Laf. council OKs $14.6M in road, drainage upgrades

Design contracts for improvements to three dozen streets and two drainage projects borne from the $23 million sales tax bond Lafourche officials secured late last year were approved at the parish council’s last meeting.

The projects are expected to cost $14.6 million, leaving roughly $8 million in the $22.5 million budget for other projects to be announced, according to parish spokeswoman Loralei Gilliam

More than 16 miles of streets set to receive maintenance and two drainage systems in need of improvements have been handed over to engineering firms for project design.

The Fantastic Acres/Coastal Pump system, a 3,000-acre forced-drainage system in Raceland, is budgeted at $4.2 million. Protecting 1,500 residences and businesses, it includes more than 18,000 feet of ring levees and five pumps total, according to the North Lafourche Conservation, Levee and Drainage District.

The council also budgeted $1.4 million for improvements to the Leighton and Morvant pump stations west of Thibodaux. Combined, the stations utilize 11 pumps for the 14,000-acre basin in which there are 4,300 residences.

Lafourche Public Works Director Kerry Babin said the goal is to increase their pumping capacity.

The parish will also convert all electric pumps to gas, Parish President Charlotte Randolph said. This should help avert a situation in which pumps are inoperable during weather-induced blackouts, as was the case in the Bayou Boeuf area during Hurricane Isaac.

The drainage projects were selected in consultation with the parish’s drainage master plan, Randolph said.

Lafourche Parish Government borrowed against future revenue streaming from Road Sales Tax District A, which is unincorporated Lafourche Parish north of Valentine Road. The money must be used for road and drainage projects.

Duplantis Design Group and T. Baker Smith will split the road-improvement projects. Badeaux Engineers will design improvements to the Leighton and Morvant pump stations, and Picciola and Associates will handle the Fantastic Acres system.

“We attempted to give work to every engineering group in the area,” Randolph said.

Boat launch negotiations cease

Parish President Charlotte Randolph said negotiations to restore free access to the Clovelly Boat Launch have broken off and likely won’t resume.

The launch, located on private property in Cut Off, had been made available to the public for years in return for maintenance of a limestone road leading to it. But the 20-year land-use agreement expired in 2007, and public access was blocked early last year after the parties discarded an informal agreement.

“They didn’t give us an indication it was over, but they stopped communicating with us,” Randolph said of talks with the landowners’ attorneys.

General Agricultural Services and Little Lake Land Company, affiliated companies based in Nebraska, own the land. They initially requested for $20,000 per year to pay for fuel, maintenance and the relocation of a private pump station in addition to the annual road maintenance, according to parish negotiators, who balked because they could not discern a public benefit related to the private pump station.

The South Lafourche Levee District struck the initial agreement with landowners when working on the Larose-to-Golden Meadow ring levee system. The parish later assumed the agreement and responsibility for maintaining the road.

The impasse surfaced as SLLD prepared to move the Clovelly levee inland in order to lift it.

Since free access has been shuttered, the launch has remained open – for a price. Noncommercial fishermen pay $400 for an annual pass and commercial fishermen pay $1,000 for a year’s access, Councilman Jerry LaFont said.

Randolph has floated the possibility of a new launch in Larose fulfilling Clovelly’s role. Boaters would need to travel the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to arrive at the destination, and it would take roughly an extra two hours for a round-trip commute.