Morganza to the Gulf

Officials: Corps’ $11B price tag ‘outrageous’

By MIKE BROSSETTE

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is claiming that the Morganza-to-the-Gulf project, which will bring federal hurricane protection levees to Terrebonne Parish for the first time, will cost billions of dollars more to construct than earlier estimates indicated.

A recent report written for the Corps by the Colorado engineering consultants Arcadis Corporation places the price tag for Morganza at roughly $11 billion. The previous cost estimate was around $1 billion, although state officials expected the price to rise by several hundred million dollars.

The main reason for the increased cost is that the 64 miles of earthen levees making up Morganza will have to be built eight to 11 feet taller than the height called for in earlier plans to keep out storm surges, according to the report. The increased height will require wider bases and the greater weight will cause the levees to sink more quickly, necessitating the addition of more earth and clay.

Congress authorized Morganza last year in the Water Resources Development Act, though the project was funded only partially. The federal government would pay 65 percent of the cost.

The hurricane-protection levees would run from the Larose area to Bayou Dularge, swinging under Houma. The Terrebonne Levee District has started construction on some stretches of Morganza as part of the local match.

The project includes a flood-control lock on the Houma Navigation Canal near its intersection with Bayou Grand Caillou.

The big rise in cost has flustered officials in the state.

U.S. Sen. David Vitter, one of the key proponents of Morganza in the Senate, said during a visit to Houma earlier this year that he believes the Corps’ heart is not in the project, in part because the agency fears lawsuits.

“The Corps always bellyaches they’re overworked and underfunded,” he said.

Vitter added wording to an appropriations bill allowing the use of $22 million in previously allocated funds to begin construction on Morganza. The Corps could meet the higher standards of levee construction for future phases of the project.

“It appears the Corps is doing exactly what Congress did not want it to do – slow down the bureaucracy to a screeching halt and not begin the initial work they have already been authorized and funded to do,” he stated in a release. “Their delay continues to leave folks in the Houma-Terrebonne area in risk of storm surge and hurricane damage.”

U.S. Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-Napoleonville) showed equal consternation.

“The Corps needs to develop a realistic plan to protect south Louisianians from the next major storm, and stop making the perfect the enemy of the good,” he said. “Otherwise, we’ll go another 15 years without any protection in Terrebonne and Lafourche, and by then it will be too late.”

Garret Graves, director of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Office of Coastal Affairs, called the new cost estimate for Morganza “ridiculous and absurd.”

The Houma-based Morganza Action Coalition, which lobbies Congress for Morganza funding, also criticized the new cost estimate.

“MAC is doing everything it can to emphasize our disappointment, outrage and total frustration with this latest twist in our journey to get flood protection for our region,” the group’s president Dan Walker said in a release.

Walker called the new price tag for Morganza “shocking and outrageous.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.