Council to consider hurricane protection

Published 12:00 am Friday, March 5, 2010

By ROBIN SHANNON

L’Observateur

LAPLACE – The St. John the Baptist Parish Council on Tuesday is expected to approve an agreement between the parish and the Pontchartrain Levee District for inclusion in a federal program to begin construction of a $418 million hurricane protection levee on the east bank of the parish.

The resolution, which will be considered during the council’s regular meeting in Edgard Tuesday, states the parish would be responsible for roughly 20 percent of the non-federal portion of the levee funding. This translates to about $28 million of the $146 million the state and the levee district is responsible for.

St. John Acting Chief Administrative Officer Buddy Boe said the Army Corps of Engineers is in the middle of a $500,000 feasibility study that has determined the levee’s final alignment and positioning of drainage pumps that will also assist in water removal. He said the parish is hoping the study would wrap up and receive final approval in time for the project to be included on the federal Water Resources Development Act, slated to pass in the fall of 2010.

“Although the study is slated to be completed after the WRDA bill goes through Congress, we are sending a delegation to Washington to lobby Congress to insert language in the bill to include the project,” Boe said. “If the corps’ chief of engineers approves the final report by December of 2010, we should have clearance to move forward and be able to turn dirt by 2011.”

Boe said the parish’s funding responsibilities would be paid out over the next 15 years. He said the majority of the money would come out of the parish’s sales tax district, which is used for public works, sewage and drainage. Boe said the fund collects about $7.5 million on average annually and has a 2010 balance of $14 million.

The parish, the state and the corps have struggled for decades over funding and proper placement of a levee on the east bank of St. John Parish.

The corps eventually produced an alignment in 2001, but the project stalled after the parish created its own alignment.

The demand for the levee was revived in 2005 following hurricanes Katrina and Rita and again after hurricanes Gustav and Ike, when water fully submerged both interstate interchanges in the area and pushed surge into neighborhoods and homes.

Pontchartrain Levee District President Steve Wilson said the corps is likely to settle on an alignment that runs from the Bonnet Carre Spillway in St. Charles Parish up to Interstate 10 through St. John and ending at the Hope Canal. The levee district is trying to persuade the corps to extend it westward into St. James and Ascension parishes. Wilson said each parish involved is responsible for a portion of the local match based on the length of levee in the respective parish as well as the number of pumping stations. He said St. John would be paying the most since the bulk of the 28-mile levee runs through the parish.

Boe said St. John’s portion includes an earthen levee, structural portions to run under the interstate and six strategically placed pumping stations.

If the agreement receives council approval Tuesday, it would then need approval from the levee district.

Wilson said there is no doubt the levee district will vote to move on the project at its next meeting, set for March 15.