January 29, 2021
By Frank McCormack
In the final days of the Trump administration, residents of southeast Louisiana received a parting gift from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the form of “new start” money for a $3 billion levee project called “Morganza-to-the-Gulf.”
“Today we received confirmation that the Morganza-to-the-Gulf Hurricane Protection project will receive $12.46 million in New Start construction funding,” Chip Kline, chairman of Louisiana’s Coastal Protection & Restoration Authority (CPRA), said in a statement January 19. “This marks the first time the federal government has appropriated funds through a Corps of Engineers Work Plan toward this critically important project. To date, state and local governments have invested more than $600 million toward this levee system.”