[StBernard] St. Bernard's Chalmette Loop levee contract awarded

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard's Chalmette Loop levee contract awarded
By Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune 
February 28, 2010, 3:35AM

The Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a contract for the first phase of a
large link in St. Bernard Parish's levee improvements to Cajun Constructors
Inc. of Baton Rouge.

The company won a $272,000 contract to do pre-construction work on an
8.5-mile reach of the Chalmette Loop levee system between Louisiana 46 in
Verret west to Caernarvon, near the Mississippi River levee. But if the
preliminary work is acceptable, the contract could grow exponentially, as
Cajun Constructors could exercise options to perform work on the entire
scope of the contract, worth $237 million.

The work will involve improving the existing earthen levee and building a
concrete floodwall on top that will raise the entire levee height to between
27 and 32 feet, up from 14 to 17 feet before Hurricane Katrina.

In September, a contract for the same stretch of floodwalls was awarded to a
joint venture of Odebrecht Construction Inc. in Coral Gables, Fla., and
Baker Concrete Construction of Houston. But Cajun Constructors protested the
award at the time.

The bid protest was dismissed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office,
which oversees such disputes, after the corps realized in reviewing the bids
that there was an oversight in evaluating each of the proposals, said
spokeswoman Nancy Allen.

A new advertisement for the project was put out in January, and all of the
same bidders responded again, with Cajun Constructors getting the contract. 

With the award to Cajun Constructors, there are only two more pieces of the
nearly 25-mile Chalmette Loop levee system that need to be awarded
contracts: the stretch between the surge barrier at the Inner Harbor
Navigation Canal and Bayou Dupre; and the Caernarvon floodwall, which will
tie the system in to the Mississippi River levee along the border with
Plaquemines Parish.