LEONARD GRAY

NORCO – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday turned over to St. Charles Parish the Bayou Trepagnier Control Structure, the first of five drainage structures. With motorized cranks, the structures can be closed to block the influx of lake water within a half-hour. Once the water has gone down they can be re-opened to allow trapped water to gravity-flow drain into the lake. St. Charles Parish President Albert Laque participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony, along with Col. Thomas Julich of the Corps of Engineers, and he thanked the Corps, Rep. Billy Tauzin and especially the Pontchartrain Levee District. “Without their deep pockets, we couldn’t have done it,” Laque said. Similar projects will close gaps left to accommodate pipelines and direct outflow gravity drainage and should be completed by 2004. Further overlays of the levee segments, as subsidence continues, is due to be finished by 2013. Still up in the air is the notion of adding one or more pump stations to the levee system to pump out rainwater from the east bank residential areas should gravity flow be insufficient to keep up with the volume of water. Funding for such pumps is to be obtained from the one-cent sales tax proposed in April, which is also to provide funds for the west bank hurricane protection levee and for operation of the wastewater treatment program. The project was first authorized in 1965 under the Flood Control Act but was halted by legal and environmental concerns. The way was finally cleared in 1992, and the project is now 80 percent complete, according to Pontchartrain Levee District President Joseph Gautreau. The levee board, which is providing the bulk of the local match for the project, includes eight members, two of whom are St. Charles Parish residents – Herbert Thurber and Steve Wilson. Most of the first reach levee segments are complete, with the final reach, labeled on maps as Reach 1-B from Interstate 301 to the Jefferson Parish line, due to be finished in January. This is a $6.7 million segment under construction by Miller Excavating. Construction is nearly complete on this levee reach. Two drainage structures in Reach 1-B are still under construction. The Good Hope floodwall is a gap in the levee system where a steel floodwall is installed to accommodate a pipeline route. Work here was also delayed for three months due to disturbances of an egret rookery. This $2.4 million project last spring, and the egrets have adjusted to the intrusion, project manager Alfred Naomi said. The Cross Bayou drainage structure project was let to Crawford James Construction Co. for $2.3 million. The Reach 1-A Second Lift plans and specifications are being prepared, and the project awarding to due to be made this summer. The St. Rose drainage structure project plans and specifications are being prepared with the award due to be made in December 2001. Naomi said the east bank hurricane projection levee is being built to withstand a Category 3 hurricane on a critical path. That path was defined as a hurricane which would come up the river and attempt to push lake water at the East Bank. Naomi added this is a 200-year storm. Average height of the levee is 12-14 feet from end to end and is financed on an 70-30 split with the federal government financing the bulk of it. Pontchartrain Levee District is likewise picking up the bulk of the 30 percent local match, splitting that cost 80-20 percent. St. Charles Parish paying only 6 percent of a $101 million project.