Cracks have formed in a Cocodrie, La., levee, one of the newest to be constructed as part of the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane-protection system.
Levee officials say the cracks aren’t serious enough to cause a failure in the levee, but the district is taking steps to monitor and repair them if they worsen.
Hilary Thibodeaux, a project manager and engineer with Shaw Coastal in Houma, told the Terrebonne Levee Board about the cracks during a meeting last week in Houma.
The Courier reported that Thibodeaux said the flaws appeared in different sizes and were showing up in five areas of the levee.
The cracks are being caused as pieces of the levee settle at different rates in areas where it was built over pipeline canals and other waterways, said Terrebonne Levee Director Reggie Dupre.
“These cracks, if not observed and corrected, it could lead to failures,” he said. “At this time, (the engineers) don’t have a concern of failure. With the rain we’ve been having, we’ve been told some are sealing themselves up.”
Dupre said the Levee District voted to stockpile 37,000 cubic yards of dredged dirt at a cost of $175,000 and may also purchase some special fabric used to armor levees to keep on hand in case emergency repairs are necessary. In the meantime, the district will continue to monitor the cracks to make sure they don’t become more serious.
Work on the levee, a three-mile, $7 million segment of Morganza known as H-3, began in 2009. The levee stretches between Bush and Placid canals in Cocodrie.
The levee was built at a part of the Levee District’s scaled-down Morganza to the Gulf project, which aims to build 10-foot levees and floodgates along the project’s U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-approved path from Montegut to Pointe-aux-Chenes.
The federal Morganza levee project has been stalled in a study since 2007. The Levee District hopes that when that study is approved and completed, its levees can be used as the base of that project.
If the cracks prove serious, the ultimate fix would be to dig out fracturing sections of the levee, place special fabric at the bottom and fill them back in. To fix all of the cracking areas would cost the district $800,000, a price tag the district is hoping to avoid, Dupre said.
“Right now, we’re just closely monitoring it,” Dupre said.
Information from: The Courier
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