The Advocate posted pictures of the long delayed Diversion Canal project; finally underway

After decades of a dedicated tax stream supporting this project from EBR and Livingston Parish......your tax dollars are finally going to work.

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You can't quite see it yet from Plank Road or La. 19 near Zachary, but work crews are building a man-made river from scratch.

Down inside a huge, wide "V" carved out of the earth, concrete pillars for a bridge have been poured and smoothed out by workers. Nearby, long-reach excavators placed big boulders along the sides of a channel, while other digging machines clawed up dirt and dumped it into trucks that hauled it away.

After decades of delays, political wrangling, and cobbling together around $580 million, the long-awaited Comite River Diversion Canal is finally becoming a reality.

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When the canal opens — in 2024 or 2025, officials hope — a diversion structure will continuously redirect the Comite River once it rises above a certain height. Those higher water levels, experts say, often contribute to flooding downstream, where hundreds of thousands of people live.

The excess water will be turned west away from the Amite River, where it normally flows, and go down the new canal to the Mississippi River north of Baton Rouge.

The new waterway is being carved from what was once solid earth. It will be able to funnel the equivalent of the Arkansas River, reducing flooding in the middle Amite basin, according to Corps of Engineers estimates.

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Corps plans had originally called for costly concrete structures that would have sent the bayou waters spraying over 25-foot waterfalls down into the canal, Duplantier explained.

But Corps officials met with counterparts in Missisippi, where a less dramatic and less costly option was already being used.

So-called "rock chutes" will slow down the bayou waters for 1,200 to 1,500 feet upstream, gradually easing the transition and funneling water down into the diversion canal's bottom. The chutes will gradually widen as the bayous approach the canal.

In addition to cutting about $25 million in costs, Duplantier said the chutes eliminated a safety concern: Dramatic waterfalls would have likely drawn curious onlookers. The diversion won't be a public access waterway, including for fishermen and boaters.

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When completed, it should help with flood prevention in Zachary and Central. Not sure about Denham Springs though.