Study Says Dredging Vermilion River Would Cost $150 Million
U.S. Congressman Clay Higgins and Mark Wingate, deputy district engineer for Programs and Project Management for the Corps' New Orleans division, held a press conference on Thursday to announce findings from a study done by the Corps on how much dredging the Vermilion River would cost and how effective it would be for residents, according to the Advertiser.
According to the study, the dredging project - which would happen from its headwaters at Bayou Fusilier in St. Landry Parish to its outlet at Vermilion Bay - would cost $150 million and would save about 175 homes in Lafayette Parish. The study was based on a simulation of the August 2016 flood.
Here is a quote from Higgins that was documented in the Advertiser article:
"I was of the opinion, quite frankly, that there would be greater impact, greater performance out of the river if you restored it to its intended parameters. We’re seeing that dredging the Vermilion to its intended parameters is not the silver bullet that we thought it would be. It would help to a certain extent some hundreds of homes, but not the thousands of homes, the 7,300 homes in this area that were impacted by the 2016 floods."