A system of 26.7 miles of levees and seawalls along south Orange County is part of three projects funded with $3.9 billion in federal funds announced in July. The project includes flood gates across Adams and Cow bayous.
The Orange part of the levees is estimated to cost $1.93 billion, according to the 2017 final feasibility study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The funding, which is part of the “Coastal Spine,” does not require local matching money. Thursday morning, the Texas State Network broadcast news, of which KOGT is a member, reported about the spine beginning on the Louisiana border.
Port Arthur is the first of the three projects with Orange second and Freeport third.
Engineering and environmental studies have been conducted. A public hearing on the flood protection system was held at the Orange County Expo Center on April 14, 2016.
Bloomberg News in March this year reported that “chemical companies are pressing officials to spend billions of dollars on flood control” around the Houston area.
The Associated Press on Wednesday reported the coastal spine will have nearly 60 miles “of concrete seawalls, earthen barriers, floating gates and steel levees on the Texas Gulf Coast.
The online Insurance Journal Thursday said the Port Arthur section of the spine will be raising the dirt levees to 17 feet high and building six miles of 19-foot-tall floodwalls around the city, according to the plans showed at the 2016 public meeting.
The publication said the three smaller projects were “fast-tracked” for the money to help the petrochemical and oil industries.
The barriers around Orange County would range from 22.5 feet near the Neches River in Bridge City to 16.5 feet in downtown Orange.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers final feasibility study on the project was finished in May 2017, before Hurricane Harvey hit this past August. The flood from Harvey added impetus to approve the money for the plans. Texas U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn have backed the expenditures of federal money on the “Coastal Spine.”
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
Above: BC Mayor David Rutledge looks at a proposed map of the project during a meeting in 2016.
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