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New Orleans District

Responsibilities of the New Orleans District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, are almost entirely in civil works. Flood control, navigation and the environment are the big jobs. The district covers 30,000 square miles (map) of south Louisiana, from Alexandria to the Gulf. The Corps of Engineers has provided a work plan as directed by Congress for continuing work in fiscal year 2007 that includes about $228 million for the ongoing civil works program. The New Orleans District has also received $6.2 billion in supplemental funding since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, including $5.7 billion for the Hurricane Protection System and Congress provided supplemental appropriations of $1.3 billion for the HPS on May 25, 2007.

Geography puts us in the unusual position of facing three distinct flood threats: (1) Mississippi River and other stream floods, (2) rain floods, especially in areas ringed by levees such as metropolitan New Orleans and (3) hurricane storm surges. Corps flood reduction projects address each threat.

In navigation, we keep open the largest port complex in the U.S., measured by cargo tonnage, from Baton Rouge to the Gulf of Mexico. To maintain navigation channels we use depth-finding boats, dredges and structures. The latter include revetment, jetties and dikes. The district dredged 44 million cubic yards in fiscal year 2006, or 39 percent of Corps dredging nationwide.

The district role in environmental protection and restoration is expanding. We chair a task force created by the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA); have completed two large freshwater diversion projects; are restoring flows in the Atchafalaya Basin; and are leading a multi-agency study for an ambitious project (LCA) to restore Louisiana's coastal ecosystem. We also regulate wetlands and navigable waters.

Serving the nation

The Corps is the world's largest public engineering agency:

Civil Works. We design, build and operate environmental projects, flood control reservoirs, levees and floodwalls, and navigation locks and dams.

Military Construction. We design and construct military facilities, and directly support the Army during conflict.

Environmental Protection. The Corps builds environmental restoration projects, regulates dredging and excavation along rivers, streams, lakes and wetlands, and cleans up hazardous and toxic waste.

Emergency Operations. We respond to disasters and provide engineering support to help rebuild communities and restore public safety.

Support for Others. The Corps provides engineering and technical, contracting and construction-supervision support to non-defense agencies. In New Orleans District, these agencies have included the Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard, Fish and Wildlife Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and National Park Service.

Our flood control projects save lives and prevent $15 billion in damages each year. We are the second largest providers of outdoor recreation, with more than 380 million visitors a year -- Corps recreation users put $10 billion annually into local economies.

The Corps is the nation's fourth largest producer of electricity, providing hydropower at 75 dams.

Serving Louisiana

Louisiana’s ports are No. 1 among the 50 states, with almost 500 million tons in 2002, and the state is No. 1 in grain exports. The New Orleans District keeps open five of America’s top 13 ports. We maintain 2,800 miles of navigable waterways, including 400 miles of deep-draft channel. On the Mississippi River, the channel is 45 feet deep from Baton Rouge to the Gulf of Mexico. We operate 12 navigation locks to serve these waterways.

Though we contract out a lot of the work, our employees perform a full range of duties in creating projects and sustaining them in service. We plan, engineer and design, and manage contractors for construction projects. We also operate and maintain many of our projects. Other projects are turned over to local sponsors for operation and maintenance.

We make it possible to live and work along the lower Mississippi River and in vulnerable coastal Louisiana. To protect against flooding, the district has built about 973 miles of levees and floodwalls along the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers. The Bonnet Carré Spillway protects New Orleans from river floods. The Corps has built another 325 miles of hurricane-protection levees and floodwalls. In addition, planning is underway to build a 74-mile hurricane project in the Houma area, and planning is beginning for a 57-mile project in the River Parishes on the west bank of the Mississippi.

We keep the Mississippi River on course. The Corps built and maintains the Old River Control complex, on the river northwest of Baton Rouge, which prevents the Mississippi from changing its course to the Atchafalaya Basin. The Corps’ Atchafalaya Basin Floodway System (ABFS) project is helping flood control and the environment by the purchase of easements that will ultimately total 338,000 acres. This Corps project is also creating water management units to restore flows for wildlife, and acquiring 50,000 acres to provide public access for recreation.

Saving the Louisiana Coast

CWPPRA. The New Orleans District designs and builds coastal restoration projects under the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act. An example is the West Bay Sediment Diversion Project. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, is the lead and administrative agency of the six-member Louisiana Coastal Wetlands Conservation and Restoration Task Force. The New Orleans district engineer is chairman of the task force. Other members are the Louisiana Governor’s Office, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Environmental Protection Agency and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Restoration of Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA). Chief of Engineers Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock on Jan. 31 approved a Chief of Engineers Report that recommends proceeding with the restoration of the Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA) ecosystem, and signed a partnering agreement with Louisiana Gov. Kathleen B. Blanco to restore the ecosystem. Lt. Gen. Strock provided the report to the Secretary of the Army for review and submission to Congress. He has recommended that the Congress approve the Coastal Louisiana Restoration Plan and provide conditional authorization for near term critical restoration features.

Since the 1930s, coastal Louisiana has lost more than 1,875 square miles. The loss rate from 1990 to 2000 was 23.9 square miles per year. In 2000 it was estimated that coastal Louisiana would continue to lose land at a rate of 10.3 square miles per year over the next 50 years. About 30 percent of the land losses are due to natural causes; the remaining 70 percent are attributable man’s effect on the environment.

The fiscal 2006 Civil Works Budget includes $20 million to continue planning and design of the high priority Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA) Study, to address the loss of land and aquatic habitat along the Louisiana coast. That exceeds the $8.5 million appropriated in fiscal 2005.

Strategies to restore the ecosystem include:

--Freshwater and sediment re-introductions by diverting some Mississippi River flow into hydrologic basins.

--Barrier island restoration through placement of sand from offshore sources or the Mississippi River to sustain key geomorphic structures. This would help protect the ecology of estuarine bays and marshes by reducing Gulf influences as well as protect nationally important water-bird nesting areas.

--Hydrologic modifications to help restore salinity and marsh inundation patterns and provide fishery access in previously unavailable habitats, and

--Creating a marsh platform for habitat in areas near existing navigation channels through the beneficial use of material dredged to maintain navigation and other channels.

The total cost of the near-term plan is $1.9 billion. The estimated first cost of measures now recommended for authorization is approximately $1.1 billion, which would be cost-shared $740,050,000 federal and $383,250,000 non-federal. The Louisiana Department of Natural Resources would be the non-federal cost-sharing sponsor.

Freshwater Diversion. The three great estuaries or basins surrounding New Orleans suffer from saltwater intrusion and the resultant loss of wetlands and habitat for fish and wildlife. Hurricane protection is also reduced as more open water appears. To counter these effects, freshwater diversion projects are introducing Mississippi River water and nutrients into each basin: Caernarvon, in the Breton Sound Basin, opened in 1991, and Davis Pond, in the Barataria Basin, opened in 2002. As yet unresolved is a design and operational plan for the Pontchartrain Basin that is acceptable to the state of Louisiana. Further study is needed to determine whether diversions are needed nearer the basin’s headwaters.

Updated December 13 2007