Mercredi

Pump, floodgate maintenance costs are subject of proposed federal legislation~Paul Rioux
~Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter plan to introduce legislation directing the Army Corps of Engineers to operate a huge drainage pumping station and floodgate being built south of Harvey, resolving a disagreement between the corps and the West Bank levee authority about who should handle the estimated $5 million-a-year task.
Corps officials have said an agreement with the state calls for either the state or local levee officials to operate and maintain all flood-control projects the corps is building to protect the New Orleans area from a 100-year storm.
But West Bank levee authority officials contend the agreement is superseded by federal regulations requiring the corps to operate all floodgates in federal navigable waterways, including the 225-foot sector gate being built across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway south of Harvey.
"It's as clear as can be that this is the corps' responsibility," said Susan Maclay, president of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-West board.
Maclay said the adjacent pump station, which will be the largest in the world, qualifies as an "appurtenant structure," making it the corps' responsibility under the federal regulations.
"For the corps to operate the floodgate and not the pump station would be kind of like cutting the baby in half," she said. "It all needs to work in tandem."