Morganza half-cent tax OK’d by voters

Now that voters have agreed to tax themselves for further flood protection, officials in Terrebonne Parish say they can put the hammer down on construction a long-awaited belt of levees they maintain will make the difference.

Evidence of work already done by the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District as well as the parish itself, they maintain, is one reason why voters reluctant to move ahead in the past gave approval last week for funding of the massive Morganza-to-the-Gulf project, allowing the most vital pieces to be laid in place on their flood-protection jigsaw puzzle.

As he prepared for a lunch meeting Monday with engineers, levee board president Tony Alford said the half-cent sales tax approval is providing not just dollars, but energy needed to move forward and get the job done.

“Now what we do is get geared up and ready,” he said. “We get the remaining permits, on certain sections we are lacking a few but we also have a few, and we are building, man, like it’s for the next hurricane.”

The half-cent sales tax, which will be collected beginning April 1, has a 28-year-life span before going to voters for renewal.

Unofficial results from Saturday’s election show that 5,879 voters, or 71 percent of those who went to the polls, approved the tax. A total of 2,349 rejected it.

Officials said it is expected to raise more than $300 million, at a rate of $10 to $12 million per year.

Bonds will be issued by the levee district to pay for the projects.

Voters turned down a proposed 1-cent tax in 2005 that would have been used for the same purpose. But officials said Monday that key factors influenced the results of Saturday’s election, in which only 13-percent of voters participated.

Among those:

• The tax was proposed by the levee district, not the parish government.

• The tax approved Saturday is clearly dedicated to the Morganza project,

• The last attempt was made after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but it was Hurricane Ike in 2009, which made landfall in Galveston but still caused unprecedented flooding, that may have increased awareness.

“Gustav and Ike were the straws that broke the camel’s back,” said Levee District Director Reggie Dupre. “With Ike, we had a 9.5-foot tidal surge around the Boudreaux Canal for a storm that made landfall 250 miles away. Rita was a 9-foot tidal surge.”

Another aspect of the ballot measure that might have made it more popular is a provision that the money from the tax shall not go for studies or administrative costs.

The tax – and the work it will pay for – will also help Terrebonne stay on track with continued investment by the state in the local project.

He noted that it was approval of a quarter-cent sales tax in 2001 that allowed for work done thus far.

“It gives us a strong bargaining point with the state,” Dupre said. “No matter who the next governor is they will realize the voters passed a new tax and we will get a tremendous amount of support from the state. We are already getting a lot from Gov. Jindal. And I hope and pray that one day we will still have a federal project.”

Passage of the quarter-cent tax 11 years ago, Dupre and other officials said, has been a catalyst for state cooperation, including what has amount to a 60 percent state and 40 percent local match situation. But that kitty is diminishing due to work already under way – the same work officials say is quite visible from local roadsides, and may have bolstered voter confidence.

When elements of the project began after the quarter-cent tax was approved the plan was connection of flood protection from Pointe-aux-Chenes to Dularge. Some of that work is done. Now, Dupre and Alford said, important gaps can be filled, including a stretch to Bayou Dularge at the Falgout Canal flood gate and levees on the west side of the Dularge Bridge, as well as those slated for Bayou Black.