Work to begin on new EOC in north Terrebonne
June 12, 2014Morganza to the Gulf factors into storm protection
June 12, 2014
The super system proposed to protect Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes from storm surges was granted a place in line last month when the U.S. Congress included its authorization in the first federal water-resources bill in seven years.
Morganza to the Gulf, at a projected cost of $13 billion including inflation, is a 98-mile system of levees, floodgates and other water-control structures stretching from Gibson to Lockport. Federal authorization makes it eligible to receive federal construction funding through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District Executive Director Reggie Dupre said he views the fate of a proposed sector gate in the Humble Canal as a litmus test as to whether the Corps is “willing and able” to spend federal money to construct Morganza.
“My suggestion to the Corps was why don’t you start designing a new federal floodgate which can be built away from the exiting barge floodgate,” Dupre said. “The citizens can continue having flood protection we currently have, at least to that level. Then if they can get that level of appropriations in the next two years, we can end up with a $25- or $30-million federal floodgate.”
Congress is required to appropriate funding to the Corps for specific or unspecific projects; the Corps’ appropriation bill this year totaled $5.5 billion in civil works, including $1.7 billion in construction monies split among more than 100 projects.
Specific segments of the project must be designed before specific Corps districts can submit a budget request for construction funding.
Morganza had twice been federally authorized, but it subsequently lost those certifications. In 2000, the Corps missed their deadline to file a post-authorization chief’s report. Then, in 2007, new post-Katrina storm-protection mandates caused the then-$886 million price tag to skyrocket, requiring the Corps to reanalyze the project’s benefits.
Morgana will now cost more than 14-times that amount if it is to be built entirely in line with federal standards, according to the Corps’ latest estimate. The local/state share is anticipated at $4.5 billion, or more than $200 million per year over a 20-year period. The federal share would be $8.4 billion.
Local officials have made use of two separate levee taxes approved by Terrebonne voters, including a half-cent sales tax levied in 2012 for a span of 28 years. Instead of aiming for the federal standards on its own, the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District is working to construct the system’s footprint, figuring some protection is better than none.
About $265 million in local and state funding has been spent toward completed or ongoing construction, according to Lori LeBlanc, managing consultant for the business-backed Morganza Action Coalition. LeBlanc anticipates that number will total between $500 and $800 million within the next seven years.
Ultimately, the finished project would yield $1.40 in benefits for every $1 in cost, according to the Corps’ report. It would protect 200,000 residents as well as industrial and infrastructure interests with protection reaching as high as 18 feet and as wide as 725 feet.
In the meantime, as exemplified by the push for the sector gate in the Humble Canal, locals are pushing the Corps to prioritize projects that work in tandem with the scaled-down system money can afford.
“Allowing the citizens of Terrebonne Parish and the State of Louisiana to continue to provide enhanced flood protection while the feds come in would be a perfect marriage and a transition into the federal project,” Dupre said.
The Corps began designing Morganza to the Gulf in 1992. The federal government has spent more than $70 million to study the public-works project but the Corps has not spent any money toward construction. All told, about $36 million in federal monies – from sources like FEMA and Community Development Block Grants – have been applied to the project, Dupre said.
Crews construct Upper Reach F of the Morganza-to-the-Gulf protection system in Dulac. Local officials hope the federal authorization of the massive project will lead to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contributing construction funds to the long-desired project.
