By VICKIE JAMBON Staff Reporter

ST. CHARLES PARISH – St Charles Parish was given permission by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fill levee breaches in preparation for possible storm surges from Tropical Storm Bonnie. Public Works and Waste Water Director Gregory Bush said parish employees started working Wednesday to close four openings in the levee after receiving consent to do so on Tuesday. Tuesday, parish officials met with the Corps, the two levee boards and the airport to discuss the closures. Bush said St. Charles Parish offered to fill the gaps in the levee at no cost to the Corps. He said the interim measure will suffice until the Corps can financially provide a permanent remedy.

“History is in the making. This is the first time the east bank will be completely closed off from the lake,” said Bush.

Sandbags will not be used to fill the gaps. Instead, flexible orange tubes are being filled with water and connected by sleeves. When filled, each tube stands 18 inches high and weigh 6,000 pounds. The tubes will be stacked in the form of pyramids. Some will reach as high as 6 feet.

“One tube is equal to 500 sand bags and we can fill a tube in 15 minutes. It used to take prison inmates hours to fill and stack sand bags. Now we can do the work in minutes,” said Bush.

Sandbags lasted one to two years and were harmed by direct sunlight. The orange pipe bought from the United States Flood Control Corp. has a life expectancy of 17 years and is made of a special material that contains protection against ultraviolet rays.

Bush said in addition to filling gaps in the levee walls, the parish rented 10 extra pumps to place on the levee. The pumps were placed at watersheds which feed into the canals.

Cross Bayou has four of the rental pumps while Almedia, Walker and Pipeline each have two pumps.

“At this time of the year, the phase of the moon causes lunar tides. The tides are already high. We are doing what we can,” said Bush.

He explained how the parish council recently voted to spend nearly $507,000 to equip four new pumping stations. Three new Luling stations are Lakewood, Kellogg and Willowdale. A station named Dianne is located in St. Rose.

“Twelve stations on the east and west banks had telemetry before this. Now all our major stations – 16 in all – have telemetry,” said Bush. The updated telemetry stations are now monitored in the office of the Assistant Superintendent of Draining, in Bush’s office and in the court house.

“This provides simultaneous radio contact with three base stations. If something goes wrong, an alarm goes off. If lightening hits an antenna, we now have back up,” said Bush.

According to Bush, the old system was slow. He said it took three to five minutes to transmit information to and from the stations. He said the upgraded systems provide for simultaneous transmission with no interference.

“Twelve of our pump stations have telemetry. Seven of these stations have updated telemetry. We are updating equipment on the other five stations now. Our crew updates telemetry every day. We hope to have the five stations completed in two months,” said Bush.

Bush went on to say that once telemetry has been updated in the 12 station that have it, the parish will begin to put telemetry in its remaining 19 pump stations.

“We are in Stage III. We are never going to stop until we finish updating all our pump stations,” said Bush.