Matte: Bayou Chene flood protection has regional impact

The estimated $80 million Bayou Chene Flood Control Project will provide flood protection for a large part of the region, a pitch that St. Mary Levee District officials are making to attract funding for the project, St. Mary Levee District Executive Director Tim Matte said Monday.
Matte was the guest speaker at the St. Mary Industrial Group luncheon meeting at the Petroleum Club of Morgan City.
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.
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 is still 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.
Because Matte considers the project one with regional implications, the levee district may be able to get regional funding for the project, he said.
FEMA’s Digital Flood Insurance Rate maps are another concern the levee district has dealt with to try to ensure that the maps accurately reflect flood risks, he said. The St. Mary Levee District joined with other levee districts through the Association of Levee Boards of Louisiana to make sure future changes to the flood insurance maps make sense, Matte said.
In 2008, Morgan City appealed its new base flood elevation maps for flood protection. “As a result of that, the remainder of the parish’s maps have been on hold during that time period,” Matte said. At least a couple areas in the parish actually benefit from the 2008 maps due to lowered levee elevations for flood protection, he said.
Matte also explained FEMA’s seclusion process, which means 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. “We’ll keep our BFEs (base flood elevations) until the next step in the process,” Matte said.
Planning is underway 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. The district will open bids Dec. 9 for construction of this project, he said.
The Morgan City Levee Improvements Project includes backwater protection and not mainline levee protection, Matte said. 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 2 determined that the levees needed to be raised, Matte said. The raising of the levees was expected to be a fairly minor project, he said. 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, Matte said.
Improvements to the Hellenic lakefront levees and the Auburn, Cooks and Collins levees has been designed and are currently 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 probably will not take place until 2016, Matte said. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development must approve using La. 70 as part of the levee, he said. Once that project is complete, the city will have 100-year flood protection with the exception of the Lakeside area, he said. “That one’s been quite problematic,” Matte 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 Siracusa levees, which mostly will just have to be raised and not moved, are also in the permitting phase, Matte said.
Funding for the project is coming from multiple sources totaling $16 million with $2 million in additional funds from the parish to raise the Siracusa levees, Matte said.
Matte also mentioned projects on the west end of the parish.
The Franklin Canal Flood Control Structure project was completed in November 2013 and consists of a swing barge that closes the Franklin Canal, Matte said. The canal had been subject to storm surge overflowing the canal thus flooding homes in the Franklin area, Matte said.
The next phase of the project is to construct a pump station to pump water out of the Franklin Canal when the barge gate is closed, Matte said.
The Hanson Canal and Yellow Bayou projects involve closing off these bodies of water with gates in order to slow storm surge, Matte said.