Site work to begin soon on emergency center

Bids were set to open this afternoon on the first phase of a project to build the port’s Government Emergency Operations Center with site work expected to begin in a couple weeks.
On Monday, the Morgan City Harbor and Terminal District commission approved allowing Port of Morgan City Executive Director Raymond “Mac” Wade to sign a contract not to exceed $450,000 for the first phase of the project subject to Architect Carl Blum’s approval.
The first phase will consist of clearing the trees and grass on-site and installing subsurface drainage and will take 60 days to complete, Blum said.
Wade is hoping for activity to begin within the next couple weeks at the site on La. 182 next to the Morgan City Municipal Auditorium, he said. The total cost of the project will be $9.8 million to build, Blum said.
The second phase entails actually constructing the center, Blum said. Officials anticipate releasing building plans in the first week of September, receive bids for construction in October, and start construction in late October, he said.
The projected completion date for the center is in the summer of 2015, Blum said.
The center can serve as an emergency command center during events such as hurricanes and will also house tenants from governmental agencies on a day-to-day basis. The building will include room for two tenants and a conference room that can seat 100 people and can also be divided into three smaller conference rooms, he said.
The center will have designated sleeping space for 10 to 12 people, but can house more people, if needed, in the conference room.
Also at Monday’s meeting, BM1 Clayton Franklin of the U.S. Coast Guard said the Coast Guard will be working to establish Crew Boat Cut as the new channel of the Atchafalaya River the week of Aug. 25 by placing buoys in the channel. The project is expected to take a week to a week and a half, he said.
The Crew Boat Cut will become the new authorized channel for vessels to travel through, Franklin said. The project is designed to open up the cut in which rocks have been placed in order to create a self-scouring channel.
Mike Lowe of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the dredging of the Crew Boat Cut was completed Aug. 4.
The Atchafalaya River Bar Channel dredging project was awarded July 28 to Weeks Marine in the amount of roughly $6.5 million, Lowe said in his report.
Nick Cox of Moffatt & Nichol said the engineering firm is continuing to work on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Physical Oceanographic Real-Time System. Engineers went on a field reconnaissance trip to look at placing data collection platforms at two sites in order to continually monitor environmental factors in the Atchafalaya River, he said.
The equipment to be installed at the stations should be delivered by Oct. 20, Joel Chaky of Encos, the contractor for the project, said. All equipment is scheduled to be installed by Nov. 30 pending any weather delays, Chaky said.
Jonathan Hird of Moffatt & Nichol said the firm is also working on a request from Louisiana Economic Development to see what the impact of a potential new tenant at the port would be.
The port is set to receive $154,170 in 2014 Port Security Grant funding while the port will be required to put up $51,390 in matching funds, Port of Morgan City Special Projects Coordinator Mike Knobloch said.
The funds will be used for improvements to the port’s dock and for expanding the port’s security camera system, Knobloch said.
In other business, the commission:
—Approved a cooperative endeavor with the St. Mary Levee District for both entities to be allowed to use each other’s equipment.
—Authorized Commission President Jerry Gauthier to execute renewal of a lease agreement with the Coast Guard to use the port’s dock space.