Coastal Group Sets Aside Funds for Louisiana Levee System

The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority has voted to set aside $6 million in funding for wetland mitigation for a portion of the Morganza to the Gulf hurricane protection system in Terrebonne Parish.

Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District Director Reggie Dupre presented the resolution to the authority after recusing himself from voting as an authority member.

The resolution doesn’t involve additional money, Dupre said. Instead, the resolution calls for setting aside a portion of the $100 million already allocated to the project through state and local funding.

The Morganza to the Gulf hurricane protection system involves 72 miles of levees as well as floodgates and water control structures. The $6 million was set aside for 200 acres of wetland mitigation required in the construction of several reaches of the levee system and floodgates, according to the resolution.

Wetland mitigation involves building wetlands to replace those damaged or impacted by certain construction projects.

Jerome Zeringue, deputy director of the state Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration, said the residents of Terrebonne Parish have passed taxes to raise money for the project and have been aggressive in pursing construction. That effort has raised concerns from some groups that the wetland mitigation requirement wouldn’t be followed, Zeringue said.

Dupre said setting aside the money is a show of good faith by the levee board that the money will be there for the mitigation.

According to the resolution, the money will be put in an escrow account in the Coastal Trust Fund and will be separate from other project funds.

Dupre said he also hopes that setting aside the wetland mitigation money can serve as a first step in discussions to change the way levee construction currently occurs.

He pointed out that after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Congress allowed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to wait until after construction was completed before building the necessary wetland mitigation project.

That delay helped the corps, he said, because before construction it was thought there would need to be 4,000 acres of mitigation for the hurricane protection work in southeast Louisiana. Because projects shifted or changed over the last five years, now the corps thinks it’ll need to do only 2,500 acres of mitigation, Dupre said.

Other agencies, including the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District, have to do mitigation concurrently with the construction, Dupre said.

“We’re not being treated equally,” he said.

He said he’d like to see a system put in place that is more akin to what the corps has been able to do in delaying building mitigation acres until the end of construction.

“I think it is an issue that this board should send up to Congress,” Dupre said.