NEWS

'The levees were working against us'

Jessica Goff
jgoff@theadvertiser.com

The Atchafalaya Basin’s levee system has spared many from severe flooding for decades, but recent historic flooding in south Louisiana has proven it may be time to rethink the waterway’s man-made infrastructure.

The levee system was developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after the massive Mississippi River flood of 1927 that killed hundreds in seven Southern states.

But two weeks ago, when 6.9 trillion gallons of rainwater was dumped on the region, those levees did the opposite and kept floodwater from draining into the Basin, said Dean Wilson, executive director of nonprofit Atchafalaya Basinkeeper.

“The levees were working against us,” Wilson told The Daily Advertiser on Wednesday. “The water was stuck in the spillway, and because of the levee system, it could not drain into the Basin.”

The levees are blocking the bayous that have taken in the additional water, he said.

The recent flood has prompted the organization to draft a master plan for the wetland to restore its hydrology system that could be controlled by locks.

There is no current water-management plan that allows floodwater into the Basin’s floodplain, only the levee system to keep water from spilling out.

“Every levee has two sides, and we face different flood threats on both. We ignore the risk on either side at our peril,” Paul Kemp adjunct professor at Louisiana State University said in a public statement on Wednesday advocating the for improved water management.

Basinkeeper said Atchafalaya’s natural hydrology can be restored by reconnecting waterways through a system of locks and channels.

Pumps could also be positioned to move water during severe flooding.

The organization also is advocating the control of sedimentation in the Basin that would prevent silt and sand collection.

The buildup reduces the ability for the Basin’s lakes, rivers and swamps to absorb access water, Basinkeeper said.

The Basin’s new master plan is expected to be released for public review within seven to 10 days, Wilson sad.

“We want to all the connections the Army Corps of Engineers damned off so we would pretty much be like a natural system again,” he said. “So in the springtime when the water get really high in the Basin we can close the locks to protect people from flooding and the rest of the year those locks and be open and you have heavy rain you can spread it out to the Basin and stop the flooding.”