Morgan City levees project started in 2014

During 2014, St. Mary Levee District officials started plans to improve the Morgan City backwater levees while continuing to work on plans for the $80 million Bayou Chene Flood Control Project.
The Morgan City Levee Improvements Project includes backwater protection and not mainline levee protection, Levee District Executive Director Tim Matte said at the Dec. 1 St. Mary Industrial Group meeting.
In 2008, FEMA determined that there was not sufficient elevation along the back of Morgan City to prevent Lake Palourde waters from overtopping the levees, Matte said.
The City of Morgan City and St. Mary Parish Consolidated Drainage District No. 2 determined that the levees needed to be raised, Matte said. The raising of the levees was expected to be a fairly minor project. However, in order to meet FEMA’s certification standards for flood protection, some of the levees need to be relocated, which significantly raised the price of the project, he said.
In September, the levee district proceeded moving forward with the design stage of the project.
Improvements to the Hellenic lakefront levees and the Auburn, Cooks and Collins levees have been designed and are in the permitting phase through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, he said. That portion of the Morgan City levee project should go to final design in early 2015 with construction to follow possibly in the summer of 2015, Matte said.
Officials are looking to use a portion of La. 70 as part of the levee near the Lake End Park side of Lake Palourde and raise that section of the highway, he said. The pump station located by Lake End Park will need to be moved in order to tie the levee into La. 70, he said.
The La. 70 portion of the project, which requires the approval of the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, probably will not start until 2016, Matte said. Once that project is complete, the city will have 100-year flood protection with the exception of the Lakeside area. “That one’s been quite problematic,” he said.
Officials are examining the potential use of a breakwater structure that would knock down the wave action and create “still water” behind it, he said. Then the levee district would just have to provide flood protection based on the still water and not storm surge, Matte said.
The total project cost of about $16 million will come from several sources with $2 million in additional funds from the parish to raise the Siracusa levees.
The Bayou Chene Flood Control Project has a regional impact protecting Morgan City, St. Mary, lower St. Martin, Assumption and Terrebonne parishes along with portions of Lafourche Parish and drainage for Iberville Parish, Matte said. Due to the project’s regional implications, the levee district may be able to get funding on a regional level for the project, he said.
The project includes a permanent structure that will block Bayou Chene so that flood waters cannot travel from Bayou Chene through Bayou Boeuf to Lake Palourde. Levee district officials began pursuing the design of the project after the 2011 flood, Matte said. The project consists of a structure across Bayou Chene, a section of levee along the Tabor Canal, some pipeline crossings at the Tabor Canal, and a levee alignment on Avoca Island to keep flood waters from bypassing the structure, he said.
The Bayou Chene project went into the permitting phase two years ago and remains in that phase, Matte said. Levee district officials plan to continue to move the project forward while looking for funding sources, he said. The project includes a 250-foot opening through which vessel traffic can pass.
FEMA’s Digital Flood Insurance Rate maps were another issue the levee district dealt with during the year to try to ensure that the maps accurately reflect flood risks, he said.
The parish can go ahead and adopt the 2008 maps while secluding Morgan City from the maps, he said. Morgan City will continue to go by the 1996 maps for flood insurance purposes along with Berwick, he said. The base flood elevations for flood insurance purposes will stay the same until the next step in the process,” Matte said.
In December, the levee board approved a construction contract to raise a roughly 2,700-foot stretch on the Wax Lake East levees, which will then allow Berwick to adopt its 2008 maps, Matte said. Those levees will be raised from a one-half foot to one and a half feet in certain spots.