Posted on November 17, 2021
A levee system that protects about 200,000 residents in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes from Gulf of Mexico storms will receive $500 million as the result of a measure Congress passed in September.
U.S. Sen. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, said he and other Louisiana lawmakers included the money in a measure attached to a spending bill Congress approved Sept. 30 that averted a federal government shutdown.
The supplemental spending bill also includes about $1 billion in federal aid to help with recovery after Hurricane Ida, which devastated southeast Louisiana on Aug. 29.
“This really is monumental,” Graves said during a speech Thursday to the Houma and Houma-Terrebonne Rotary Clubs.
Local and state officials have lobbied for federal money since planning for the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane-protection system began in 1992.
Louisiana officials helped break the logjam in January in winning so-called “new start’ designation from the Office of Management and Budget. The long-awaited action cleared the way for the federal government to spend money on the system’s construction.
Since then, Louisiana lawmakers have steered $31.5 million to the Army Corps of Engineers for construction work on Morganza, Graves said.
But the $500 million is by far the largest federal allocation, nearly matching the roughly $600 million in state and local tax money spent to build the levee system so far.
“After 30 years: nothing. And this year, we’re just being able to get some of these wins in here,” Graves said.
Morganza’s 98 miles of levees, locks and floodgates helped prevent Category 4 Ida from flooding the area, he noted.
“So here’s the takeaway: We’re going to be able to to tell those people that are holding that insurance check or the recovery check or the government it’s OK to build here, it’s safe to stay in Terrebonne Parish,” Graves said. “We’re going to have the best protection we’ve ever had.”
However, he cautioned, more money and work are necessary before the system is brought up to federal hurricane standards.
“This is absolutely historic,” Graves said. “It’s a lot of progress, but we’re gonna keep working and building on top of that.”
Graves said a more formal announcement is being planned.
The $500 million will go to the Army Corps of Engineers to perform construction on the Morganza levee system.
Federal money and help from the corps are essential to completing the work, officials have said. It will involve raising most of the system’s 12-foot levees to about 20 feet and building two massive floodgates in the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, one in Houma and another in Larose.
Frustrated with federal delays, the Terrebonne Levee Board forged ahead with an interim Morganza system in 2007 in hopes the corps will eventually get the money, now estimated at $3.2 billion, to upgrade it to protect against a 100-year storm. It’s defined as the kind of hurricane that has a 1% chance of occurring any given year.
As it stands, officials say there are no guarantees the interim system will hold against a direct hit from any hurricane, though it has already prevented flooding from several, including Ida.
Graves’ announcement came three days Gov. John Bel Edwards and other officials broke ground on the Houma Navigation Canal lock in Dulac, considered Morganza’s linchpin.
The single largest public-works project in Terrebonne’s history, the lock aims to block storm surges that could stream up the canal, which runs about 40 miles from the Gul to the Intracoastal Waterway in Houma. Money for the $366 million lock comes from fines levied against BP from the 2010 oil spill.
“While the winds of Hurricane Ida devasted our coastal parishes, securing federal investment to complete the entire Morganza system is critical to flood protection and sustainability of our region,” Morganza Action Coalition President Jay Walker said in a prepared statement after the groundbreaking.
