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Sunday, December 11, 2011

Replacement Trees for Claiborne promised

Please note that we will remember that this was promised:
"Once construction is complete, the corps will put in new landscaping, said spokeswoman Sarah McLaughlin. There likely will be two or three times as many trees planted, with wider, mature trees being replaced inch-for-inch with younger trees, she said."
Can someone please show us the line in the SELA implementation plan and the associated budget so that we will KNOW that this promise (like the one made for Dublin Street) doesn't end up BROKEN?

Also please note that, while the TREES can be replaced, NOTHING has been said or done (or if it has it has not been communicated to the neighborhood organizations that raised the question) regarding the Monticello Canal and the constriction at Airline which will cause all the water that is expected to flow faster down Claiborne from other areas in Uptown to potentially back up into the areas around the Monticello Canal.  Taking Water from wealthier areas and funneling it into less wealthy areas. 

An Army Corps of Engineers contractor has removed 73 trees and dozens of shrubs from the Claiborne Avenue neutral ground between the Jefferson Parish line and Cambronne Street as part of a massive project to improve drainage in the area.

The work, which was completed this week, was the first step in a $27.1 million contract to build about 2,500 feet of covered canal adjacent to the existing canal underneath the neutral ground.
The 38-month project is aimed at improving drainage in the Carrollton area to handle 9 inches of rain in 24 hours, or a 10-year rainfall event.

Once construction is complete, the corps will put in new landscaping, said spokeswoman Sarah McLaughlin. There likely will be two or three times as many trees planted, with wider, mature trees being replaced inch-for-inch with younger trees, she said.

The clearing work was coordinated and approved by the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board, which is the local sponsor of the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Damage Reduction Project, and by the city’s Department of Parks and Parkways, said corps spokesman René Poché.

Poché said corps officials discussed with the city agencies possibly relocating some of the trees, but it was decided to use all the money set aside for landscaping on restoring the neutral ground after the new canal work is completed at the end of 2014.

He said a similar strategy was used in restoring parts of the neutral ground along Napoleon Avenue after completion of a new canal there several years ago.

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