Baton Rouge Reporter

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman Garret Graves (South Louisiana) announced today that an additional $476 million in funding has been secured to complete the Comite Flood Control Project. The project was half-finished when the Corps of Engineers announced earlier this year that these additional funds, on top of the $471 million Graves had previously secured for the project, would be needed to see it finished.

“We’ve seen the cost of this project more than triple since we first ‘fully funded’ it in 2018,” Graves said. “If your home construction cost tripled, heads would roll. This is no different. The Corps of Engineers needs to be held accountable. These cost increases are unacceptable, but we can’t allow the Comite Project to stall again as it did for nearly four years before we revived it. My top priority is to get this project finished as quickly as possible. We have now secured nearly a billion dollars for this one linchpin flood protection project for the Capital Region.”   

In a conversation earlier today, Graves received a commitment from the Corps’ Deputy Chief of Engineers that the project would be finished on the current schedule, expected in 2025. 

The project is intended to decrease flood risk in the Amite Basin, particularly in East Baton Rouge, Livingston, and Ascension parishes. That basin was particularly impacted by the 2016 flood, which resulted in 109,000 homes flooded and over $3.8 billion in residential property damage throughout the state.

Original source can be found here.