Levee district, Corps still at odds over height

The friction is continuing between the Terrebonne levee district and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over Morganza to the Gulf construction requirements.

The Morganza project, which will bring hurricane protection levees to Terrebonne Parish for the first time, will be mostly federally funded. However, Congress has appropriated only a small amount of money.

The levees will form a barrier across much of southern Terrebonne Parish.

The Terrebonne levee district and Terrebonne Parish government are constructing 15 miles of levees near Pointe-aux-Chenes, Montegut and Lake Boudreaux as part of the local match for Morganza, but the Corps is now demanding that the parish build the levees 26 to 28 feet high and 1,500 to 2,000 feet wide.

“It’s so unreasonable, we can’t afford it,” said Tony Alford, president of the levee board.

Alford said the new requirements are still unofficial.

In June, the Corps floated a figure of $11 billion as Morganza’s price due to more stringent levee standards, after initially asserting that the cost would be in the $1 billion range.

Alford said, regardless, the price for Morganza being batted around by the Corps is astronomical.

“The figure $11 billion changes like from night to day,” he said. “They said it could go as low as $6 billion, but even if it goes to $5 billion we can’t afford it.”

“We’re going to work with them as best we can,” he added.

The Terrebonne levee district takes in $6 to $6.5 million a year from a parishwide sales tax first passed in 2001 for the purpose of building local Morganza levees.

On a more positive note, Alford said a Chauvin man is going above and beyond paying his sales taxes to the levee district.

Brian LeCompte donated 200,000 cubic yards of dirt to help build the 10 miles of levees being built by the levee district as part of the Morganza match. Terrebonne Parish government is building the other five miles.

The dirt is worth around $2 a cubic yard, and LeCompte “is not a rich guy,” Alford said.

“He aggressively wants to build the Ward 7 levees,” he said. “That’s the kind of participation we need.”