Belle Chasse, La. -
Belle Chasse, La. - If you thought most of the levee improvement work in southeast Louisiana was over, think again.
The Army Corps of Engineers just signed an agreement to do $1.4 billion worth of new work on substandard levees that have plagued Plaquemines Parish for years.
Some substandard non-federal levees below Myrtle Grove are swamped during the mildest tropical weather flooding Highway 23 and blocking the main evacuation route for thousands further south.
Now, in a few years, there will be no need for Hesco baskets used as temporary levees.
The Army Corps of Engineers signed a historic agreement with Plaquemines Parish authorizing $1.4 billion worth of improvements to levees from New Orleans to Venice.
The agreement means that non-federal levees will be federalized and raised four times higher than their current elevations.
"That's not 100 year protection, that's fifty year protection on roughly 60 miles of levees on both sides of the river. Seventeen contracts are going out, and some work could start by mid September. It's jobs for hundreds of people," said Col. Ed Fleming with the Corps of Engineers.
It's not just levees that will be improved, but seven pump stations will get frontal barriers to keep them from being inundated from storm surge.
Sixty miles worth of brand new levees won't be quick. But the work is beginning and the funding is guaranteed.
"We have the money and don't have to worry about government shutdown or any of those things," said Fleming.
The first phase of the project will begin just below Belle Chasse near the Ollie pump station.
