Corps diverted levee funds, Vitter contends

U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) stated in a letter on Monday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers diverted $30 million allocated by Congress in 2006 to improve non-federal levees in southern Terrebonne Parish.

At least part of the money went toward funding a study on improving the Corps’ relations with Southern University, Vitter said in the letter written to Lt. General Robert Van Antwerp, chief of engineers with the Corps in Washington, D.C.

The funding would have prevented flooding caused by Hurricane Ike, Vitter said.

The $30.024 million for local levee funding was included in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill of June 2006.

The money was not part of the Morganza-to-the-Gulf project, which was authorized by Congress in 2000 and again in 2007. The project will provide for the construction of federally-built hurricane protection levees in Terrebonne Parish for the first time.

Vitter said the money was appropriated in 2006 to improve local levees in Terrebonne because the Corps had failed to start work on the Morganza project.

“Unfortunately, the Corps sat on this money for over two years, preventing it from having any concrete impact on the ground in Terrebonne Parish,” Vitter wrote.

Vitter said that state and local officials were ready to start improvements on the levees immediately.

The letter asserts that the money was instead spent on a study “to build a mentoring relationship with Southern, an initiative and priority of certain Corps officials.”

Vitter and other state and parish officials are holding a meeting today with Van Antwerp and other Corps officials to discuss why the money was diverted.

He will also find out about the Corps’ plans to quash the Southern University study and transfer the $30 million to state and Terrebonne Parish officials.

Vitter wants the Corps to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the state and Terrebonne Parish officials, then “get out of the way.”

The Louisiana senator has been bitterly critical of the Corps because he believes the agency has been footdragging on Morganza. He has called for the state to take on the responsibility of building hurricane protection levees in Terrebonne Parish.

In the hours before Hurricane Ike sent water rushing into 2,500 Terrebonne Parish homes, residents in the southern end of the parish filled sandbags to build a makeshift levee to protect their property. * Photo courtesy of Louisiana State Police, Troop C