Sept 22 2021
Dredge the Vermilion was hosted by Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority(CPRA) for a narrated tour of their facility at LSU in Baton Rouge. CPRA is the State of Louisiana agency charged with mitigating land loss along mostly coastal areas of the state. Our hosts were Brian Lezina and Wes LeBlanc. They did an excellent job in explaining the current situation with coastal land loss, mitigation efforts, and their strategy to get the river to assist with re-building land by employing diversion projects that divert river flows with sediment into the marsh.
CPRA recently took over the Atchafalaya Basin Program from the state Department of Natural Resources(DNR) . DTV has been working with CPRA in defining a critical drainage and water quality project in the West Atchafalaya Floodway. The project is named the “Henderson Lake Water Management – Dixie Pipeline Project”. This project entails gapping the pipeline’s spoil banks restoring blocked flood flows from the Bayou Courtableau Floodgates that drain the northern and central areas of the Teche-Vermilion Watershed. Wes did a great job bringing us up to date on the status of this project. While this project will not entirely remedy the drainage blockage in the floodway, it is a a good start.
The objectives of the visit were:
- Learning more about CPRA’s efforts to mitigate storm surge
- Assessment of our watershed’s vulnerability to storm surge
- Get updated on the status of the Henderson Lake Water Management – Dixie Pipeline Project
Our assessment and comments:
We were told Louisiana has lost over 2000 square miles of land due to erosion, subsidence, and sea level rise. To get a perspective of the magnitude of the land loss this land is equal to 4+ Lafayette Parishes! The southeast area of the state have reached a critical state due to this situation. Loss of land makes the nearby communities much more vulnerable to hurricanes and their storm surge. The southwest areas of the state have similar issues but they are not as severe as the southeast area, at least not yet.
We feel the progress on the Henderson Lake Water Management – Dixie Pipeline Project is good with completion probable in 2022. As this is one of the 3 major drains for our watershed it is critical that this and any remaining blockages be cleared soon. The West Atchafalaya Floodway is designed to handle a project flood of 400,000 cfs. As of today the floodway is not handling the estimated 20,000cfs flood flow from Bayou Courtableau we experienced during Hurricane Delta last year with flood waters backing up from Washington to Alexandra. This inability to take sufficient flood flows is again being experienced as a result of rains from Hurricane Ida. The overtopping of the weirs has been happening for 11 consecutive days as of today(9/26) with an estimated projection of 5 more days of overtopping at the current level of the landside pool stage’s daily drop. A a result DTV’s assessment this is a critical situation that needs the attention of the USACE.