Interim storm protection along Intracoastal and Industrial canals in question

The Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday did not bring encouraging news about the chances of temporarily beefing up storm-surge protection in the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and Industrial Canal to a joint meeting of two New Orleans City Council committees.

It would take until the start of the 2009 hurricane season to build a $100 million temporary gate on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway east of Paris Road, Col. Jeffrey Bedey, commander of the corps' Hurricane Protection Office in New Orleans, told members of the Public Works and Restoration committees.

Adding 3-foot metal plates to the tops of existing I-walls along the waterways, an option that would cost between $30 million and $50 million, also can't be completed until 2009, Bedey said.

And corps engineers are just now figuring out whether a third option, building 15-foot-high rock jetties in the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, could both block surge and allow barge traffic to continue to use the channel, he said. He provided no estimate on when that work could be completed.

Bedey said the agency hopes to decide within a few weeks whether to adopt any of the temporary fixes or to just hope that a major hurricane doesn't hit the city while the corps concentrates on completing a long-term plan to protect the city from the surge caused by a 100-year hurricane.
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