Louisiana worried about Corps' levee armoring plans

Published 20 September 2010

Louisiana says the Corps of Engineers is $1 billion short for completing levee construction around New Orleans, while the Corps says it has enough money; the disagreement over the cost of completing levee construction centers on a long-simmering argument over the last construction task scheduled for earthen levees throughout the system: deciding what type of armoring will keep the levees from washing away if they are overtopped

Louisiana state officials and the Army Corps of Engineers disagreed last week on whether there was enough money left to properly complete construction of the New Orleans area levee system and interior drainage improvements.

Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority chairman Garret Graves told authority members that the corps will be as much as $1 billion short, while a senior corps official said the agency has enough money on hand to do the work, if it is allowed to shift expected surplus funds from projects on the east bank of the Mississippi River to the west bank.

Mark Schleifstein writes in the Times-Picayune that the authority also heard from state Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration officials that contractor Shaw Group has built almost six miles of sand berms designed to trap oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill, and that the state will ask BP for another $60 million in the next week to continue the project. BP already has forwarded the state $180 million of a promised $360 million the company committed for berm construction.

The disagreement over the cost of completing levee construction centers on a long-simmering argument over the last construction task scheduled for earthen levees throughout the system: deciding what type of armoring will keep the levees from washing away if they are overtopped.

Hurricane Katrina’s surge eroded wide swaths of levees in New Orleans and St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. The state believes more sturdy armoring methods should be used to assure there is no repeat of that, Graves said.

Graves said the state is concerned that the corps will conclude that growing special species of grass on the levees will guarantee the levees will not erode if they are overtopped by surges created by storms larger than the so-called 100-year storm — which has a 1 percent chance of occurring any year — used to determine levee height.

Mike Park, deputy director of the Corps’ Task Force Hope, which is in charge of building levees on the east bank, said that the Corps is studying a variety of armoring materials, including grasses. The study, which will not be complete until January, seeks to determine which materials will assure the levees do not erode when overtopped by a 500-year storm, a storm with a .20 percent chance of occurring in any year, he said.

Graves told the authority that the state plans formally to object to moving money from east bank projects, while Park said that message has not yet been passed on to the corps.

Schleifstein notes that the Corps has identified $90 million available from east bank levee projects and $60 million from drainage projects, Park said. The money is needed to build the West Closure Complex, a near $1 billion combination of huge floodgates and pumps being built to block water from entering the Harvey and Algiers canals during hurricanes.

The Corps also expects to save enough money on construction costs for the remaining work necessary to provide 1 percent protection to the region by June 1 of next year to pay for whatever armoring method is chosen, Park said.

He said that while the Corps could unilaterally move the money from one project to another after informing the chairs of the U.S. House and Senate appropriations committees, standard practice is to get the state, as local sponsor of the project, local officials and local members of the Congressional delegation to agree.

Park said officials with both the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority — East and West had provided such assurances, though they both raised concerns about the money switch. Officials with the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board, local sponsor of the Southeastern Louisiana Urban Flood Damage Reduction drainage projects, objected, as did U.S. Representative Steve Scalise. Staffers of U.S. Senator David Vitter said they would withhold approval pending further analysis by the state, Park said.