[StBernard] Corps shows off work on St. Bernard levees

[Westley Annis]

Corps shows off work on St. Bernard levees

Saturday, May 27, 2006 

Work to restore levees along the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet in St.
Bernard Parish to their pre-Katrina elevation is on track to be completed
Monday, the Army Corps of Engineers said Friday, as it gave a tour of the
project to parish and local levee district officials. 

Parish Council members said they were pleased to see that the $80 million
reconstruction of an 11-mile stretch of levee that was mostly washed away by
Katrina will restore the entire stretch back to 17.5 feet by Monday. But the
three council members on the tour said they expect federal elected officials
and the corps to keep their promise to further improve the area's hurricane
protection by either raising the levee higher or coating it with protective
cement armoring or both. 

"We are in a lot better shape, but we are not finished yet," Council Vice
Chairman Joey DiFatta told corps officials. 

Concerns about the levees are the No. 1 priority for parish officials, a
sentiment shared by Col. Lewis Setliff III, the commander of the corps'
nine-month repairing effort dubbed Task Force Guardian. 

"St. Bernard will be much better off than this past storm season," Setliff
said. "It is a substantially better engineered and designed levee. It's like
night and day" from last summer. 

"It's looking a lot better than I thought it would look," Councilwoman Judy
Hoffmeister said. "But I am cautiously optimistic for this hurricane season
because Mother Nature doesn't tell anyone her plans." 

Setliff said the reconstructed levee has a much wider support base and is
taller than before Katrina. Although it was supposed to be at a height of
17.5 feet then, most areas had settled to 15 or 16 feet, said Kevin Wagner,
project manager for the St. Bernard levee repairs. 

For Wagner, the repairs have a personal urgency. His Chalmette home, which
Katrina flooded, was demolished this week and was one of half a dozen homes
his immediate family lost in St. Bernard. He said he is working to make it
safe to live in his hometown again. 

DiFatta said people must know the community is protected before they will
move back. Officials estimate that 20,000 of the parish's 67,000 residents
have returned, but they hope another 10,000 move back in the next year. 

"However, after that it will depend on what the corps will do for us," he
said. 

Setliff said the corps has projects planned through September 2007 to
improve the levees enough to protect the community from stronger storms. 

Although Setliff said levees are being rebuilt higher and with improved
soils and compacting techniques, he said they are still just earthen levees
with concrete armoring only in key areas such as where floodgates meet
earthen areas. Those sections were compromised when the surge rushed around
the concrete structures and took out entire sections of the earthen levee. 

Setliff told local officials they need to say whether they want the levees
raised first or armored first because it may be better to delay armoring
while the corps builds the levees higher over the next few years. 

The original levee, built after the corps dredged the shipping channel in
the 1960s, was built using highly organic soils dredged from the channel.
The levees survived minor storm surges for decades, but Katrina's massive
surge, estimated at more than 20 feet, overtopped the levee and the water
pouring on the inside face of the levees caused the soil to quickly crumble,
according to the corps. 

But outside experts have said the storm's wave energy and surge current
caused the levee to collapse by eroding the side facing Lake Borgne before
the surge overtopped the levee, an analysis that supports calls for using
more concrete armoring. 

Councilman Mark Madary, echoing concerns raised for years, said the Orleans
side of a levee that starts at Bayou Bienvenue and runs behind homes on the
west side of Paris Road needs to be elevated to the same height as the Gulf
Outlet levee. 

"Time will tell," Madary said of the reconstructed levees. "I'm worried that
it's still low on the New Orleans side. Water is going to seek its own
level." 

Setliff agreed and said several ways of raising the levee on the Orleans
side are being explored but won't be completed until later this hurricane
season or next year.