Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

RESERVE — Elevated river levels have not impacted the progress of the West Shore Lake Pontchartrain Levee Project, according to project manager Chris Gilmore. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has entered the detailed design phase and is holding to schedule for a late 2023/early 2024 completion.

Gilmore will review the progress and answer community questions during a public meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 2 at REGALA Gym in Reserve. Residents will be able to view maps of the proposed alignment and learn about the latest ongoing construction efforts from the project team, according to St. John Parish communications.

This includes the recent completion of field investigations, such as soil borings, and vegetation clearing efforts.

In January, the Corps of Engineers awarded Green-up Industries of Gonzales a $20,520,000 contract for excavating, processing and stockpiling clay material at the Bonnet Carre Spillway.

The contract consisted of a base contract of $9,075,000 and optional work items totaling $11,445,000, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 22, 2021. While this contract is on hold due to standing water in the Bonnet Carre Spillway, Gilmore said it does not change the construction timeline.

“It’s a contract to stockpile about half a million cubic yards of levee construction material from the Spillway,” Gilmore said. “Our contractor can’t get out there right now because the Spillway is flooded, but that’s just a small percentage of the overall quantity of material required. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not going to impact the overall schedule at all.”

The project team has estimated the completed levee will require about 9 million cubic yards of material — enough to fill two Superdomes.

The completed West Shore Levee will provide 100-year risk reduction to more than 60,000 residents in the the area extending from the Bonnet Carre Spillway to Garyville. The federally-funded $760 million project will span approximately 22 miles and include levees, a T-wall, four pumping stations, eight drainage structures and approximately 35 utility relocations.

Gilmore said the four pumping stations will be installed in the following locations: one at Prescott Canal; one under Highway 55, adjacent to Highway 51; one on the Reserve relief canal; and one on the Hope Canal near the Western end of the alignment.

All four pumping stations will be grouped into one contract, according to Gilmore. There will be an additional 13 levee construction contracts dividing the 22-mile alignment into multiple sections.

Gilmore said there will likely be pre-construction contracts awarded in 2020 for construction of access roads and placement of a sand base to advance levee construction.

The detailed design phase started in January of this year with the completion of field investigations, which Gilmore said progressed “much quicker than expected” and “without any snags.” A contract could be awarded to an architect-engineering firm in the coming weeks to aid in the design work.

“All of our designs from a levee construction standpoint are based on the subsurface soil conditions. To get that information, we had to go through a pretty expensive sub-survey and boring program, which we just finished up,” Gilmore said. “We basically drilled down 80 to 150 feet to tell the type of material that we’re going to be building this levee on top of. That directly influences how we design the levee itself.”

The design phase will not change the alignment, which Gilmore said is just about set in stone.

If the project continues progressing at its current rate, the first construction contracts will be awarded in the first quarter of ‘21. More will be awarded as the year progresses, and construction could begin prior to 2022.

Gilmore encourages the public to come out to the April 2 meeting to learn about the construction plans and how the completed levee will benefit the region.

“We can’t build the project in a vacuum,” Gilmore said. “We want the public to know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.”

The West Shore Levee is especially important to those who experienced the wrath of Hurricane Isaac, when storm surge inundated approximately 7,000 homes with floodwaters.

Ruben Keating of LaPlace recently purchased two lots along Old 51, and he’s counting on the levee to protect against the devastating effects of storm surge.

“I purchased the property thinking that the levee was going to make it valuable either to live on or sell,” Keating said. “Not knowing whether a levee was going in, I don’t know if I would have purchased it.”

Keating would like to know more about how the pumping stations will work, since they will play an integral role in storm surge protection.

“If the pumping stations work and the drainage canals are cleaned, the levee should be adequate enough,” Keating said.

He said it is essential that the construction is done right, even if it means paying more for quality contractors.

For more information on the West Shore Lake Pontchartrain Levee project, visit mvn.usace.army.mil, find West Shore Lake Pontchartrain on Facebook or call the Construction Hotline at 877-427-0345.