Levee district set to update flood protection master plan

The St. Mary Levee District is set to update its master plan for flood protection projects in the parish after having made significant progress on several projects in the 2010 plan, Levee District Executive Director Tim Matte said Thursday.
The levee district commission approved engaging CB&I in the amount of $43,170 to update the district’s master plan. The last update to the master plan was in June 2010, Matte said.
“The good news is since that time we’ve closed the Franklin Canal, we’re closing the Hanson Canal and we’re closing Yellow Bayou, so there’s been some progress on several items in here,” Matte said.
The new master plan will help the levee district set its priorities for what projects officials need to focus on, Matte said.
Levee district officials plan to discuss funding strategies for the $80 million Bayou Chene Flood Control Project in that plan, Matte said. Discussion to close Bayou Teche at its intersection at the Charenton Canal will also be among the projects considered in the plan, Matte said.
Included in the new master plan will be updated project cost estimates and better ideas of what the district’s five-, 10- and 20-year priorities should be, Nicole Cutforth of CB&I said.
Also at the meeting, Matte said House Bill 94 has passed both the House and Senate committees and next the bill will be discussed on the Senate floor. The bill will allow the St. Mary Levee District to become the official agency for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to negotiate with regarding levees in St. Mary Parish, according to state Rep. Sam Jones, D-Franklin.
Regarding the Morgan City Levee Improvements project, engineers are finishing the final plans for the Siracusaville stretch of levee improvements, engineer Kevin O’Gorman of T. Baker Smith said.
That portion of the Morgan City project will probably be the first section of the project to go to bid for construction, O’Gorman said.
For the part of the project to raise La. 70 in Morgan City and tie it into the levee system, engineers submitted 30 percent design plans to the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, O’Gorman said. Next week, engineers will submit the formal project permit to the Department of Transportation and Development.
In other business, the commission:
––Adopted its 2015 millage rate of 5 mills.
—Approved a request for the city of Morgan City to use sheet pile for its wharf project.
––Renewed Matte’s contract as executive director under the same terms as the previous year.

This story was written by Zachary Fitzgerald of The Daily Review staff. Reach her at zfitzgerald@daily-review.com.