Dredging vessels at work on area waterways

The Morgan City Harbor and Terminal District board, which devotes much of its time to finding money to dredge area waterways, suddenly has dredging vessels all over the area.
The board learned Monday night that four dredge vessels may be in action here by the end of next month, clearing the waterways that serve as economic lifelines here. But the board also learned that its request for more than $30 million for Atchafalaya River work has been passed over so far by the federal government.
Board members joked about the number of dredge vessels in operation or soon to be in the area, and members said they couldn’t remember a time when so many vessels were working here at the same time.
And it’s a timely development. In addition to the struggles with “fluff” mud in the Bar Channel, the record flooding in the spring and summer created shoaling in many waterways.
Currently, Manson and Inland Dredging vessels are at work in areas that include Crewboat Cut.
The Brice Civil Construction Inc. contract for dealing with fluff in the Bar Channel is designed to use agitation and suction to keep the channel open to its prescribed depth. The project, with a $14 million initial contract award and a $22 million cap, was awarded in September 2018 and has been beset by problems as the company tries to make the idea work.
The vessel is working, and now the goal is to make it work well enough to reduce the density of the mud down to the proper depth.
“I’m going to keep writing checks until it’s successful,” Brice President Jon McVay told the board.
The Brice project is one of the keys to opening the Bar Channel, a section of the Atchafalaya between Morgan City and the river’s mouth, to larger vessels with a potential economic impact in the hundreds of thousands with each ship.
The port may also benefit from a side trip by the Jadwin, a large Corps of Engineers inland dredging barge. The barge, called a “dustpan” dredge because of the shape of the scoop it uses, is scheduled to be in the area anyway, possibly by the middle of January.
If the board is successful, the Jadwin will spend some time dredging the area south of the bridges as part of a working trip. And, because the vessel will be in the area anyway, the port won’t have to pay for the four-day trip to and from its base in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
The estimated close for Jadwin’s traveling and operation is $90,000 a day.
Other news about money wasn’t as happy.
The board heard that its request for $35 million in federal funding for operation and maintenance was not included in a recent supplemental funding request.
That led by questions by board Vice President Lee Dragna about the effectiveness of the lobbying for the port in Washington, which he said costs $10,000 a month.
Tim Connell of the Corps of Engineers compared the process to the New Orleans Saints’ 48-46 loss to San Francisco on Sunday. Some people get a lot, he said, and some people don’t.
“But they got a little bit,” Dragna said.
The funding may still come through in subsequent future rounds of budget deliberations.
Also at Monday’s meeting:
—St. Mary Levee District Tim Matte reported that the Bayou Chene flood control project is moving ahead.
The $80 million project is designed to create a permanent structure to control the flooding that led officials to sink a barge in Bayou Chene three times since 2011.
The first phase involved clearing the banks of the Tabor Canal in the area. That work is mostly done, Matte said.
The next two phases are the construction of the physical structure itself, and design work is underway. The fourth phase calls for a levee to be constructed on the area cleared along the Tabor Canal.
—The board voted to reelect its current slate of officers: President Joseph Cain, Vice President Dragna, Secretary Tim Matthews and Treasurer Deborah Garber.