Vivian Ordoyne Lagarde
November 18, 2011
Margaret Fisher Fink
November 22, 2011
Cooperative efforts with neighboring parishes and new Community Development Block Grant funding has helped St. Mary Parish mark accomplishments during the past year and make realistic plans for the future.
“We’ve got a few projects we have been working on the past few months and ongoing since hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike,” St. Mary Parish Chief Administrator Henry “Bo” LaGrange said.
CDBG funds totaling $19.2 million are being used among three projects including the sinking of a barge in the Franklin Canal, which is expected to cost approximately $5 million. This and other flood protection efforts are being developed for the Hanson Canal and Yellow Bayou. The Hanson Canal and Yellow Bayou jobs are combined as one project. Work among these areas includes the addition of floodgates and barge structures that can close designated areas during times of river flooding or hurricane surge flooding.
Of the total CDBG awards presented to St. Mary Parish, $2.7 million went to housing rehabilitation. “We are also working on that right now,” St. Mary Parish President Paul Naquin added.
Following the series of storms that damaged coastal Louisiana in 2005 and again in 2008, St. Mary Parish saw the collection of 1,700 applications for the rebuilding of homes at an expected cost of $2.7 million, which will be covered with part of the CDBG funds.
“In the past year we have been working diligently with all the parliamentary permits and paperwork to have these projects where the Franklin Canal project could be bid out in spring 2012 and Hanson and Yellow Bayou are under design right now,” LaGrange said.
One of the paramount events of the year for St. Mary Parish was orchestrating efforts with Terrebonne Parish and associated levee districts to construct a barge complex in Bayou Chene that protected both parishes from flooding expected by the Atchafalaya River in May and June. This was followed by having the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers admit to the importance of having a permanent flood protection structure at that location.
“Bayou Chene is fully opened right now,” Naquin said. “They do have the bumpers set in place. The [St. Mary Parish] Levee District worked with the corps and the [U.S.] Coast Guard to get the system in place where boat traffic is fully open.”
To install and remove a temporary structure cost area agencies $11 million, which is to be refunded at a level of 75 percent by the federal emergency Management Agency. “Hopefully we can get that 75 percent,” Naquin said. “Then we will work with Lafourche, lower St. Martin and Terrebonne parishes to help us to come up with the other 25 percent. Now we are working to try and find some funds for the permanent structure.”
Naquin said he anticipated funding of up to $50 million for a permanent structure in the Bayou Chene to be secured in the next three years.
“We’re [also] working on sewer projects in St. Mary Parish,” LaGrange said. “Two of them are on the parish line between Iberia and St. Mary. We are just waiting to get right-of-ways. By mid-summer that should go out for bid.”
Among joint efforts between parishes, the past year marked St. Mary and Terrebonne parish officials talking about relieving Morgan City of sediment from the Atchafalaya River and transferring that material into areas of Terrebonne to help with coastal restoration.
“We have worked with Terrebonne Parish and discussed that,” Naquin said. Much of any sediment transfer project, he and LaGrange explained, would be accomplished through the Morgan City Harbor Terminal.
“We have discussed trying to get an abandoned pipeline and transfer some of that sediment,” Naquin said. “It is still in the making. [Terrebonne Parish President Michel] Claudet and I have discussed that with the Corps of Engineers and they said it is a great idea instead of pumping it back into the channel where it was taken from. Better to take it where somebody can use it. Hopefully in the next year we will have something done with it.”
Naquin said that progress in St. Mary Parish has been busy and credited working closely with Terrebonne Parish. He illustrated the success of their cooperative efforts as being one element that attracted placement of the Louisiana Police Jury convention in Houma during Feb. 23-25, 2012.
“As for progress,” LaGrange said, “with the economy and development standpoint, we continue to see our taxes holding steady and employment dropping in some cases. We continue to promote St. Mary Parish for business retention and expansion.”
Naquin added that any restoration of drilling permits would help St. Mary Parish and the region as a whole in the coming year. “If that picks up you are going to see our economy take off.”
Barge complex placement in Bayou Chene during June proves to be a major accomplishment in cooperative efforts between St. Mary and Terrebonne parish governments and levee districts. FILE PHOTO
