David Crochet
July 14, 2009
Houma house fire kills 4 pets
July 16, 2009
The $156.6 million in federal Community Development Block Grant funds that Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes will be receiving for recovery from hurricanes Gustav and Ike is a great opportunity, said Lafourche President Charlotte Randolph and Terrebonne President Michel Claudet at Monday’s Bayou Industrial Group meeting in Thibodaux.
Terrebonne will receive $123 million and Lafourche $33.6 million in CDBG funds.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Randolph said, “but hopefully we won’t see any other storms.”
Claudet emphasized that Terrebonne received more money from the CDBG program than all other parishes in the state because Terrebonne endured the most damage from hurricanes Gustav and Ike.
The aim of the CDBG program, part of the Department of Housing and Urban Develop-ment, is to improve housing in low- to moderate-income areas, but the funding is typically broad.
In Lafourche, most of the money will go toward building affordable housing for low- and moderate-income people, Randolph said.
The Raceland Ag Complex will receive $1 million. Part of the CDBG money will pay for paving Laurel Valley Road, an $8 million project.
“We will see what can be done,” Randolph said about the road project.
Money will also go toward building breakwaters for the Greater Lafourche Port Commission and near Des Allemands.
Around $1.75 million of the funds will pay for improvements to Tiger Drive Bridge. Other CDBG money will fund sewer projects in Lockport and Golden Meadow.
Lafourche is also receiving $6.4 million in federal Hazard Mitigation Grant Program funding and $4.45 million in federal stimulus money for hurricanes Gustav and Ike recovery.
“We’re still working on (hurricanes) Katrina and Rita funding,” Randolph said.
No local match money is required for the HMGP funds.
Around $2.8 million from the funds will pay for land acquisition. Pump stations will also be improved with HMGP funds through the state Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration.
Randolph said that the view atop the new La. Highway 1 bridge at Leeville reveals less land and more water.
A pipeline running from Plaquemines Parish will haul slurry to Lafourche to help build wetlands using HMGP funds.
“It takes the Mississippi River to the Barataria Basin,” she said, “so we will have a speed bump necessary for storms.”
Around $3.5 million in stimulus money will pay to build turning lanes, including ones on La. Highway 1 south of U.S. Highway 90, an area that can be a traffic nightmare, according to Randolph.
Stimulus money will pay for $1.1 million in sewer improvements, energy efficiency improvements ($685,000), the Tiger Drive extension ($400,000), and family development programs ($300,000). Other sewer projects will take place in Marydale and Lewistown.
Claudet said more than half – $74 million – of Terrebonne Parish’s CDBG funds will go to build levees in the southern part of the parish, most 10-feet high. The funds cannot be used to pay for Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane protection levees.
“We have different problems than Lafourche,” Claudet said. At scoping meetings in Terrebonne to gather input on using the CDBG funds, the public wanted levees, he said.
Besides hurricane protection, $10 million of the CDBG funds will go toward building affordable rental housing. Forced drainage improvements will receive $15 million and some of the funds could help pay for a new $7 million juvenile detention center.
Home repairs and elevation assistance will receive $3.7 million in CDBG funds, while homebuyers’ assistance and buyouts will receive $5.7 million.
Claudet said elevating homes is preferable to demolishing them. When homes are demolished, the land containing the homes that were razed using HMGP funds must become green space. Land having homes demolished using CDBG money can be sold.
Southern Terrebonne has 480 structures the parish would like to see demolished, Claudet said.
“It’s hard to ask the generals and colonels (from the Army Corps of Engineers) for help unless we help ourselves,” he said.
CDBG money could help pay for a $1.1 million cold storage facility for area fishermen, a $1 million loan and grant program for businesses affected by hurricanes Gustav and Ike, and to remove boats sunk by the two hurricanes out of Terrebonne waterways.
The funds could also pay for improvements to the Clinton Street pump station in Chauvin that was badly damaged during Ike.
Other money will go toward improving infrastructure, roads, buildings and pollution control.
“It’s an opportunity for Terrebonne to be changed for the better,” Claudet said. “People will never understand if we’re flooded, we lose our people, our culture, our businesses.”
