Freda Wood Toups
August 4, 2009
Clara Arabie Hoskins
August 6, 2009
Completing the seven miles of levees in Dulac before the active part of the 2009 hurricane season begins took plenty of hard work, said representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers at a ribbon-cutting for the levees held last week in Houma.
Groundbreaking took place less than six months ago for the Dulac levees, which required moving more than 400,000 cubic yards of material to build.
“This section of levee looked like it was going to be mission impossible, then to possible, then to complete,” said Col. Thomas O’Hara, commander of the corps’ St. Louis District, which was brought in to aid the New Orleans District on the project.
Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh, commander of the corps’ Mississippi Valley Division, said the project was built under an “impossible construction schedule.”
Terrebonne Parish will maintain the levees, which contain several gaps that still have to be filled.
Thirty million dollars to build the levees was secured by U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) in an emergency supplemental bill following Hurricane Katrina. The final cost to complete the project was several million dollars less; environmental mitigation work still needs to be completed on the project.
Vitter had asked former Terrebonne Levee District Director Jerome Zeringue whether he could use $30 million to build levees in Terrebonne, said Parish Councilman Clayton Voisin, describing how the project began. Voisin’s district contains the Dulac levees.
Parish officials responded, and three weeks later Vitter said the prospect of securing the money was positive, Voisin said.
In October 2007, a Terrebonne Parish levee selection team determined that Suzie Canal and Orange Street in Dulac should be the site of the levees, Walsh said.
According to Terrebonne Levee District Director Reggie Dupre, the Dulac and Grand Caillou area has flooded from Lake Boudreaux to the east. The new levees shield Dulac from flooding in that direction. Voisin said the levees would have prevented flooding from previous hurricanes, though the structures are “not enough to stop everything.”
Vitter later criticized the corps for delays in building the levees, especially after the agency spent some of the allocated funds on an unrelated study in 2008.
“The money was not being put on the ground,” Voisin said.
Meetings in Washington, D.C. between Terrebonne officials and Corps Commander Robert Van Antwerp in late 2008 about the Dulac levees helped to speed up the process.
“We have passion because the people who live in this area are impacted,” said Col. Alvin Lee, commander of the corps’ New Orleans District. “To have it completed by hurricane season this year made me a little nervous.”
“We said failure was not an option,” Walsh said. “We brought folks in from Minnesota and St. Louis to help (contractors Southern Services & Equipment and J V L&S-Cky) get it done.”
O’Hara said Parish Manager Al Levron, who was with the parish Public Works Department when the project started, was an effective point man.
“This project demonstrates what we can accomplish when we work together,” Lee said.
In a letter, Vitter stated, “This area deserves this protection. I guarantee we will have projects like these until Terrebonne is protected.”
The ribbon-cutting was moved from the levee site to the parish council chambers because of the threat of rain.
Terrebonne Levee District Director Reggie Dupre, Corps New Orleans Commander Col. Alvin Lee, Terrebonne Parish Councilman Clayton Voisin, Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet, Corps St. Louis District Commander Col. Thomas O’Hara, Terrebonne Parish Councilman Joey Cehan, Terrebonne Levee District Board President Tony Alford, state Rep. Damon Baldone (D-Houma), Corps Mississippi Valley Division Commander Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh, Terrebonne Parish Councilman Billy Hebert, and Terrebonne Parish Councilwoman Arlanda Williams gather at last Wednesday’s ribbon-cutting for the new levees in Dulac. * Photo by KEYON K. JEFF
