[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish government requests Corps to raise levee

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish government requests Corps to raise levee on Orleans said
of the MR-GO to height equal to St. Bernard levee on the ship channel; will
also ask Congressional delegation to intervene
 
St. Bernard Parish government is asking the 
Corps of Engineers to raise the Mississippi River - Gulf Outlet levee from
Bayou Bienvenue to the Industrial Canal to make it equal with the current
20-foot levee on the St. Bernard side of the MR-GO and intends to ask the
state's Congressional delegation to intervene.

St. Bernard Parish President Henry "Junior'' Rodriguez and Council members
said they fear a storm would send water over the lower levee in the New
Orleans section of the MR-GO and again flood Arabi and much of Chalmette. 

The Council passed a resolution on Tuesday, March 21, requesting an
immediate interim action be taken by the Corps to raise the Orleans side of
the MR-GO levee and said congressmen will be contacted about forcing the
Corps to do something.

The New Orleans City Council has passed a similar resolution and Jefferson
and Plaquemines parishes are expected to do the same.

"We will show the Corps that that the entire New Orleans area is united in
this,'' Council Chairman Joseph DiFatta said. The state's congressional
delegation will be asked to intervene, he said.

Corps officials have shown proposals to build two floodgates on the MR-GO
they say would make it unnecessary to raise the MR-GO levee section from
Bayou Bienvenue to the Industrial Canal, which currently is as low as 11
feet in some areas. The work would be done in 2010 but officials
acknowledged it would leave a vulnerable spot if a storm were to hit in the
meantime they did interim work on that section of levee in New Orleans.

St. Bernard officials have reacted negatively to those plans and at the
Council meeting several Council members said they actually believe the Corps
is willing to sacrifice St. Bernard and the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans to
better protect the rest of New Orleans.

"Our community is considered to be second-class citizens,'' Council member
Mark Madary complained.

DiFatta said some officials have used St. Bernard in the past as a spillway
to protect New Orleans, which was done in 1927, and he said he worries that
the Corps would do the same again.