BATON ROUGE — Louisiana legislators held the inaugural meeting of the Amite River Basin/Comite River Diversion Canal Task Force on Thursday, Aug 15. The meeting fell just two days after the 8-year anniversary of the 2016 flood.
Both, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, provided updates on the canal’s current status.
The project’s primary goal is to divert excess water from the Comite River into the Mississippi River during periods of heavy rainfall, potentially reducing the flood risk for 700,000 area residents and homeowners.
Col. Cullen Jones, Command & District Engineer for the New Orleans District of the Corps of Engineers, announced that the USACE is working to deliver 20 construction contracts tied to the project. These contracts include four main channel segments, two vehicular bridges, one railroad bridge, three rock chutes, diversion structures, and four low-flow pumping stations.
Meanwhile, DOTD will oversee three construction contracts, which include three vehicular bridges, one railroad bridge, land acquisition, and utility relocations.
Of the 20 USACE contracts, Jones reported that 14 have been awarded, with nine completed and five currently under construction. Six contracts have yet to be rewarded. The three bridges DOTD is responsible for are also currently under construction.
“It is not a matter of if. It is a matter of when those [contracts] get completed. We are moving forward, and those impediments or those obstacles that are preventing us have been identified, and they’re being attacked vigorously,” Jones said.
Jones noted that issues with some of the yet-to-be-awarded contracts primarily revolve around relocating two Florida Gas pipelines that crisscross the project grounds in multiple locations. While it took several years to get relocation efforts approved, Florida Gas signed an agreement to relocate those pipelines. That is estimated to cost $17 million.
“That impediment has largely been removed,” Jones said regarding the pipeline relocation. “Now that that domino has fallen, I think that we will begin to see much quicker progress on construction of this project and that we do have completion of it in our crosshairs at this point.”
A contract for the relocation of those pipelines has not yet been put out for bid however, Jones added.
While work on the Comite River Diversion Canal is expected to be completed by the end of 2025, Senator Rick Edmonds expressed frustration that a complete and hard timeline still doesn’t exist.
“I don’t know of a business in this country that would not go broke operating the way this operates,” Edmonds said. “I don’t need another meeting to come to, and I don’t mean this arrogantly, but all we do is meet. Our people are tired of meeting.”
During the public comment portion of the meeting, Robert Burns with Concerned Citizens for Drainage Improvement, echoed concerns with the process. The group was formed following the 2016 flood.
“It’s regrettable that we have to have this group, and we don’t enjoy having the group because we have to revisit the pain that we endured in August of 2016. Eight years ago, I was sitting in my living room hoping that water would drain out of my house, and the memory of that is very disturbing,” Burns said. “I come to these meetings over and over again, hoping to hear some progress, some urgency, some definitive answers, but again, we sit here with no answers.”
The project has been ongoing since August of 1991.
The Corps is funding the entire project, which is expected to cost nearly $1 billion.
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