Plan to dam New Orleans waterway

The Army Corps of Engineers said Saturday that it wanted to build a $50-million earthen dam to plug a ship channel blamed for much of the flooding from Hurricane Katrina.

The announcement at a meeting in Chalmette, a refinery town just outside New Orleans, won the battered agency some of the first praise it has received since the hurricane. Area leaders and residents have clamored for years for the closing of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, known as MRGO or “Mr. Go.”

“It’s about time,” said Carlton Dufrechou, executive director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, a group advocating the restoration of the lake system surrounding New Orleans.

“This thing has been a cancer in the coast of southeast Louisiana for decades,” Dufrechou said. “The bottom line is that as long as the MRGO is open, the coast is shot.”

Greg Miller, a corps project manager, said closing the man-made channel was “a key piece to the whole plan to restore and protect southeast Louisiana.”

The corps’ announcement was a major victory for leaders of St. Bernard Parish, where residents display signs reading “The Mister Go Must Go” on their lawns and say they won’t feel safe until the channel is closed.

When the corps presented its findings, the meeting’s many attendees burst into applause.

The corps will present a final plan to Congress by the end of the year, and Congress must still approve it. Officials said that depending on Congress, a dam could be built by the start of next year’s hurricane season.

Closing the channel with a dam, however, presents a problem for the maritime industry. Several businesses that rely on the MRGO are asking to be relocated, and Congress would have to approve tens of millions of dollars for that to happen.

The industry is pushing for a set of $764-million locks between the Mississippi River and eastern New Orleans waterways.