiana is authorized to sell the specific make and model of pump.

Another vendor, Tony Stackpole of Allan J. Harris Co., has accused the authorized firm of using its unique position to inflate the pumps' prices.

Stackpole said he can provide the required pumps at a cost near the FEMA-approved costs, the Times-Picayune reported.

Parson & Sanderson salesman Glen Smith maintains his firm simply followed the specifications set out by the New Orleans board. You'll have to talk to the Sewerage & Water Board about that, he told the newspaper. We bid to the specs. They put them out.

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