[StBernard] St. Bernard president praises new levee repairs

Westley Annis westley at da-parish.com
Thu Jun 1 19:09:58 EDT 2006


St. Bernard president praises new levee repairs

By AMY WOLD
Advocate staff writer
Published: Jun 1, 2006

VERRET - With one day until the official start of hurricane season, the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers got an endorsement from an unlikely source.

Standing on a newly completed Mississippi River Gulf Outlet levee, St.
Bernard Parish President Henry "Junior" Rodriguez said thank you.

"You all did an excellent job, guys," he said.

Rodriguez was joined Wednesday near Verret by much of the corps' upper
command on a tour of levees rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina.

Rodriguez said the levee, which protects St. Bernard, is a big improvement
from what the parish had before Katrina.

"If we'd had this before, we wouldn't be in the shape we are today,"
Rodriguez said.

He added that he doesn't blame the corps because the agency can only build
with the funding Congress gives it. But pointing to the new levee, he said
that's what the parish should have had all along.

"It's higher, better quality material and better engineering," he said.

The corps built the 76-mile MRGO in the 1960s to provide a shorter route
between the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans. During Katrina, water from Lake
Borgne overtopped some spots of the MRGO levees and breached others.

A series of levee and floodwall failures flooded New Orleans and surrounding
areas.

Maj. Gen. Ron Johnson, deputy commander of the corps, said 169 miles of
levees and floodwalls damaged during the storm were repaired with $800
million and eight months of work.

"It's been a colossal effort," Johnson said.

But he added that June 1 won't mark the end of the corps' work on hurricane
protection systems.

By September 2007, additional improvements and construction of authorized
levee systems will be completed, he said.

The corps also is working on a two-year study that will identify ways to
build Category 5 protection for the Louisiana coast. A draft of that report
is due at the end of June, he said.

"We are accountable to the American people for the work we do," Johnson
said.

Corps officials said they don't expect to see repeats of a levee problem
that occurred in Plaquemines Parish during the weekend. A 400-foot section
of hurricane-protection levee being built near Buras slumped 6 feet, pushing
up dirt near its base. Essentially, part of the levee grew too heavy for the
supporting soils, so it slid.

Col. Lewis Setliff, corps commander of the Task Force Guardian
levee-rebuilding effort, said the problem will be solved by placing extra
weight on a berm - a second levee - to the landward side. That will act as a
counterweight and help offset weaker soils under the levee.

He said levees that have already been built aren't expected to have a
problem because they are settling, which makes them stronger.

"These levees that have been built have been built so they're supporting
their own weight," Setliff said.





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