New levee plugs a hole in city's flood protection

Staff report
The finishing touches are being applied to the latest part of a years-long effort to beef up flood protection for Morgan City.
The work may not have a direct impact on homeowner and flood insurance rates for Morgan City residents seeing steep increases in premiums. But the $200,000 project nears completion in time for a Corps of Engineers inspection of the local levee system, and a better grade won’t do harried homeowners any harm.
“In the long run,,” said Tim Matte, director of the St. Mary Parish Levee District, "it has implications for calculating the base flood elevation."
The recent levee construction blocks a canal that runs along La. 70 near Lake End Park.
The canal served as an outfall for a major pump station on La. 70 near Ochsner St. Mary, a station that moved water out of Morgan City during flood times.
The pump station has been moved to near Lake End Park, also in an effort to strengthen the local levee system and local flood control. The new pump station is the work of St. Mary Gravity Drainage District 2A.
The old outfall canal represented a vulnerability to back-flooding or storm surge flooding. So to stretch the drainage district’s funds and to ensure completion before the September inspection, the levee district took on the latest project.
The last work on the new levee will be bringing in some dirt to make it easier for Morgan City workers to maintain the levee, Matte said.
The biggest and probably most expensive part of the Morgan City levee upgrade will be the section that will run between Lake Palourde and Lakeside Subdivision.
Matte said negotiations with landowners and the effort to secure a funding source are underway for the project, which could run into the millions of dollars.
Flood protection has been a priority attracting nearly $100 million in government investment in St. Mary Parish over the last few years.
The recently opened Bayou Chene Flood Control Structure, designed to block back-flooding when the Atchafalaya River runs high, cost $80 million by itself. The Bayou Teche Flood Control Structure near Baldwin, which was installed to block storm surge flooding via the Charenton Canal, cost $14 million.
The Levee District was the lead agency for those projects as well as the Yokely Levee extension near the Gulf Craft and Metal Shark facilities on U.S. 90.