Construction is to start on this levee system.
Construction is expected to begin in March on the first mile of the long-awaited West Shore Lake Pontchartrain hurricane levee, following the award by the Army Corps of Engineers of a $9.4 million contract this week to Lemoine-Frazier LLC of Lafayette. The project has been on the books in one form or another for around a half-century. The lack of levee protection in the area led to major flooding during Hurricane Isaac in 2012 and Hurricane Ida last year. Overall construction on the project began in July 2021 with a symbolic groundbreaking. The mile-long Reach 110 cuts through cypress-tupelo marsh on the western side of the levee in St. John the Baptist Parish, and will be built with about 87,000 cubic yards of commercial borrow material, almost enough to fill eight Goodyear blimps. Construction of this reach is expected to be completed in 2024. The total project will stretch 17.5 miles.
Construction is expected to begin in March on the first mile of the long-awaited West Shore Lake Pontchartrain hurricane levee, following the award by the Army Corps of Engineers of a $9.4 million contract this week to Lemoine-Frazier LLC of Lafayette. The project has been on the books in one form or another for around a half-century. The lack of levee protection in the area led to major flooding during Hurricane Isaac in 2012 and Hurricane Ida last year. Overall construction on the project began in July 2021 with a symbolic groundbreaking. The mile-long Reach 110 cuts through cypress-tupelo marsh on the western side of the levee in St. John the Baptist Parish, and will be built with about 87,000 cubic yards of commercial borrow material, almost enough to fill eight Goodyear blimps. Construction of this reach is expected to be completed in 2024. The total project will stretch 17.5 miles. “The work visible just west of the Bonnet Carrė Spillway is just the first hint of what’s to come,” said Bradley Drouant, senior project manager for the Corps. “We ask for the public to be on the lookout for dump trucks entering and exiting the highway in the new year to help us safely construct this important risk reduction levee in St. John the Baptist.”
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This is a flood protection system to prevent flooding from Lake Pontchartrain.
The project is part of the $1.2 billion flood risk reduction system that will be elevated to levels aimed at protecting Montz, LaPlace, Reserve and Garyville from hurricane storm surges that have a 1% chance of occurring in any year, a so-called 100-year storm. The first $760 million will be used to reach that initial 1% level by 2026, with earthen levee segments reaching 15 feet above sea level where the levee joins the western guide levee of the Bonnet Carre Spillway and dropping in height as it moves west, to about 8.5 feet where it joins the Mississippi River levee just west of Garyville. The remainder of the money will be used by the Corps to find additional ways of improving flood risk reduction, which could result in additions or changes to the initial design over the next few years. The project also includes plans for two smaller ring levees that will protect parts of Grand Point and Gramercy in St. James Parish.
Built to protect from the 1% oif a 100 year plan which we have seen is more frequently today.
The new levee system is being designed to prevent surge water flooding from a hurricane with a 1% chance of occurring in any year, the so-called 100-year storm, and will include earthen levees, floodwalls and pumps. This is the latest in a series of contracts awarded by the Corps for the project. Others have been awarded to build test sections, for stockpiles of clay and sand, for placement of sand along the path of the levee, and to build access roads into the wetland areas where much of the levee system will be built. The Corps is still working with the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and the Pontchartrain Levee District to acquire rights of entry and coordinate with utilities and pipelines within the project footprint. More information is available at the Corps’ West Shore Lake Pontchartrain Facebook page, and at the project’s web site.
More protection to our area.
