Pauline Kirbo Thames
February 10, 2009
Julia H. Richard
February 12, 2009
Dignitaries described Friday’s groundbreaking on the $30 million Susie Canal and Orange Street levees improvement project as going from “Mission Impossible” to “Mission Possible.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will use federal funds to connect, repair and improve the seven miles of parish levees surrounding Lake Boudreaux.
“This project will move the levees about 30 feet into the marsh and bring them up to an elevation of eight feet,” said Senior Project Manager Darrel Broussard. “The current elevation varies from four to seven feet.”
The levee construction stretches from two and one-half miles north of Georgi Girl Drive in Dulac, where the groundbreaking was held, south to Pump Station No. 8.
Funding for the project was first appropriated in 2006. However, Broussard and Lt. Col Mark Jennings, New Orleans District deputy commander of USACE, said it took a long time for the corps to gain rights of entry and find a borrow pit with suitable dirt to rebuild the levees.
The corps is using the same borrow pit the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District operated for the construction of Reach J-1 levee in Montegut.
Despite being deemed a high value project, it took Hurricane Ike flooding southern Terrebonne Parish to put the Susie Canal and Orange Street levees a top priority.
The project was expedited by a Sept. 26 meeting in Washington, D.C., between U.S. Sen. David Vitter, Commander of USACE Lt. Gen. Robert L. Van Antwerp, state Sen. Reggie Dupre and Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet.
“(The corps was) talking about this being years away from happening before Ike,” Claudet said. “It’s unbelievable. We had a meeting in September and we’re turning dirt.”
According to Dupre and Claudet, the corps set a new aggressive timetable to get the project under way within 120 days.
“Gen. Van Antwerp committed to us that before March 1, this project will break ground, and will be completed by the heart of this year’s hurricane season,” Dupre said.
A cooperative agreement was signed Dec. 15 between the Terrebonne Parish Consolidate Government, the parish levee district and the corps.
“As a result of the teamwork we had at the federal, local and state level, we were able to turn that ‘Mission Impossible’ into a point where it’s ‘Mission Possible,'” said Col. Thomas O’Hara, commander of the corps’ St. Louis district. “It’s not ‘Mission Complete.’ We’re not finished yet.”
While everyone at the groundbreaking was excited about the quick progress made, they noted this is only part of the parish’s redundant backup levee protection.
Parish officials made clear that they are now seeking federal funding to build the Morganza-to-the-Gulf protection system.
“If we can get a couple of other projects started, we can stop the water from getting into Lake Boudreaux, which attacks, Chauvin, Dulac and Houma,” said Windel Curole, the outgoing regional director of Terrebonne’s levee district.
“Remember, this $30 million is not the end. It’s the beginning,” Dupre said. “This is another piece of the puzzle. We will continually build to make us safer tomorrow than we are today.”
Windell Curole of the Terrebonne levee district addresses the crowd at Friday’s groundbreaking ceremony in Dulac. Work is scheduled to be complete by the peak of hurricane season. * Photo by KEYON K. JEFF
