LAPLACE — St. John the Baptist Parish officials believe the formation of a Flood Protection Committee will move things along smoother if federal funding is provided for the Westshore Levee Protection Project.

District 7 Councilman Buddy Boe, with Parish Council approval this week, took steps to set up the committee with a sole focus of getting the levee paid for and built. The resolution was brought before the Council Tuesday.

“This group, a small group of the Council, will focus on building, financing and everything else that goes into building the Westshore Levee Protection System,” Boe said. “We’ll do the local work. It’s going to take years and many steps in this levee project to actually put dirt on the ground.”

The Westshore Lake Pontchartrain Levee Project would protect the East Bank of St. John as well as St. Charles and St. James Parishes.

The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted April 28 in favor of the project. Parish officials say the next step is to get approval from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which is expected to vote on the measure at the end of this month.

Should the Levee Project pass Congressional approval, local leaders said it must be added to the Water Resources Development Act of 2016, or WRDA bill. Officials anticipate the bill going through because it authorizes and approves many projects across the nation.

If the bill gets the signature of the U.S. President, the next step is to have the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ask Congress for money every year to build the system, according to Boe.

Before that happens, Boe wants the St. John Flood Protection Committee to already have things started to make the construction process easier. The Committee will work with the Pontchartrain Levee District, Restoration Authority and the Corps of Engineers to get the project ready.

“With the committee, when the funding does become available, we can go straight to construction,” Boe said. “On a local level, we have to get permits for the project. We have to design the project. We have to do a technical analysis, which can take a year and a half, and mitigate any wetlands that might be destroyed. We also need to get the right of way to build it.”

The Flood Protection Committee, made up of Parish Council members, will make recommendations and then bring their findings to the full Parish Council.

Even though St. John will be getting federal funding for the project, Boe said the Parish would also need to put up some money.

“When it comes to the day after it is built, which will take awhile, we then have to maintain it,” Boe said. “We, as a Council, need to work on that budget. The six pump stations that are supposed to drain the entire East Bank when this levee is built, on average cost $150,000 a year in fuel. We have to start allocating those funds. We need to work with the Administration to set up those budgets and lay out those funding streams, because it won’t just happen overnight.”

Council members in attendance Tuesday voted unanimously in favor of forming the new committee.

District 4 Councilman Marvin Perrilloux said St. John needs to be prepared whenever Congress decides to allocate funding to the Corps.

“St. John needs to be ready on funding, on alignment and on how we’re going to maintain the pump stations,” he said.

Perrilloux, the Council chairman, said he is going to sit down with Council members and get some input from the District Attorney to see how they would go about setting up the committee.

“I’m thinking there will be four to five members,” he said. “They will do the groundwork and then bring it back to the Council for adoption. They will make recommendations and then the Council, as a whole body, will make the final decision.”

During Tuesday meeting, Parish President Natalie Robottom said this is the closest St. John has ever come to getting a levee built.

“Hurricane protection is the most important thing for our residents, our business owners and the future of St. John,” she said. “We have so much going on in the Parish that I feel it would be helpful to have a committee that’s sole purpose is to focus on hurricane protection.”

Robottom said she would like her administration and its partners to be involved with the committee.

“This is a huge project, and there is no way our entity can take it and carry it,” she said. “We need to engage with representatives from the Corps, the Levee Board, CPRA and understand what our responsibility would be once it’s done, once it’s moving.”