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More funding ahead for flood protection, Garret Graves tells LEDC

More funding ahead for flood protection, Garret Graves tells LEDC

Washington, DC, August 9, 2019 | By Kevin Fambrough | The News Kevin Fambrough Reporter Livingston Parish News

DENHAM SPRINGS – More federal funding is coming to Livingston Parish through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Rep. Garret Graves to the Livingston Economic Development Council (LEDC).

It is just part of the continuing effort to improve flood protection here, Graves told the LEDC's quarterly meeting Thursday at Forrest Grove Plantation.

"You're an economic development organization," Graves said.

Economic development groups think of infrastructure, roads, utilities, water and electricity, he said.

"Having good schools are important, but it doesn't matter if you're under water," Graves said. "That flood protection issue is fundamental here.

"By working together, we can ensure we address that fundamental problem."

"We were able to get funded $400 million," for flood protection, Graves said. "We did it together, Republicans, Democrats and Independents because it was the right thing to do."

"This week we are announcing rules for eligibility for an additional $1.2 billion in added flood protection.

"We will prepare for the future. making this whole capital area the resilient area it needs to be," Graves said.

"Yesterday, after blocking a threat to lose a quarter-billion dollars in funding, we locked down $225 million in new flood protection," Graves said.

‘We secured for this region another $130 million for Baton Rouge and Ascension to clear canals and ditches."

"This parish right now is further along doing flood protection work than any other parish," he said of Livingston Parish.

The parish will be receiving $120 million through FEMA for flood control work, he said.

"Three hundred and fifty miles of canals and ditches are being cleaned, to evacuate the water."

Graves said it was the failure of the federal government that the Comite River Diversion Canal, designed in the 1980s, was not completed.

The project would have helped "pull water off the Comite to the Mississippi River and give the Comite more capacity."

"In 2016, that lack of capacity was exposed," with the Great Flood of 2016, he said. "The Comite and Amite couldn't handle the floods."

"When you think about Livingston Parish, the first- or second-fastest growing parish in the state, do we prepare for 1980s or 1990s? We need to prep for the 2020's, 2030's, 2040's."