Nola.com: Bush seeks $1.46 billion in new storm protection
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Bush seeks $1.46 billion in new storm protection
Industrial Canal, backflow addressed
Saturday, February 25, 2006
By Sheila Grissett
East Jefferson bureau
The construction of sector gates to keep storm
surges out of the Industrial Canal, and permanent
backflow protection to stop inland flooding
through pump stations in Orleans and Jefferson
parishes, are among $1.46 billion in hurricane
protection improvements the Bush administration is
asking Congress to authorize and finance.
This is the first time since Katrina slammed the
area that President Bush and the Army Corps of
Engineers have formally proposed building gates to
beef up protection for the New Orleans area from
the ravages of another hurricane.
The proposal calls for building one set of gates
where the Industrial Canal flows into Lake
Pontchartrain and a second set somewhere west of
the juncture of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet
and the Intracoastal Waterway.
Other enhancements to the region's battered
hurricane protection system include construction
of permanent pump stations at the lake for three
New Orleans outfall canals, armoring to protect
especially vulnerable sections of levee from
scouring, construction of 23 miles of new levee in
Plaquemines Parish, restoration of coastal
wetlands and ecosystems especially hard-hit by
Katrina, and "storm-proofing" individual pump
stations.
Bush announced several weeks ago that he would ask
Congress for an additional $19.8 billion in Gulf
Coast hurricane relief, but the details of local
spending were only revealed Friday during a visit
by Donald Powell, the president's recovery czar,
and Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, commander of the corps.
Although the single biggest chunk of new money,
some $9.4 billion, would go to the Federal
Emergency Management Agency to provide shelter,
medical assistance, debris removal and rebuilding
public facilities, the proposal also includes the
previously announced $4.2 billion in Community
Development Block Grants to help meet Louisiana's
housing concerns.
Unlike other elements of the Bush initiative, all
$1.46 billion earmarked for improving hurricane
protection would be spent in the metro New Orleans
area.
There's no guarantee that Congress will OK the
additional spending; there have already been two
post-Katrina spending supplements approved for the
Gulf Coast. But if it does, Strock said, the work
would be fast-tracked and completed within three
to four years.
Speedy armoring
Armoring for the levees -- covering their banks
with impervious materials to deter erosion caused
by overtopping -- could be done even faster if
Congress gives the go-ahead while contractors now
making emergency repairs to the levee are still on
site, said Dan Hitchings, the corps official
directing Task Force Hope.
"If that happens, we'll add armoring to the
existing contracts so that contractors can just
keep going and get it all done," Hitchings said.
The emergency repairs, required to reconstruct
levees destroyed by Katrina's surge, are to be
finished by June 1.
It came as no surprise that the $1.46 billion
request included $530 million for construction of
permanent pump stations at the mouths of the 17th
Street, Orleans Avenue and London Avenue outfall
canals.
The administration has indicated since December
that it likely would support building those
stations to stop surges from traveling up the
canals and into the heart of New Orleans. During
Katrina, floodwalls on the 17th Street and London
Avenue canals breached, flooding large portions of
New Orleans and a small section of East Jefferson
in the Old Metairie-Old Jefferson areas.
Plaquemines levees
Other details of the president's spending package
include:
-- Some $60 million to incorporate 23 miles of
nonfederal, back levees on the west bank of
Plaquemines Parish into the federal system. The
inclusion of those substandard levees, which vary
in height from four to eight feet, will allow the
corps to build levees significant enough to keep
Louisiana 23 open during high water
"These aren't the only nonfederal levees, but the
others protect property," Hitchings said. "This
one is different because it protects lives. This
is an evacuation route that has to stay open."
-- About $250 million for storm-proofing drainage
pump stations in Jefferson and Orleans by adding
backup generators, building motor covers to keep
critical equipment dry, adding more fuel supplies,
and installing other critical equipment --
including gates to seal off vulnerable pumps from
storm surge. The gates will replace existing air
suppression systems, which engineers say cannot
give the "positive closure" that gates provide.
Backflow occurs when the lake forces itself into
the pipes that normally drain stormwater out of
the canals. Many people, including some corps
engineers and officials with the East Jefferson
Levee District, have said backflow was responsible
for flooding most of Kenner and Metairie north of
Interstate 10 and west of Bonnabel Boulevard
during Katrina.
"The whole concept here is to sustain the pumps,
to keep them operational during a storm, and what
it takes to make that happen will vary from
station to station," Hitchings said.
Hitchings said the $600 million worth of pump
station improvements and construction of gates to
protect the Industrial Canal region were added at
the request of local governments.
He said the gates will be closed only when a surge
threatens and before it has a chance to enter the
lake.
Hitchings also said the $350 million price tag for
the gates includes money to raise levees adjacent
to the structures in St. Bernard Parish and
eastern New Orleans.
"We know when you stop surge from moving, it piles
up . . . and we're anticipating that," he said.
Hitchings said sophisticated computer models are
being used to predict the additional surge against
those adjacent levees, which he said would be
raised accordingly.
"The modeling will tell us how much and how high,"
he said.
A final piece of the president's plan proposes
spending $100 million to restore critical areas of
coastal wetlands destruction, especially along the
Chef Menteur-Rigolets-Lake Borgne shoreline.
. . . . . . .
Sheila Grissett can be reached at
sgri...@timespicayune.com or (504) 883-7058.