Posted on August 7, 2017
By Dan Boudreaux, houmatoday.com
The Terrebonne Parish Council plans to vote Monday on whether to spend $1.5 million to dredge the Houma Navigation Canal later this year.
The dredging would bring the canal to the 18-foot depth that Congress has authorized. Parish President Gordon Dove said the Army Corps of Engineers is putting up $1 million while the parish has to put up $1.5 million.
“I believe it silted up so fast because of Tropical Storm Cindy. I believe that just sped up the channel and we have to dredge it out again,” Dove said. “The corps in 2015 budgeted for 2016 and 2017. They budgeted $1 million for ’17.”
The $1.5 million is coming from a combination of $900,000 from non-dedicated money for roads and bridges and $600,000 from the economic development fund.
Terrebonne Economic Development Authority CEO Matthew Rookard recently said dredging the Houma Navigational Canal to keep ships moving is a necessity to keep the parish’s economy moving.
Dove said he and the Port Commission asked the state delegation to put dredging of the canal into the state’s construction budget to help alleviate the problem of the parish having to put up the money when the corps doesn’t budget enough for it.
The $4 million needed for a different dredging project in the future is priority five and priority two in two separate accounts, but Dove said the parish needs to get that to priority one for next year.
“If we don’t dredge the canal when it needs it, we could lose hundreds of million of dollars for our economy. These shipyards and boat companies and service companies that utilize the (canal) will end up moving their companies to someplace else that’s keeping the depth deep enough for whatever they need,” Dove said.
The council will vote on the resolution at its Monday Budget and Finance Committee meeting, which will be held a 5:30 on the second floor of the Robert J. ‘Bobby’ Bergeron Government Tower, 8026 W Main St., Houma. If the ordinance passes, an Aug. 23 public hearing will be held.
Source: houmatoday.com
