[StBernard] Corps of Engineers awards four levee job contracts

[Westley Annis]

Corps of Engineers awards four levee job contracts
by Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune 
Friday August 07, 2009, 9:26 PM

The Army Corps of Engineers this week awarded four major contracts that
could total $331 million for construction of levees in the New Orleans area,
including building floodwalls atop the southern half of the rebuilt
Chalmette Loop levee in St. Bernard Parish.

St. Bernard Levee Partners LLC won a $539,000 contract to begin
preconstruction work on the St. Bernard levee under the corps' Early
Contractor Involvement program.

If the preliminary work is acceptable, the partnership will likely be hired
to rebuild the levee, including 7 1/2 miles of new floodwall that will raise
the barrier to 29 feet above sea level, under two contract options that
could total $281 million. The project runs south from the Bayou Dupre
floodgate to Louisiana 46 and the Bayou Road floodgate.



Click to view graphic showing contract locations in a new window.
The partnership is made up of the Boise, Idaho-based Washington Division of
URS Corp., Baton Rouge-based James Construction Group, and the U.S.
subsidiary of Japan's Obayashi Corp.

Last month, the corps awarded a similar preconstruction work contract for
$735,000 to Chalmette Levee Constructors Joint Venture for the northern part
of the loop, running between the floodgates at Bayou Bienvenue and Bayou
Dupre. Contract options could result in the joint venture earning the
majority of the expected $357 million in construction costs.

That joint venture is made up of Kiewit Federal Group, of Omaha, Neb.;
Traylor Bros., Inc., of Evansville, Ind.; and Massman Construction, based in
Kansas City, Mo.

In both cases, the main contracting groups are expected to hire local
subcontractors for a significant share of the work.

The Chalmette Loop is a 22-mile levee system that protects St. Bernard
Parish from surges coming from Lake Borgne and the Gulf of Mexico. The
levees now stand at 19 1/2 to 21 1/2 feet and will ultimately top out at
between 29 feet and 31 feet when the concrete walls top the levee.

The walls, shaped like an inverted T, include both sheet piles that will be
driven into the levee and even deeper square pilings strategically located
along the wall to provide extra strength.

Like other parts of the area's rebuilt levee system, the loop is designed to
protect against surge created by a 100-year storm, which has a 1 percent
chance of occurring each year.

The corps also awarded a $33 million contract to Tetra Tech EC Inc., a New
Jersey firm, for building floodwalls and gates along Lake Pontchartrain from
the 17th Street Canal to Topaz Street in New Orleans. The work includes new
walls and gates on the southern side of the Orleans Marina.

Another $10 million contract was awarded to the AquaTerra-CAYO Joint Venture
for raising levees and floodwalls along the lakefront between the Orleans
Avenue and London Avenue drainage canals over 12 months. The two firms
involved in the venture are AquaTerra Contracting Inc. and CAYO, LP, both of
Cleburne, Texas.

Another contract for $6.6 million was awarded to Purnell Construction Co.,
LLC, of Baton Rouge, to strengthen part of the levee system adjacent to the
NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in eastern New Orleans.

That contract will take nine months to complete and will include enlarging
the levee between the Michoud Slip and the Michoud Canal, and installing
relief wells to deal with possible seepage of water beneath the levees.

This contract, requested by NASA officials to provide additional protection
to the Michoud facility, is considered "betterment work, " because the
corps' plans for 100-year protection in the area already calls for the
primary reduction of flooding risk to be accomplished by the Industrial
Canal surge barrier project.

The barrier is two-mile-long concrete wall, with two navigation gates,
that's under construction across the Golden Triangle wetlands just west of
Lake Borgne. It's designed to block most surge from entering the Gulf
Intracoastal Waterway and the Industrial Canal