NEW ORLEANS – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Hurricane Protection Office recently awarded two contracts for remediating levees and floodwalls that line a portion of the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IHNC; also known locally as the Industrial Canal), the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW) and the Michoud Canal. The work will address potential stability and seepage issues. Construction for these two projects will begin next week and be complete in June 2011.
The Corps awarded a $3.4 million contract to New Orleans-based Garner Services, L.L.C., a service-disabled veteran-owned small business, to build a buttress slab on the east side of the IHNC just south of Lake Pontchartrain. Construction of the buttress slab includes driving concrete piles to greater depths than the sheet pile beneath the existing floodwall and replacing the existing horizontal stone protection on the protected side with a wider and slightly taller concrete slab. This work will improve the ability of the existing floodwall to resist high water levels in the IHNC and prevent erosion caused by wave overtopping.
The Corps also awarded a $2.2 million contract to Blackhawk Ventures, L.L.C., a service-disabled veteran-owned small business, to construct 50 relief wells along the protected side of the IHNC’s west side floodwall just south of Lake Pontchartrain and also to construct 12 wells along the Michoud Canal in New Orleans East. Relief wells will address seepage by intercepting excess sub-surface water and diverting it into to the storm drainage system in a controlled manner to increase the stability of the existing floodwall.
These contracts represent the bulk of remediation work still necessary along the IHNC-GIWW corridor. Additional work includes construction of stability berms and concrete slabs. A stability berm will be placed north of the GIWW near the Paris Road Bridge and on the east side of the IHNC just south of the buttress slab work being done by Garner Services, L.L.C. Concrete boxes and slabs will be placed at the IHNC Lock to prevent deflection of the existing I-wall. This additional work will be managed and constructed by personnel from the Corps’ Memphis, Tenn., District. Like the other remediation projects, construction of the stability berms and concrete slabs and boxes will begin next week and finish in June 2011.
Release no. 11-103