Ninth Ward residents voice objection to new Industrial Canal lock
3rd April 2017 · 0 Comments
By Della Hasselle
Contributing Writer
With limited time left to give input to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, hundreds of Ninth Ward and Bywater-area residents on Thursday spoke out in protest of a tentative plan to widen the Industrial Canal lock, or the device used for raising and lowering ships, along the downtown New Orleans waterway.
The proposed expansion, an evolved version of a plan first authorized by Congress in 1956, marks another stepping stone in a decades-long attempt by the federal government to boost economy associated with inland shipping in Louisiana.
More questions were raised than answers given at a contentious, three-hour meeting on Thursday night, which was designed to be the final public question-and-answer session before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gives recommendation for a plan that ultimately would still have to pass Congress for approval.
So far, residents have been presented with a “preliminary” plan of a replacing the current lock on the Industrial Canal with a shallower draft one, which if built would allow barge traffic to more efficiently enter the series of off-land, water-based highways surrounding New Orleans.
In a presentation to visibly agitated neighbors and business owners, Col. Michael Clancy, the commander of the Corps’ New Orleans District, explained the motivation behind studying the feasibility of just such a plan: increasing money-making opportunities by reducing transit delays along the waterway.
According to the Corps, delays of up to 36 hours at a time means higher transportation costs for cargo being shipped through the lock, which in turn means higher costs to the general public.
Touting the “opportunities for commerce,” Clancy said New Orleans provides an ideal source of income because of its location along both the Mississippi River and the Intracoastal Waterway, a shipping route that winds roughly 3,000 miles along the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico coasts.
“We live at an interchange of that highway,” Clancy said. “One of the economic engines of New Orleans, of the Unites States, is that waterway.”
So far, the Corps has narrowed it’s focus to one of six options that had been floated by engineers in a series of evaluation reports since 1997, a year after the federal Water Resources Development Act authorized projects like replacement locks.
In the most recently proposed plan, a $951.3 million lock designed to be 110 feet wide and 900 feet long could end up hauling in a net annual $172.4 million in economic benefits for the nation, Sean Mickal, the project’s lead planner, touted at the meeting.
The tentative plan, which was highlighted by the Corps because it would offer the greatest economic benefit with fewer environmental impacts than past proposals, would have a channel 22 feet below sea level and would extend between Tonti and Johnson streets.
Ultimately, the new lock would allow for the replacement of the current facility, a 640-foot-long, 75-foot-wide and 31.5-foot deep lock that was constructed by the Port of New Orleans and opened in 1923.
Congress authorized replacement of the lock in 1956 because it was “economically justified,” according to Mickal.
In 1986, Mickal said, Congress instructed the Corps to rebuild the existing lock, since other locations were determined to be unfeasible. Since then, the plan has been delayed by court challenges over possible environmental impacts and damages relating to Hurricane Katrina.
The replacement lock was initially proposed to have a much deeper draft access. By deepening to 36 feet, the lock would allow bigger ships to pass through the canal to the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a shortcut between the Industrial Canal and Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi River.
This final version scraps the deeper draft access plan, largely because the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet was decommissioned following hurricane devastation. Instead, the Corps said recently, the new plan allows more shallow, but longer, barges, to better fit into the lock. As of now, the barges frequently have to come apart and travel in pieces to make it through, Mickal said.
“We could fit two tows through the lock at once,” Mickal told neighbors. “That’s a greater efficiency.”
The project would be completely covered by federal funding, Mickal added. Half the money would come from the general treasury and half would come from the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, paid for by commercial users of waterways through a tax on fuel they use while navigating the system. It was created to help pay for construction costs on the nation’s inland waterways.
The operation and maintenance of the new lock would also be covered by federal funds.
Instead of focusing on what the Corps described as the lock’s benefits, several residents on last Monday underscored parts of the plan that remained hazy, at best, during more than an hour of heated public comment.
