[StBernard] NOLA article

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Sun Mar 26 11:40:37 EST 2006



Do we not shoot ourselves in the foot more times than not?

JY


Levee elevation in Verrett halted
Council says order not just about trees
Saturday, March 25, 2006
By Karen Turni Bazile
St. Bernard bureau

The St. Bernard Parish Council on Friday stopped the Army Corps of Engineers
from continuing work to elevate a 4,000-foot stretch of interior levee in
Verrett, after the politically connected owner of the land asked council
members to save about 20 historic oak and pecan trees the corps said it
needs to remove to complete the project.

St. Bernard Parish Council V ice Chairman Joey DiFatta said the issue is
about more than just saving trees owned by Assistant District Attorney Glenn
Diaz. DiFatta said parish officials who toured the site Friday are convinced
that having the corps raise that portion of levee is not the way to go to
improve flood protection in the area.

"When we looked at it, it didn't make sense to tear down all the trees,"
DiFatta said. The council voted 6-1 to rescind an earlier order authorizing
the corps to commandeer Diaz's property to raise the levee, as part of a
project financed by the federal government. Instead, the council's new order
commits the parish to paying for raising a road on top of the levee and
asking the corps to assist with realigning the levee.

Councilman Tony "Ricky" Melerine, whose district includes Diaz's land, was
the only one who voted against rescinding the plan Friday.

"We are stopping the corps, who is going to raise this levee or this road --
whatever you want to call it -- for nothing," Melerine said. "Now it is
going to cost the parish to raise the levee. The people voted me in there to
represent them, and I held up my end."

Diaz said the section of levee the corps wants to raise near his Contreras
Plantation is not truly a levee but a raised road used to access a pumping
station on his property. He said the levee there is not really floodproof
because it crosses both St. Bernard Highway and Judge Perez Drive and
because there are culverts under the levee and two ditches that cross the
area.

Levee District Executive Director Bob Turner said it would cost the parish
about $40,000 to raise the portion of levee affected by Friday's measure.
But Turner said he was disappointed by the council's vote. He said his
agency doesn't have the money to raise the levee, and he told the council he
would need labor assista nce to place sandbags on that stretch during storm
preparations.

DiFatta said having the parish do the project would save about 20 historic
oak trees in Diaz's land.

Councilman Craig Taffaro said he voted against taking the land because a
better solution would be to ask the corps for help extend the levee another
2,500 feet, so it can connect to the higher hurricane protection levee
nearby. Turner said extending the levee would cost about $1 million.

Taffaro said that would afford additional flood protection for Verrett, a
small, mostly African-American community that parish and state officials
left outside the levees when they designed them in the 1960s.

Parish President Henry "Junior" Rodriguez, who lives in Verrett, told the
council that he would donate whatever part of his property would be needed
for the right of way to extend the levee.

Turner and DiFatta said extending the levee is a good plan.
"If the outcome winds out with us getting a realignment of the levee, then
we end up protecting a whole community instead of a portion," DiFatta said.

The corps had offered to pay for the portion of Diaz's land that it said was
needed for the project. But Diaz said he didn't want it tearing down the
trees on the plantation, which is the birth site of Confederate Gen. P.G.T.
Beauregard, and which Diaz has kept it in its Civil War condition.

The corps agreed in the fall last year to spend about $17 million to elevate
the state levee that helps protect most of the parish's homes. It runs
alongside the 40-Arpent Canal from Chalmette to the Violet Canal, where it
turns and runs parallel to the Mississippi River. It picks up on the south
side of the Violet Canal and travels to the Back Levee Canal and stretches
to Verrett.

Corps Project Manager Kevin Wagner had said that the federal government is
performing the work, expected to be completed next month, because the agency
needs a stronger inside levee while repairs continue along compromised
federal levees along the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet. Corps officials said
earlier this week that if the council reversed its order to take Diaz's
land, that section of levee would be removed from the federal project.





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