Morgan City levee improvements to start soon

Work is set to begin in about a month on the first phase of construction for the $18 million Morgan City Levee Improvements Project aimed at preventing some residents' flood insurance rates from skyrocketing up to 5,000 percent.

The St. Mary Levee District Commission discussed the project Thursday at its monthly meeting.

Project leaders’ goal is for the levee improvements to allow Morgan City to adopt its 2008 Federal Emergency Management Agency flood maps, which the city appealed because the maps showed the levees deficient for 100-year flood protection.

The entire project should finish sometime in 2018, Levee District Executive Director Tim Matte said.

City residents currently use the 1996 FEMA flood maps for flood insurance purposes, which show the levee system in compliance with 100-year protection.

Without the levee improvements, residents in the Morgan City area would face “giant increases in flood insurance costs” because the majority of homes would be in a flood hazard zone according to the 2008 maps, Matte said.

Some homes in Morgan City would be several feet under the base flood elevation, he said. For example, homes that are 5 feet below the base flood elevation could see a 5,000 percent increase in flood insurance costs without the improvements, Matte said.

Officials held a preconstruction meeting Tuesday and issued a notice to proceed May 16 on the first phase of the project, engineer Kevin O’Gorman of T. Baker Smith said.

That section will cover about a 2.7-mile stretch from Siracusaville to near Lakeside Subdivision in Morgan City and consists of raising the levees by an average of about 2 feet, Matte said. St. Mary Parish government is in charge of that portion of the project, which will use about $2 million in community block development grant money.

Matte expects the Siracusaville section to be finished by the end of the year.

St. Mary Parish Consolidated Gravity Drainage District 2 is in charge of the rest of the Morgan City Levee Improvements project, while the St. Mary Levee District is acting as project manager.

Parish officials are working toward adopting St. Mary Parish’s 2008 FEMA flood maps sometime this year, Matte said. In the parish maps, Morgan City would still follow the 1996 maps for flood insurance purposes until going through the levee analysis and mapping procedure, which gives partial flood protection credit for unaccredited levees, Matte said.

However, Matte expects the levee improvements project to be well underway before that procedure would even begin, he said.

The next phase of the Morgan City Levee Improvements Project will be to build a roughly 4,000-foot sheet pile wall from Justa Street to the Cooks and Collins Canal. That phase should go to construction sometime this year, Matte said.

O’Gorman said the wall will be about 4 feet tall. He displayed an example of the composite fiberglass sheet pile engineers are considering using. Vinyl and steel sheet pile are the other options. Engineers should make a decision next week on what material to use for the wall, O’Gorman said.

Officials also plan to add 7,000 feet of levee by the Cooks and Collins Canal extending across the lakefront to Lake End Park, Matte said.

Another part of the project involves raising La. 70 and tying a levee into the existing Atchafalaya Basin levee near “Deadman’s Curve” all the way across Lake End Park and connecting to the site of a new pump station, Matte said.

Engineers have entered into the final design phase on the La. 70 portion and expect to have plans ready for final review within one to two months, O’Gorman said.

The La. 70 project could begin construction by the year’s end and be complete by early 2017, Matte said.

The last section of the project will be to move the pump station near Teche Regional Medical Center to near Lake End Park. That phase could go to construction by 2017 and finish probably in 2018, Matte said.

Some of the construction on different phases of the project could occur simultaneously, Matte said.

In other business, the commission:

—Approved Miller Engineers to go to bid to restore Avoca Road back to its original condition and remove HESCO baskets used during the January flood fight and to examine how much raising the road would cost.

—Announced the May 19 meeting to roll forward and adopt the district’s tax millage rate.

—Approved the purchase of two water elevation gauges totaling $3,175.

—Approved an addendum to Drainage District 2’s contract for additional geotechnical services on the Morgan City levee project.

—Approved extending the Cloutier property lease to do cleanup work stemming from the January flood fight.