Terrebonne officials fend off criticism of levee project

(AP) As skepticism mounts about building a new levee system here, Terrebonne Parish levee officials say they will ask the state to undertake a scientific review of the work to allay fears.

The $900 million Morganza-to-the-Gulf project has been in the works for years and it is viewed as vital to the long-term safety of Houma and surrounding fishing villages.

The proposed work is part of a package of water projects the U.S. Senate will consider later this month.

But since Hurricane Katrina, some environmentalists and scientists have questioned building the levee project because of the deleterious effects it could have on wetlands and because it could wind up being poorly built, just like the levees that broke during

Katrina.

The latest criticism is contained in a new report by the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, an environmental advocacy group in New Orleans. The report calls the Morganza-to-the-Gulf project antiquated, potentially damaging to the environment and ill-conceived.

The report said “it is inappropriate for this pre-Katrina project to be effectively ‘grandfathered’ in” and that the levee project was based on engineering assumptions proved faulty by Katrina.

“None of the knowledge from the failures of the New Orleans levee system has been incorporated into the design of the Morganza-to-the-Gulf levee, which has had no engineering or design modifications since the initial report in 2002,” the report said.

Jerome Zeringue, the executive director of the Terrebonne Parish Levee and Conservation District, said new design criteria would be incorporated into the Morganza

levee.

“Every time we construct a piece or design a piece we have to reevaluate the environmental impact to build it,” he said. “We are constantly updating.”

The Pontchartrain Foundation’s report also said the Morganza levee fails to include any wetland restoration and would actually damage wetlands by enclosing “extensive wetlands.”

Levee officials said Morganza’s 12 floodgates and 13 “environmental structures” still under design would allow water to flow through the system and keep wetlands healthy. And Zeringue said there are other measures in the state master plan to restore wetlands.

Zeringue said he plans to ask the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority to review

the Morganza-to-the-Gulf project. The CPRA is a governor-appointed group developing a master plan to integrate levees and wetlands recovery.

Zeringue said a review might “allay concerns for those who don’t have a full picture of our project.”