Program in works to advance $1.5 billion in Baton Rouge-area flood protection projects

The Comite diversion should have happened 20 years ago.

The lock at the Mississippi is complete but the diversion canal was never started.

Lily Bayou Control Structure:

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Graves says the Army Corps of Engineers is holding Louisiana projects back

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Of course. That's pretty much all they do. fricking worthless agency that needs to be gutted & privatized.

Funding stream doesn’t do shite if the board can’t / won’t negotiate for land to use for the project and just parties with the funds instead.

Wasn't this project supposed to be done after the 84 flood?

While I am all for stuff like this, do we really think flood protection is a higher priority than other areas like roads, the bridges, economic development...

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While I am all for stuff like this, do we really think flood protection is a higher priority than other areas like roads, the bridges, economic development...

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Yes, when said flood protection (that they specifically taxed for and never started) would have saved billions worth of damage.

Over/under on the amount of studies taken. 1.5

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Only about 30 years late.

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So, right on time for Louisiana. By the time we get around to funding and/or building any sort of public improvement, it's already useless.

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goofball

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Program in works to advance $1.5 billion in Baton Rouge-area flood protection projects

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The Republican lawmaker from Baton Rouge declined to provide specifics but says work has been underway on the program for 15 months and, if implemented, would connect five different federal funding streams to advance projects like the Comite River Diversion Canal as well as improvements to drainage in five bayous in East Baton Rouge Parish.

“We can’t just get money for these projects, we can’t deliver projects efficiently through this current system,” says Graves. “By being proactive, we save billions of dollars because these communities are protected and resilient and we’re not coming in and picking up the pieces after a flood, spending billions.”

He did not give a timeline for when the program would launch.

Graves says the Army Corps of Engineers is holding Louisiana projects back. He contends the federal agency has more than $100 billion in backlogged projects—one-third of which are in Louisiana.


Diversion canal may have a funding stream for the federal and state portion finally.

This combined with dredging the Amite and Comite rivers will be a massive improvement in flood protection for the Baton Rouge metro area.

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OCD, GOHSEP, LDWF, LADOTD, CPRA are gonna form the 5 agencies that receive the $1.5 (I've always heard 1.2) billion. It'll be coming from FedGov as CDBG funding. They'll prioritize and coordinate on projects they'd ordinarily handle on their own.

Oh and as far as I know, the $ for the Comite Diversion Canal project would not be taken out of the $1.5 (which would be approximately $300 million at last count) billion dollar figure.

This will be different in that there will be a push to standardize the way the dollars are spent so that there aren't five different guns shooting off in five different direction. All of those agency goals and priorities will try to align a bit so that what they're doing is complementary.

There is some other stuff that's coming that will ultimately help the way we spend those grant dollars in Louisiana. It will take the politics out and aim things more regionally so that it's devoted to where the water drains and not where the Parish boundaries begin and end.