Big ice normally doesn’t arrive in Maine until it can ride in on winter’s frigid winds. This year, thanks to a baffling decision by FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers, tons of it are arriving early – and by the truckload.

If the Federal Emergency Management Agency had just waited a couple of months, it could have skipped finding cold storage and just stacked its unneeded ice outside, maybe in the parking lot of an old Ames store.

FEMA officials ordered more than 180 million pounds of ice to the area affected by Hurricane Katrina. It’s more than they needed, so the feds decided to ship the frozen gold to storage facilities around the country. Portland is expecting to receive about 220 truckloads, and hundreds more are being sent all over the country. The truckers, many who thought they were doing important work to help the hurricane victims, are being paid $800 a day to deliver the ice.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Rita is taking aim at Texas, and the ice the residents there might need is taking up freezer space in southern Maine.

Sen. Susan Collins, who is the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee and will direct hearings about the federal response to Katrina, sent a letter to FEMA and the Corps of Engineers on Tuesday questioning the ice capades.

“My office has been contacted with information that the federal government paid truck drivers $800 per day to haul bags of ice to the Gulf region for Hurricane Katrina victims, only to order them to turn around, leave the Gulf region, and drive to Portland for storage of the ice at a refrigerated storage facility. More than 200 trucks reportedly might arrive in Portland this week to store their loads of ice. As a result, the resources spent to procure this ice and retain these truck drivers will have been diverted from Hurricane Katrina relief efforts,” Collins wrote.

“If accurate, this situation raises concerns about whether the federal government is using relief resources efficiently in order to provide maximum benefits possible to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.”

The misdirection of the ice provides a chilling example of the need for an aggressive and independent inspector general to audit relief and reconstruction efforts for Katrina, and possibly Hurricane Rita, which is projected to make landfall tonight or Saturday morning.

Collins has introduced legislation, which was passed by the Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday, to assign a special inspector general to oversee and evaluate the federal effort and the use of taxpayer money. Without that oversight, there is a great potential for governmental waste, fraud and deception.