NEW ORLEANS – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently awarded a $112.3 million contract to Archer Western Contractors, LTD, a Texas-based firm, for construction of levees from South Point to the CSX Railroad crossing in New Orleans East. Public safety is the Corps’ top priority and the project will reduce impacts from a 100-year storm surge event, which has a one percent chance of occurring in any given year.
The approximately fourteen month contract calls for raising 7.5 miles of levees to elevations between 18.5 and 25 feet from existing elevations between 13 and 18 feet. The contract also includes replacement of the existing floodgates at Highway 11 and Highway 90 to meet the 100-year design heights.
Since last fall, contractors have been preparing the area by installing drainage blanket, which includes a fabric layer and a million cubic yards of sand, in order to strengthen the foundation beneath the levee. This will be the most massive levee section constructed on the East Bank of the Hurricane & Storm Damage Risk Reduction System.
“This is the first of several behind-schedule contracts that we need to award in the New Orleans East area,” said Col. Robert Sinkler, Commander of the Hurricane Protection Office. “We are working very closely with our partners to help us get the remaining six New Orleans East projects underway to meet our mission of 100-year protection in June 2011.”
Release no. 10-096