Repair to 3-mile segment of Morganza completed

The first portion of the massive Moraganza to the Gulf hurricane protection project, designed primarily to protect Terrebonne Parish from the onslaught of a at least a Category 3 hurricane, was recently completed, much to the joy of the executive director and members of the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District.

Work began early last year on a three-mile section of levee near Pointe aux Chienes.

The section was broken into two 1_-miles projects. Work on the two segments were not expected to be completed until this fall, however contractors for the “Reach J1-B” segment were able to finish work on their segment early because of favorable weather conditions.

The newly built levee segment reaches a height of some eight feet above sea level, and once completed this section of levee is expected to be built to a height of some 20 feet above sea level, according to Jerome Zeringue, executive director of the levee district.

“The credit for the hard and timely work in completing this segment quickly goes to the contractor,” said Zeringue. “We are pleased that the work was done expeditiously so that the dirt will have time to settle and allow us to move on to the next phase.”

Ronald Adams Contractors handled the work on the recently completed phase and Lowland Construction remains on track to finish the other one and a half mile segment in their allotted time frame by the end of the year. Zeringue noted that it is possible that Lowland will also complete their work ahead of schedule as well.

With the initial three-mile segment of Morganza built up to an elevation of eight feet, the dirt must now be allowed to “settle” so that additional dirt can be placed on top of it to eventually reach its design height.

This process typically takes a number of years as dirt added in “lifts” compacts and must be given time for the levee to “mature” and become compact.

Although the three-mile stretch of “Reach J-1” is only the first portion of work done on the 72-mile Morganza project, Zeringue is confident that the project will be included in long awaited federal legislation that is expected to be passed this spring.

He noted that recent meeting with federal officials have brought notice that the U.S. Senate will vote on the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) in March. WRDA is the all-encompassing federal legislation that is the key for federal funding fro the Morganza project.

The project has yet to receive federal acknowledgement and, therefore, is ineligible for federal monies until that designation is bestowed, either in the WRDA bill or in an unlikely stand-alone bill.

Work on the recently completed levee segment was paid for thru other allocated federal monies as well as state funding and a local quarter-cent parish sales tax.

“WRDA authorization is the mostly likely avenue for federal approval of the project and we are confident that the WRDA legislation will be considered in the spring and that the Morganza project will remain a vital project for funding in that legislation,” said Zeringue.