Levee District board sets tax rate, hears about big projects

The St. Mary Parish Levee District board adopted its property tax rate for 2020, and let it be known that residents can go online to see how money -- much of it from other sources -- is being spent for district projects.

Drone footage of work on the Bayou Teche and Bayou Chene flood control projects has been posted on YouTube

In the less high-tech portion of the agenda, the district's board, meeting Thursday by Zoom, set the property tax rate at 5 mills.

A mill is 1/10th cent of tax paid for each $1 of a property's assessed valuation. The assessed valuation of residential property is set by law at 10% of its market value as determined by the parish assessor. Louisiana's homestead exemption protects the first $7,500 of assessed valuation, or $75,000 of market value, of a primary residence from property taxes at the parish level.

Also Thursday, the board heard that the district's two biggest projects, the Bayou Chene and Bayou Teche flood control structures, continue to move ahead.

The Bayou Teche flood gate is designed to be closed in order to prevent water from flowing into the Franklin-Garden City-Centerville area by way of the Charenton Canal during hurricane storm surges.

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development provided a grant that is paying for 90% of the $11.4 million project. The district will pay the other 10%.

Officials said when work began in January that the area protected by the structure encompasses 6,500 pieces of property, 79% of which are residential real estate. The area is home to about a quarter of St. Mary's population, and about 22,000 acres of agricultural land also are in that zone, officials said.

The board heard Thursday that a potential delay in the November complete date has emerged. Bollinger, the company building the barge that will be swung into place to block the storm surge, is having trouble obtaining electrical components because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The project was unlikely to be complete in time to offer protection during the 2020 hurricane season in any case.

The other project is the big one: Bayou Chene, another permanent barge-and-gate structure, this one designed to prevent the backwater flooding that plagued St. Mary, lower St. Martin and surrounding areas three times since 2011.

That project will cost $80 million, funding by the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

Major construction on the Bayou Chene project began last month. Sealevel Construction Inc. of Thibodaux is constructing the Bayou Teche project and has the biggest single phases of the Bayou Chene work, too.

And on Thursday, the board heard that the district staff continues to collect permission from Lakeside Subdivision residents to go on their property for preliminary work on the Morgan City Levee Improvement Project. A flood control structure from Lake End Park to Siracusa is the biggest remaining piece of the project.

The staff is trying to build a public consensus around a plan that includes a levee between Lake Palourde and Lakeside as well as a breakwater. The cost could be as high as $30 million.

The board heard that hydrographic surveying is ready to begin next week.