Among the unknowns are exactly how many residents could be temporarily relocated during an estimated 13 years of total design and construction and the time period that residents would have to drive over a temporary bridge while the St. Claude bridge is replaced with one that has a more modern drawbridge.
It was also unclear what the final lock design would be, how the Corps would go about demolishing the current lock or what impacts, if any, construction would have on the foundations of homes that sit in historic districts lining the Industrial Canal waterway.
The Corps is still unsure of these details in part by design, according to a spokesman, Ricky Boyett, because so far no formal proposal has been put forth. Rather, engineers were gathering public input in order to include vital information in a report that will ultimately be sent to Congress.
“We need to hear from you,” Boyett told the crowd, adding that input would be used in evaluating a final plan. “Every comment you give — they all have to be addressed.”
But even with the unanswered questions, dozens commented that regardless of future proposals or designs the proposed lock replacement would be a deal-breaker. That’s because, residents said, it failed to provide any obvious long-term benefit to taxpayers who call the area home.
Most residents were also wary of a part of the proposal that calls for rebuilding flood walls along the Industrial Canal, even though multiple Corps members assured residents that the levels of protection currently afforded to them from potential hurricane-related surge would not decrease under any plan for a new lock.
The plan has come with discussion of up to $56 million for mitigation, a number that could be adjusted as final factors come into play. Still, most residents said offers like park developments and job training wouldn’t ameliorate the potential decline in quality of life.
Rather, many residents groaned or uttered strong language about possibly enduring up to a decade or more of construction, the potential for increased traffic jams in a hard-to-reach part of town and the risk of exposure to toxic elements that could be stirred up during the building process.
“I oppose this project on the ground there are environmental and racial injustices being imposed on this community,” said Naomi Doerner, a local resident and consultant who helps biking organizations develop plans for social equity. “And there are a lot of unknowns.”
Thursday’s meeting did seem to answer some longstanding questions. Residents were told that rather than dump potentially toxic soil into the Mississippi River after digging it up — a move that could put locals at increased risk for contamination — the dirt would instead be “brought away” by barge to a yet-to-be determined commercial dump site.
The Corps also underscored that officials aren’t calling for any residents to be permanently displaced from their homes, as it isn’t necessary to acquire private land in order to upgrade the Industrial Canal under the current proposal.
Residents were still distrustful of Corps members during Thursday’s meeting, however, bringing up a 1990 plan that did require the displacement of more than 220 homes and neighborhood businesses employing about 160 people, and prompted litigation.
Others said they were still bitter over laws that grant immunity to the Corps for damages caused by flood control activities. One provision, which dates back to the Flood Control Act of 1928, was blamed when local citizens were denied damage claims for design failures in the Industrial Canal flood walls during the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Among those who brought up past failures was Councilman-at-Large Jason Williams, who likened the construction of the new lock to the erection of Interstate 10 along once-“vibrant” African-American neighborhoods in downtown New Orleans, and the flood wall failures during Hurricane Katrina.
“This group is distrustful. I work for them, so I am distrustful,” Williams said. “There’s been time and time again where things have been promised to be great and it really hurts people.”
Calvin Alexander, a member of the Board of Directors of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association and of the activist group Citizens Against Widening of the Industrial Canal, expressed similar sentiments.
He warned Mickal that residents would not soon forget the federal failures that resulted in the death of hundreds in the very area where the Corps was proposing a new project. Like most of the other roughly 200 residents in the room, Alexander urged the Corps not to build any kind of replacement lock at all for the canal.
“You people do have blood on your hands,” Alexander said. “Because of that you really need to pay strict attention to what you’re being asked tonight.”
The deadline to give the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers input about the proposed project is Friday, April 7. Comments can be sent by mail to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District; c/o Mark Lahare; CEMVN-PDC-CEC; 7400 Leake Ave., New Orleans, LA 70118, and emailed to mark.h.lahare@usace.army.mil.
This article originally published in the April 3, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the day on which the meeting took place, which was Thursday, not Monday as it appears in the print edition.
