NEW ORLEANS DISTRICT

The Corps awarded the approximately $615 million contract to construct Permanent Canal Closures & Pumps (PCCP) at the mouths of the 17th Street, Orleans Avenue and London Avenue outfall canals on April 17, 2013 to PCCP Constructors JV. The PCCP will provide a permanent and more sustainable measure for reducing the risk of a 100-year level storm surge entering the outfall canals

The West Closure Complex in full form operating during Hurricane Isaac. Located approximately one half mile south of the confluence of the Harvey and Algiers canals on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, the approximately $1 billion project reduces the risk associated with storm surge for residences and businesses in three parishes on the west bank of the Mississippi River: Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes.

Seabrook Floodgate Complex is one of the major components of the Greater New Orleans Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District. Finished in just two years, the $150-million plus project is located at the north end of the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal just south of Lake Pontchartrain and the Senator Ted Hickey Bridge. The structure works in tandem with the IHNC-Lake Borgne Surge Barrier to reduce the risk associated with a storm surge that has a one percent chance of occurring in any given year. Most recently, it helped prevent storm surge and flooding in New Orleans during Hurricane Isaac -- as the entire system worked as designed.

The 1.8-mile-long Inner Harbor Navigation Canal-Lake Borgne Surge Barrier is located at the confluence of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, about 12 miles east of downtown New Orleans. The surge barrier works in tandem with the Seabrook Floodgate Complex, which was built at the north end of the IHNC near Lake Pontchartrain. The projects reduce the risk associated with a storm surge that has a one percent change of occurring in any given year. Both are part of the $14.6 billion Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System being built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The IHNC is also the largest design-build civil works project in the history of the U.S. Corps of Engineers. The entire structure is 25 and 26 feet above sea level with a 56-foot-wide vertical lift gate at Bayou Bienvenue.

Ensuring commercial shipping continues unrestricted in southeast Louisiana, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contracts dredges to keep navigation “lanes” open. The challenge is in keeping the river’s navigable depth and width at authorized dimensions, a yearly focus for the corps. Recent operations on the Atchafalaya River saw the dredge Alaska working the Bar Channel. The authorized dimension for the navigation project is 20ft deep and a bottom width of 400ft.

The Bonnet Carré Spillway, part of the Mississippi River and Tributaries project (MR&T) is the southernmost floodway in the MR&T system. Located in St. Charles Parish, Louisiana, the spillway reduces risk for New Orleans and other downstream communities during major floods on the Mississippi River. This risk reduction is accomplished by diverting a portion of the floodwaters into Lake Pontchartrain and then into the Gulf of Mexico, bypassing New Orleans. This spillway was first opened during the flood of 1937, and nine times thereafter through 2011 to lower river stages at New Orleans.