In the News

Gov. John Bel Edwards, Congressman Garret Graves and a host of local, state and federal officials gathered at the Pontchartrain Levee District office in Lutcher on Friday to mark an important milestone in the long-awaited West Shore Levee.

They entered into a ceremonial partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that will allow construction to go forward in the spring of 2024 on 18.5 miles of hurricane surge protection levee and flood wall and other structures.

The levee, which will protect the swampy backsides of St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes and offer more limited ring levees and other protection measures in St. James, is the combined federal and state response to Hurricane Isaac in 2012 that devastated LaPlace and other parts of the river parishes and flooded I-10.

"Once this $760 million project is completed, we hope never to see that kind of suffering again," Edwards said in a joint statement from the Corps Friday.

Parish officials have been working toward their own, locally-financed system in parallel with the West Shore project since the levee project doesn't offe full protection to St. James. For the past few years, they've been mulling a new dedicated drainage tax to finance their plans.

The parish developed a drainage master plan but parish leaders have been divided about how to best spend the money on the east bank of St. James. The dispute has kept the tax plan in limbo and threatens getting the measure on the May 4 ballot.

Just as the northern ends of St. John and St. Charles are vulnerable to flooding, St. James' east bank is susceptible to rising water from hurricane surge and backwater that can build from swamps and Lake Maurepas.

The proposed 7 mill property tax would generating $3.75 million per year, officials say, providing $30 million for the east bank of St. James, about $14 million for other projects on the west bank and additional dollars for the long-term operations and maintenance.

But Parish President Timmy Roussel and Councilman Alvin "Shark" St. Pierre have battled over what project to earmark for eastern St. James — a $30 million plan to use Airline Highway as a kind of makeshift levee or a potentially $120 million to $150 million plan to link up ring levees that the Corps has promised to build to make a more complete surge barrier.

Roussel and St. Pierre engaged in heated discussion over the issue at Wednesday's council meeting.

Roussel has been cool to extending the levees, citing the costs. The Corps has committed to spend about $50 million on 6.5-foot-high ring levees around Gramercy, Lutcher and Grand Point and also a plan to use La. 3125 as a kind of added barrier and other measures.

St. Pierre favors the fuller levee concept. He said it would be closer to homes than Airline Highway — the highway slices through swamps well north of population centers — could be built higher more easily than the fixed highway and could be raised over time if needed.

St. Pierre has argued the parish needs to act while the West Shore levee is starting so the work can coincide. He's also accused Roussel of scuttling last year $800,000 that the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority had set aside to engineer the levee concept to better determine the cost.

Roussel said the parish can't afford the cost of the levee project, which he said would be from $120 million to $150 million, and noted the Airline Highway project is much cheaper.

"Where's that money going to come from?" Roussel said. "That's all I'm asking."

St. Pierre said he couldn't dispute the parish can't afford $120 million but said Roussel hasn't allowed the engineering work to be done to see if those estimates are correct.

"Until we put it through a process, we don't know," St. Pierre said. "And, you ... haven't given us an opportunity, and I think it's unfair."

It's not clear how the Corps would view the type of levee extension St. Pierre is backing. The agency rejected a full levee linking St. Charles and Ascension parishes as not cost effective. St. Pierre's concept would, in effect, be a step toward that idea.

Roussel said he has been told Corps officials would be open to small deviations from the current plan agreed to Friday and approved through the Corps' bureaucracy, but levee work like St. Pierre is proposing is likely going to be the parish's responsibility.

St. Pierre told his fellow council members that he would bring a resolution at their next meeting to hire engineering firms to review both east bank projects.

The next meeting is one of the last dates for the council to withdraw the tax from the ballot again, council members said. The council already backed off a drainage tax proposal once before, in the fall.

In a later interview, Council Chairman Ryan Louque said that he would be uncomfortable going to voters without knowing what flood protection the parish would build.

The new tax would cost a homeowner with a $250,000 house and homestead exemption $122.50 per year.

"My personal feeling is that we're no further along than we were last time," he said.

One of St. Pierre and Louque's concerns with the Airline idea is that the highway maybe too low to justify spending through a 30-year property tax.

On Wednesday, St. Pierre provided survey figures that showed Airline is at 5.8 feet above sea level on average, less than the ring levee height or the 6-foot elevation to which residents must build their homes.

The August 2016 flood reached 4.7 feet high, but future 100-year flood levels are projected to reach an elevation of 7 feet, according to a parish engineering estimate, meaning future flood protection barriers will likely have to be raised.

Roussel, who attended the Friday signing ceremony for the West Shore levee, said he and Louque have spoken since Wednesday and are looking at a plan to shore up low areas of Airline, so the tax can proceed. Roussel said voters are telling him they don't want another delay.

"People want to vote on something. The people want us to try something," he said.