Storm system draws cheers and a few jeers near coast
April 10, 2013
Morganza levee bond sale a milestone
April 10, 2013
Long heralded as a Terrebonne Parish protector, the proposed Morganza-to-the-Gulf system has been extended to end east of Lockport, but Lafourche Parish officials say the modification does little to quell their standing concerns.
“That and $5 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks,” said Dwayne Bourgeois, executive director of the North Lafourche Conservation, Levee and Drainage District.
In addition to the possibility that Morganza is cost prohibitive, a fully realized system would do nothing to deter water from flowing through the Barataria Basin and disrupting drainage in north Lafourche, as was the case during Hurricane Isaac, Bourgeois said. The modified proposal will not change how the district approaches flood- and storm-protection priorities, he said.
The tentative, still-unauthorized alignment now juts east from Grand Bayou Canal and eventually runs east through the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway until La. Highway 308, where it meets and begins to follow Bayou Lafourche’s eastern ridge to Lockport before closing to the west.
The alteration would protect Morganza’s interior from water intruding from the east through the GIWW and over the Bayou Lafourche ridge, but it still falls short of connecting with U.S. Highway 90, leaving central and north Lafourche vulnerable, Bourgeois said.
Hypothetical issues became reality during Hurricane Isaac, when persistent south winds forced water through the Barataria Basin and into Lac Des Allemands, a natural rainwater drainage reservoir for northern precipitation. The confluence crested at about 4.28 feet in the connecting Bayou Des Allemands, overtopping a 4-foot protection levee bordering the Kraemer community.
Marsh erosion in the Barataria Basin has increased the likelihood of similar occurrences, parish officials have said. Bourgeois expressed concern that a 98-mile levee system ending in Lockport could funnel more storm surge into the basin.
Donaldsonville to the Gulf, another super system that had been proposed to run across the Barataria Basin in connecting Lafourche and St. Charles parishes, has fallen from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ to-do list due to environmental concerns and a unsatisfactory cost-to-benefit ratio.
The Lafourche Basin Levee District continues carrying the baton in hope that it can seal off the massive hole that would exist should Morganza be completed, Randy Trosclair, the district’s executive director, said.
Donaldsonville to the Gulf was not included in the state’s coastal master plan, Trosclair said, because the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was studying its feasibility as the presumptive sponsoring agency.
The district is working with the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority in hopes that the state’s master plan can be amended to include a scaled-down version of the project. The district’s board has retained an engineer, who is gathering information to present before the state Legislature, hopefully as early as this year’s session, which must end by June 6, Trosclair said.
The basin levee district’s engineer is considering two alignments, both of which begin at the western end of Davis Pond. Without the protection system, the parishes represented by the basin levee district – St. John the Baptist, St. James, St. Charles, Ascension and Assumption – would be reliant on coastal restoration projects in the basin providing protection.
“We’re leaving our constituents wide open and they didn’t feel it was right,” Trosclair said of the board’s decision to continue pursuing the project.
The Donaldsonville to the Gulf absence increases the importance of stretching Morganza as far north as U.S. Highway 90, said Councilman Philip Gouaux, who represents Lockport. While not offering protection to Bayou Des Allemands, it would at least protect central Lafourche and an evacuation route.
“On the west side it starts on Highway 90, so why should it not end on Highway 90 on the east? We need to protect the evacuation route,” he said. “They’ve extended their project reach to encompass Lockport, but Lockport is just part of what needs to be encompassed.”
Elaine Stark, the corps project manager, has said extending the alignment to incorporate Gheens would not offer additional protection to the Morganza system, according to the Daily Comet.
As it stands now, without either system, the Larose-to-Golden Meadow ring levee system under the authority of the South Lafourche Levee District protects the lower portion of the parish. In north and central Lafourche, officials are using approximately $2 million annually in capital expenses to build piecemeal a list of $248 million worth of backlogged projects north of the Intracoastal.
Stakeholders said they continue to hope that Morganza will be extended or that Donaldsonville to the Gulf will be realized at least in a scaled-down version.
“(Morganza) has been changed about three times already, and don’t be shocked if it’s changed again,” said Lafourche Councilman Michael Delatte, who represents the Kraemer-Chackbay-Bayou Boeuf region.
