Flood protection structure studied

FRANKLIN — St. Mary Levee District engineers have produced models for a project to look at closing off Bayou Teche at the Charenton Canal to try to protect Franklin from flooding during a Hurricane Ike-type storm.
Jeff Peña of CB&I Infrastructure Company said the St. Mary Levee District hired the company to examine possibly putting a flood control structure on Bayou Teche at the intersection of the Charenton Canal and Bayou Teche.
The structure is needed to protect the backside of Franklin along Bayou Teche from potential storm surge of a Hurricane Ike-type storm, Peña said.
The St. Mary Levee District Commission met Thursday at the Parish Courthouse.
Engineers looked at two possible locations for installing a swing barge gate structure, Peña said. Residents in the area surrounding the proposed structure were present at Thursday’s meeting.
Levee District Commission President Bill Hidalgo said the levee district received a request to look at installing a structure to close off Bayou Teche. The levee district hired engineers to do modeling to make sure the project would not cause any areas to flood on the northwest side of Bayou Teche around Franklin, Hidalgo said.
Engineers used a Hurricane Ike-type storm to perform the modeling. If a flood protection structure was in place at Bayou Teche, the structure would cause the resulting water elevation to be roughly an inch higher at the gate for a Hurricane Ike-type storm compared to not having the structure in place, Peña said.
The structure is estimated to cost roughly $10 million, Peña said. The funding has not been identified to build the structure, Levee District Commissioner J.P. Hebert said.
The levee district needs to do a study to determine whether a pump station is needed to pump water out of the proposed flood protection structure, Hebert said.
Once funding is located for the project, the permitting process would take probably six to nine months, and then construction might take about a year, Peña said.
In other business, the commission:
—Authorized the signing of cooperative endeavor agreements with the City of Morgan City, Town of Berwick and St. Mary Parish to be the non-federal sponsor for levees in the parish as recognized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
—Authorized the levee district to purchase office furniture not to exceed $4000.
—Authorized purchasing a new computer server not to exceed $5500.
—Authorized renewing the limestone land lease with Diversified Enviro.
—Announced an Aug. 14 meeting to adopt the district’s tax millage rate.