Levee district seeks state funding to fortify system

With upward of $1 billion in surplus available at the outset of the upcoming state legislative session, the South Lafourche Levee District is positioning itself to receive a portion of that money for levee upgrades and improvements to the hurricane protection levee that runs from Larose south to below Golden Meadow.

District officials recently traveled to Baton Rouge to speak with members of Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s staff, chief among them Commissioner of Administration Jerry LeBlanc.

Levee district general manager Windell Curole, levee board president Ronald Callais and board member and former state representative Richard “Dick” Guidry met with LeBlanc to stress the need for money to improve the levees.

“[Blanco’s staff] appeared very receptive to our needs and pledged to help us,” said Curole as he updated the board members at Monday’s monthly meeting of the levee district in Galliano.

Specifically, Curole noted that the district is seeking over $20 million to install a lock just north of the Leon Theriot Floodgates near Golden Meadow.

Although $7.5 million has already been lined up for the lock project, Curole said he would like to receive the entire $20 million so other entities can be freed of their monetary commitment to the project. The Greater Lafourche Port Commission and the Lafourche Parish Council have committed funds to the lock’s construction.

In addition, the district has requested $10 million yearly for five years from the state. Those monies would go toward “making the levees higher and stronger,” Curole said.

“I believe the lock was a strong selling point to the state and we feel confident that our efforts will pay off,” he told the board.

Guidry said he expects that the money will most likely be paid through the capital outlay process and will not have to go through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which would make the funding available sooner.

Monday night, the Corps updated the board on levee system projects currently in the works.

A project to raise the “D North” section to an original design height of 12 feet is expected be complete by June or early July. Subsidence of the levee in that area had caused an approximate drop of two feet.

The “D North” section is on the east side of Bayou Lafourche, extending from Breton Canal to just behind the South Lafourche Leonard Miller Airport.

The Corps is also working on the “D South” section of the levee system. At that site, sheet piles are being driven off the base of the levee segment to prevent erosion from lapping waters. The sheet piles will be further stabilized by the placement of rocks on both sides of the piles.

“D South” is located on the east side of Bayou Lafourche and runs from the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP) facility south to near Yankee Canal in the Golden Meadow area. According to the Corps, the sheet piles should be in place within the next 60 to 90 days.