Southwest Point Project issues have Vermilion Parish Police Jurors unhappy

The Vermilion Parish Police Jury approved a motion to pre-apply for a share in a $10 million grant project coordinated by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to match funds for three parish coastal protection projects. Still, some police jurors remain unhappy with the scour issues delaying the completion of the Southwest Point shoreline protection project.
Applications for the Louisiana Outdoors Forever Program grants would be to receive matching funds for the $1.1 million Schooner Bayou structure repair, the Southwest Pass at Southwest Point Project, and the Freshwater Bayou Project. The applications were due Friday, parish engineer Todd Vincent of Sellers and Associates told the police jury.
After receiving approval to submit pre-application papers for those grants, Vincent discussed the Southwest Point scour issues.
“There was a request that we obtain pricing for relocating the existing north breakwater that is showing some effects from scouring,” Vincent said. “The contractor came back with a price of $2.3 million to relocate it and install a mattress, which we all agree is an excessive price. The discussion at the (police jury’s Coastal) committee meeting was whether to continue with other sections of the project, the new installation, and the request is that we do a test section of about a thousand feet on the north side. It would be adjacent to where the peninsula is at the thinnest point. This would be to install the rings, which are in the contract, and to also add the mattress and the ballast. The contract installation would be $23,000, and that’s in the contract. The mattress and the ballast would be about $350,000. The committee requested that I present that for your consideration. Also, we would negotiate that the contractor comes back and install the remainder of the project next summer, with the mattress and the ballast.”
“If it works,” District 8 Police Juror Errol Domingues said.
Domingues then asked Paul Moresi III, the police jury’s legal counsel, what obligation the police jury has to taxpayers if the project fails. The project, funded by GOMESA funds, was delayed as the contractor and ring supplier worked on a cost proposal to add reinforcing steel to the rings used in the structure. The steel reinforcement ensures that if the structure cracks, it does not break apart but is just cracked.
“I think the police jury, as an initial issue, has an obligation to investigate the cause of the failure — was it improperly designed? Was it improperly installed? Was it just an act of God?” Moresi said. “I think at the outset there should be an inquiry made. You are dealing with taxpayer dollars, and if there was a failure in a project, whether it’s this, a building, any type of project where you have a failure, to try to determine was there any type of fault involved, and if so, who was the fault on?”
By act of God, Moresi said, it is something that is unforeseen or is so overwhelming that people can’t anticipate it was happening.
Vincent said that when the scouring issue first came up, the firm hired Tetra Tech, a national consulting firm, to perform a two-phase investigation into the cause of the situation and what protective measures could be taken to prevent the same issue in the remainder of the project.
“We’ve got a draft report on the first (phase of the investigation), and they issued preliminary plans for the second phase, and that’s what we’re using for pricing,” Vincent said. “We don’t have the final report in either phase yet, but I’d be happy to share that with you.”
Domingues said the police jury is not on a witch hunt to find fault.
“But a project of that magnitude, if we’re going to stop it, we have a lot invested,” Domingues said. “All those rings are built. Do we need to stop? Do we need to bring them somewhere else for another project? I don’t know what it is, all I can tell you is after six months, it’s a catastrophe.”
“The magnitude when you look at it, we took GOMESA funds, and we bonded it out for 14 or 16 years, $10.4 million, we shot half of it on this one project,” District 6 Police Juror Mark Poche said.
“And it failed,” Domingues said.
“And it failed,” said Poche. “Whether it’s our fault, his fault, the manufacturer, whoever’s fault, somebody’s fault. There’s got to be somebody that knows how to set this stuff so that this doesn’t happen. Something went wrong here.”
“I just don’t want it to go wrong again,” Domingues said. “We’re going to test this thing for a thousand feet. Then, as a jury, we will use taxpayers’ dollars to do a test right past the failure. If that fails, we will have $2 1/2, $3 million of failure money on that.”
Domingues was told that the test area would cost about $350,000 to construct.
Vincent said the scouring issue is not normal for most similar projects. The soil properties combined with the wave energies ended up causing the scour problems, he said.
“Somebody had to have more foresight at Southwest Pass with the amount of current that’s going through there to recognize the possibility of some type of scouring that could happen,” Domingues said. “That’s why we’ve lost what we’ve lost in that region, because of the excessive currents in there.”
In other business, the police jury approved adding a request from parish resident Paulette Adam to submit a pre-application for grant funds to help deal with drainage and flooding issues around where she and her husband, who live along Hwy. 13 near Bayou Queue De Tortue, the farm in the Mermantau Basin in Acadia and Vermilion parishes. Adam said she contacted District 14 Police Juror Chad Vallo, who held a public meeting in Gueydan about the Mermentau Basin flooding issues.
“I stumbled onto a watershed initiative grant and started writing,” she said. “Mr. Chad has been such a wonderful direction, and I’ve also been in touch with Mr. Todd Vincent. So, to find a positive solution, I’m asking if you would please submit my pre-application (for a grant).”
Adam said it’s been 60 years since flooding issues with the bayou have been addressed.
“It’s a region issue, there’s no question,” she said, adding that Cameron Parish representatives were at the meeting, and she’s talked with Acadia Parish representatives about a cooperative effort to solve the issue.
“Miss Paulette, we definitely will stay with Todd on top of this, and we’re going to do everything possible in our powers,” Domingues said.
Pre-applications for round 2 of the watershed initiative are due at the end of May, Vincent said, and the parish has authorized four projects already. Round 2 is not about providing funds but just getting projects on the board, he said.
Vincent said that in talking to Scooter Trosclair, there’s an 87-day turnaround for floodwaters to get out of the Bayou Queue De Tortue area and the Mermentau River currently, essentially from Indian Bayou westward. With improvements to the Mermentau Basin Project and the East End Locks, it would be reduced to a 24-day turnaround, a significant difference.
“It’s going to help,” Vallo said of the project Adam is seeking to have done. “I guess putting this as the fifth project would keep an open dialogue, which I think is what this point is all about.”