Officials report progress on flood control projects

Meteorologists say we’ve had a dry fall. So this year may have an end very different from the way it started.
Months after high water damaged dozens of Tri-City area homes and threatened hundreds more, officials continue to work on improving flood protection. They’re getting some good news, too.
Berwick Mayor Duval Arthur said Thursday’s that he’s been notified of plans by the drainage district serving the East Wax Lake area for a new pumping station at Possum Bayou.
The increased pumping capacity would help move water out of the waterways in the Berwick and Patterson area.
At Tuesday’s meeting, the Patterson City Council learned from its engineer that progress on its drainage assessment continues.
Eight gauges have been positioned around the city to measure the way water flows. The data goes into a computer model that could be the basis for future flood control improvements.
The engineer’s report said the model is 95% complete.
Mayor Rodney Grogan said in the past that needed flood control work has been estimated to cost millions. He linked the possibility of grant funding to citizen participation in the 2020 Census, which he said is important because aid distribution is often based on population.
Back in Berwick, Arthur said the town government has completed the first phase of its three-phase flood control improvement plan. Work on the plan began after a June flood put water into more than 30 homes in Country Club Estates subdivision.
Phase one consisted of improving the Hogan Street ditch.
The next two phases are more extensive and expensive. They include new, bigger culverts near Patti Drive as well as storm sewer improvements.
Arthur said the town hopes to learn in January that it will receive grant funding.
Morgan City has been at the center of a levee improvement project designed to protect residents from both flooding and skyrocketing flood insurance premiums. The unfinished piece in that work is the portion along Lakeside Subdivision, which is under study by the St. Mary Parish Levee District.
The biggest project offers some relief to the people hit hardest this year: Stephensville area residents who were threatened by rising water from Mardi Gras to mid-summer.
The fix there, and for people in surrounding parishes, is the $80 million Bayou Chene flood control structure. The permanent structure is designed to replace the barges that have been sunk in Bayou Chene four times, three since 2011.
The money for the work was secured in the spring through the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.