[StBernard] (no subject)

[Westley Annis]

Surge barrier spells death knell for MR-GO
By Sheila Grissett, The Times -Picayune 
October 21, 2009, 11:02PM

It will take eight Eiffel Towers worth of steel to build the massive
structure that will permanently close the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet and
better protect the Industrial Canal from storm surges. And much of that
steel has been loaded into 1,271 foundation pilings that contractors
finished driving Wednesday.

When Army Corps of Engineers contractors pounded the last of the
steel-reinforced, 140-foot-long concrete "soldier" pilings deep into the
marsh and clay that underlies the MR-GO and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway,
it marked the ceremonial end of an era. The work closes a shipping corridor
that destroyed critical marsh and made the region more vulnerable to
hurricanes.

"I think of this as kind of driving the last concrete stake into the heart
of MR-GO, and it's a big stake, " said Col. Robert Sinkler, the corps'
Hurricane Protection Office commander. Sinkler is responsible for seeing
that the new structure is built and able to protect the vulnerable
Industrial Canal by the June 1 start of the 2011 hurricane season.

"It will turn MR-GO into a no-go, and it reduces the risk of storm surges.
It's a real milestone," Sinkler said.

This barrier marks the second closing of MR-GO, but many observers say it's
the one that counts most.

During the summer, a corps contractor built a rock blockade that stopped
marine traffic from using the MR-GO, but that barrier was not designed to
defend against storm surges.

It is the permanent 1.8-mile barrier, a project costing more than $1
billion, that will stop storm surges from rushing up the MR-GO and into the
region's heart, as many forensic investigators say happened during Hurricane
Katrina.

The foundation of the barrier now in place will provide protection against a
surge of about 14 feet, which Sinkler said would have been enough last year
to stop Hurricane Gustav's surge from raising water inside the Industrial
Canal to dangerously high levels. And once complete, the barrier should
provide up to twice that much protection.

"Although there's lots more work to be done, driving the last piling is a
symbolic step in what will be the final closure, the real closure, of MR-GO,
" said Tim Doody, president of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection
Authority-East that oversees levee operations in St. Bernard, the east bank
of New Orleans and East Jefferson.

The closure structure, said by corps representatives to be the largest of
its kind in the United States, if not the world, was authorized after
Katrina pushed a wall of water into the Industrial Canal, breaking the
federally built floodwalls and inundating St. Bernard and parts of New
Orleans, causing numerous deaths. The barrier, which resembles a giant
floodwall equipped with gates to accommodate marine traffic, is being built
near the confluence of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and MR-GO. It will
generally run north-south from a point just east of the Michoud Canal on the
north bank of the intracoastal waterway and just south of the existing Bayou
Bienvenue flood control structure.

Each of the spun-cast soldier piles were driven across an area known as the
Golden Triangle between the intracoastal waterway and MR-GO.


The last pile is driven at the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal surge barrier
on Wednesday. Each piling is 66 inches in diameter and had to be moved into
place using three of the five largest cranes available in the United States,
corps representatives said. Once in place, cages of steel rebar were lowered
into each piling before they were filled with concrete.

Two crews working around the clock, six days a week, and doing maintenance
on the seventh day, worked simultaneously and in opposite directions to get
the work done about two months ahead of the corps' last target date, Sinkler
said.

Navigation gates will be built where the barrier crosses the GIWW and Bayou
Bienvenue, and another is planned for the Seabrook area where the Industrial
Canal, or Inner Harbor Navigational Canal, meets Lake Pontchartrain.

Corps contractors are already working on one of the Inner Harbor
Navigational Canal gates and adding concrete decking to the tops of the
pilings.