FRANKLIN COUNCIL MOVES ON FLOOD PROTECTION

The Franklin City Council wasted no time Tuesday surrendering $640,000 in capital outlay funds to the St. Mary Parish Levee District for a flood protection plan that once completed, is expected to protect parts of the city from hurricane storm surge.

Last September, the lack of flood gate over the Franklin Canal to keep away rising tides from the Gulf of Mexico, caused more than 1,000 homes in St. Mary Parish to take in water from Hurricane Ike’s surge along the St. Mary Parish coast. The impacted area stretched east to Garden City.

But last Thursday, the St. Mary Parish Levee District, committed to installing what project engineer Glenn Miller said is a “temporary project of a permanent fix,” to protect the city from hurricane surge, most recently experienced in the fall from Hurricane Ike.

Miller said he plan calls for a gate across the Franklin Canal along with a 12-foot sheet pile levee from the canal northward to the Yokley levee. The gate structure would be located south of U.S. 90 and the Fairfax Bailey Boat Landing, and will include a navigation opening between 20 and 30 feet, that could be closed before a hurricane approaches the St. Mary Parish coast.

The project would be paid for with $640,000 in state capital outlay funds the city received last year. Franklin Mayor Raymond Harris said State Rep. Sam Jones has also secured an additional $1.1 million commitment from the state.
“This project will stop the surge,” Harris said. “Now all we need is to get the U.S. Corps of Engineers to approve it.”

Miller agreed saying, “It’s going to be a permitting situation because this is a navigable waterway and it involves wetlands.
“Will it be installed before the 2009 Hurricane Season? We’re going to do what we have to, to make sure it is,” Harris said.
City Councilman Dale Rogers said, “It’s a lot easier to ask for forgiveness.”

Miller said he could not commit to a target date, but indicated the project would take about three to five months to be completed.

Last summer, in advance of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, Mayor Harris took matters in his own hands and led an effort to build a six foot levee along the Franklin Canal, in order to protect the residents who live to the east of Willow Street. However, due to the large seven ft surge from Ike, the levee failed and sent water to east of the canal. However, loop holes in the levee caused from some landowners who refused to allow Harris to build the levee on their property, sent water west of the canal, into the Pecan Acres area of Franklin.

“We took the heat when it didn’t work, but we kept on working,” Harris said last fall.
“Regardless of whether we had signed agreements to build a levee project, or a lock project, something to keep out high water levels – neither would have been completed in time for last year’s Hurricane Season. So we had two choices – one, to sit there and do nothing, or the other, to build a levee on our own – and that’s what we did.”

Former Gov. Kathleen Blanco commissioned the St. Mary Parish Levee District at the close of her administration in 2007. It is a nine member commission whose charge is to maintain the levees and the levee drainage system parish wide.
However, the group did not begin meeting until late in 2008, after Gov. Bobby Jindal ratified the appointments.