City levee work OK’d

Levee district and drainage district boards have offered their support for an option to change the alignment of the Morgan City levees and eventually move the city’s newest pump station to near Lake Palourde in an effort to certify the city’s levee system for flood protection.
St. Mary Levee District Executive Director Tim Matte said the preliminary design on the original option for the Morgan City Levee Improvements project came in, particularly for the Cypress Gardens levee and La. 70 levee, at a significantly higher cost than the original estimate.
The higher cost estimate brought an option into consideration to move the pump station by Teche Regional Medical Center to near Lake Palourde and use a shorter levee along the Fig Street area, Matte said.
The levee district then hired engineering firm T. Baker Smith to do a more detailed analysis of the potential costs and benefits of the project, Matte said. The St. Mary Levee District is managing the project for St. Mary Parish Consolidated Drainage District 2.
The levee district commission passed a resolution of support for the option to change the levee alignment.
St. Mary Parish Drainage District 2 already adopted a resolution of support for the option at its most recent meeting. Officials are looking to get the support of the City of Morgan City at the city’s Aug. 26 council meeting.
The drainage district already has funding in place to begin the project from its own funds in addition to two Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority grants and Community Development Block Grant money from the parish for the Siracusaville levee portion.
Kevin O’Gorman of T. Baker Smith said engineers’ main focus was to minimize the upfront costs of levee improvements in order to still get a FEMA certified levee system. The option is estimated to cost roughly $600,000 to $800,000 more than the first option by only including the essential features of the project, O’Gorman said.
Construction on the levees could begin as early as June 2015, O’Gorman said.
This option would also bring Brownell Homes into the levee system as it is not currently in the system, O’Gorman said. Officials would need landowners, including owners of the Hellenic property along Lake Palourde, to agree to the alignment because a significant number of rights-of-way and barrow material, or soil, to construct new levees, are necessary for the project, he said.
Moving Pump Station 3 currently located by the hospital to closer to Lake Palourde would cost about $6 million, Matte said. However, that would also eliminate the need for Pump Station 4 slightly north of Pump Station 3 because the new pump station would have double pumping capacity, Matte said.
Still, the initial project would not include moving Pump Station 3 yet, and Pump Station 4 would be left in place in the meantime, Matte said.
Constructing a crossing under La. 70 and replacing a drainage culvert under Veterans Boulevard would be required to eventually finish the proposed levee project, but would not have to be done immediately, Matte said. “For in the neighborhood of $680,000 or $650,000, we can take interim steps that would allow us to still achieve certification with the idea that the rest of those functions could be accomplished down the road,” Matte said.
If the council accepts the proposed levee alignment option, officials would go ahead and start the permitting process for the project, Matte said.
“Certification has always been the driving goal in this project,” Matte said. One portion of the project would entail raising La. 70, and that section of highway would be part of the levee system, Matte said.
O’Gorman also presented his company’s study to look at a breakwater structure in Lake Palourde as a method of reducing the height or width of the required levee to protect Lakeside Subdivision.
Engineers are now going to get with contractors and suppliers to determine how to install such a structure in as cost efficient a way as possible, O’Gorman said.
Engineers are considering using a rock breakwater structure, but levee district officials have also explored the possibility of using OysterBreak and OysterKrete structures, O’Gorman said.
The structure would probably not stick more than 3 feet or 4 feet out of the water, Levee District Commission President Bill Hidalgo said.
In other business, the commission
—Named Matte as the district representative for the insurance coalition of the Association of Levee Boards of Louisiana.
—Accepted the district 2013 audit report.
—Adopted the district’s 2014 millage rate of 5 mills.
—Approved signing a cooperative endeavor agreement with the Morgan City Harbor and Terminal District.
—Approved a deferred compensation plan for the levee district’s employees.