Corps yields in bike path dispute - Loophole surfaces in spending rule
Sunday, Feb. 10, 2008
By Sheila Grissett

The Army Corps of Engineers has figured out a way to justify paying to replace the bicycle path that will be removed when Mississippi River levees are raised in parts of East Jefferson and New Orleans during the next couple of years.

A public firestorm was ignited late last year when corps lawyers said the agency couldn't use levee-raising money to rebuild the path that corps contractors expect to destroy to elevate the levee along 13.5 miles of the river.

As a result, Jefferson Parish and the Greater New Orleans Regional Planning Commission recently gathered all the main players under a tent to seek a solution.

It is still true that the corps can't use money Congress appropriated for hurricane protection and flood reduction to pay for recreational projects, such as rebuilding a bike path that runs atop a levee.

However, the riverside path does double duty as an access road. As a result, corps representative Durund Elzey said, the agency can restore the path so that corps and levee district employees continue to have the access they need for routine levee inspections and emergency responses.

Additionally, he said, a corps analysis showed that topping the path with bicycle-friendly asphalt, rather than dirt or gravel, would cost little extra over the life of the project.

"For future jobs, where bike paths will be involved, we'll look at them on a case-by-case basis," said Elzey, manager of the river levee-raising project. "But to prevent further conflicts, there will be a concerted effort so that this sort of thing doesn't happen in the future."

Toward that end, the corps, the Regional Planning Commission, Jefferson Parish and assorted levee districts sent representatives to Baton Rouge on Friday to meet with the Federal Highway Administration, which provides most bike path construction money, and top state Department of Transportation and Development officials, who'll help ride herd on future construction that could impact bike paths in the region.

"We were already looking for a solution, even before the heat came down," Elzey said. "But now we have (a plan) to make certain that DOTD and the corps understand one another and the plans that everyone has for the paths along the river."

Regional Planning Commission Executive Director Walter Brooks said he is pleased with the outcome, and he praised corps representatives for "willingly working with us" on the bike path issue.

"As a result, the corps is going to look at each situation on a case-by-case basis, and when they're going to do a lift, it will be discussed in advance," Brooks said. "But, generally, at least on the Mississippi River, it means the corps will replace the bike paths."

Under the current schedule, Elzey said, the corps expects to award a contract this fall to raise 9.5 miles of levee in East Jefferson between the Orleans and the St. Charles parish lines an average of 1 to 1.5 feet.

Several months later, the schedule calls for awarding a second contract to raise about 4 miles of levee in New Orleans between the Jefferson Parish line and Audubon Park. That section will be raised an average of 3 feet.

Each contract is expected to take four to six months and is designed to raise the levees to their authorized elevations.

When the levees were last being raised decades ago, officials have said, the corps ran short of money before a final lift of clay could be added, leaving the entire 13.5-mile stretch short of freeboard, which is the top 1 to 1.5 feet of levee over and above flood stage. In addition, some sections of the levee, especially in New Orleans, have sunk due to subsidence.

The planned construction is designed to address both those deficiencies.