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As downstream parishes watch, Corps reanalyzes expected impact of Baton Rouge drainage plan
The Advocate

Neighboring parishes downstream from Baton Rouge have cast a wary eye on a $255 million Army Corps of Engineers project to clear out East Baton Rouge's waterways using federal dollars coming to the region after the August 2016 flood.

Birthed after the 1983 flood but stalled for decades, the clearing and dredging plan passed an important milestone when authorities with the city-parish, Central, state and federal government announced this month that they'd found a way to finance a critical $65.6 million match.

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The project calls for clearing, dredging and widening 66 miles of creeks and bayous in East Baton Rouge Parish. The Corps had recommended the project as feasible in July 1995 after more than a decade of study, but without money then to make it a reality.

The work on Beaver and Blackwater bayous in the Central area and on Bayou Fountain and Jones and Ward creeks and their tributaries in the southern part of the parish is aimed at allowing water to move more quickly downstream into the Amite River and Bayou Manchac.

About 17 miles of those waterways would also be lined with concrete, a measure aimed at controlling erosion and speeding the flow of water.

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City-parish officials say they should be able to take advantage of an opportunity to reduce flood risk in East Baton Rouge as other parishes have but have promised to mitigate any impact downstream, possibly with regional retention areas to hold back some runoff and release it slowly.

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Teri Casso, chairwoman of the Ascension Parish Council, said officials in her parish want to work with East Baton Rouge, too. But, she said, they have concerns about whether the low-lying Bluff Swamp and the Spanish Lake basin, potentially huge, natural flood storage areas, will be recommended as retention options.

If they are, Casso said, a lot of conversations will have to take place about how such a plan would affect her constituents who live in the swamp and possible compensation for their property.

"It would be complicated. My constituents love where they live," she said.

^^Some of them live in a swamp and need to be relocated.

Since the diversion canal will lower levels in the Comite basin, there is an opportunity to improve the drainage in Central and northern Baton Rouge along with downstream communities in EBR, Livingston, and Ascension.

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Last year, Livingston Parish sued Ascension Parish, the Pontchartrain Levee District and the state Department of Natural Resources over Ascension's long-standing plans to extend the Laurel Ridge Levee along the southeastern edge of Amite River Basin in the St. Amant and Lake areas.

The two parishes reached a truce earlier this year to allow engineering work to continue, but officials disagree whether a proposed mitigation project tied to the levee would do enough to protect lower Livingston from worsened flooding expected from the levee extension.

The Corps is also taking a second look at the Darlington Reservoir, a once-dead idea to build a large storage area along the Amite River in St. Helena and East Feliciana parishes to cut flooding in parishes on the lower river.

The Darlington Reservoir should be pushed very hard - and construction needs to be much faster than the diversion canal. That, in conjunction with the diversion canal that's finally under construction, should be a huge help in dealing with flood waters in the Amite River basin.

The Darlington Reservoir will help everyone breath a bit easier - especially in the circumstances that lead to the 2016 flood.