Comite Diversion Canal won't be done until the end of 2022 according to Corps

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$343 million Baton Rouge anti-flood project won't be done until the end of 2022, Corps says

The Comite River Diversion Canal, a long-awaited flood-control channel for the Baton Rouge area, is expected to take a year longer than anticipated to build and won't be finished until December 2022, federal officials say.

The 12-mile-long channel will divert water from the Comite River and other smaller waterways into the Mississippi River.

Discussed since the 1960s and studied intensely since the 1980s, the channel gained new relevance, political momentum and long-needed federal and state funding after the 2016 floods devastated tens of thousands of homes in the Baton Rouge region.

While the canal route beginning between Baker and Zachary is largely a downhill shot due west to the Mississippi, the path cuts through highways, railroads, swamps, pipelines and other obstructions that have complicated its design, cost and construction for years.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials' statement this month confirms the concerns some officials had aired at the end of 2020 about the project's progress.

Last fall, Rep. Garret Graves, R-Baton Rouge, had warned Corps of Engineers officials that he was worried about slippage in the construction timeline and, by mid-November, agency and state highway officials had told a legislative task force that they were trying to determine then if they could hold the original schedule.

So far, the Corps of Engineers has issued four of the 18 different clearing or construction contracts since the $343 million construction phase started in early 2020, corps officials said.

In early February, the Corps of Engineers awarded its latest contract, a nearly $9.5 million agreement with Coastal Contractors Inc., to build a bridge at McHugh Road on the eastern end of the channel, agency officials said.

The state Department of Transportation and Development, one of the non-federal sponsors of the project, has also issued contracts to design and build bridges and other improvements at La. 67 and La. 19 and has plans to open bids for traditional bridge construction job at La. 964 in May, agency officials said. [quote]Message

     

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