Flood mitigation projects in Lafayette, Alexandria and Church Point won a combined $19.6 million from Louisiana’s Watershed Initiative, which announced $61.6 million for projects statewide Thursday.
The funds announced Thursday are some of the first dollars to be earmarked from LWI’s $1.2 billion cache of federal funds that were given to the state in response to the widespread damage caused by the 2016 floods.
Four projects in Acadiana’s watershed area, which is bounded by the Red River to the north, the Mermentau River to the west, the Mississippi River to the east and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, were approved for part of the $61.6 million in round one funding announced by the LWI Thursday.