Water from "richer" areas of New Orleans soon to flow at a faster rate into the Monticello Canal

Take a look at the map provided by the Times Picayune:

Water from "richer" areas of New Orleans will soon be flowing at a faster rate into the Monticello Canal.  But we are told that we are not to worry.

I ask you to do the following experiment:
Hook up a lot of hoses to various faucets on the outside of your house. 
Put all the open hose ends at approximately the same location and turn on the water. 
What happens? Water backs up right? 
Increase the flow rate.  What happens? MORE Water backs up. 

But this won't happen when the SELA projects do just that to the Monticello Canal, at least that's what Sewerage and Water Board, Council Member Guidry, the State of Louisiana and the Corps of Engineers want us to believe.
It's not just about the capacity of the canal.  It is about the water that will back up in streets and drains that dump into Monticell because there will already be too much water in the Monticello from other areas of the city.  This is not a Robin Hood story.  This is Prince John dumping on the peasants.

"With the first phase of a seven-year, $427.2 million effort to build nearly six miles of new underground drainage canals in Uptown slated to begin in a few weeks, the Army Corps of Engineers said this week that a second round of computer modeling has confirmed that the work will not worsen flooding in Hollygrove."

Remember what the Corps of Engineers and the State of Louisiana and others said about MRGO?

Below is the full article from the 1.12.2012 Times Picayune

Drainage Canal work won't worsen Hollygrove flooding, corps assures.

By Michelle Kruppa, who keeps reporting on this when it seems no one else cares.
Thank you Michelle.

"With the first phase of a seven-year, $427.2 million effort to build nearly six miles of new underground drainage canals in Uptown slated to begin in a few weeks, the Army Corps of Engineers said this week that a second round of computer modeling has confirmed that the work will not worsen flooding in Hollygrove.

Corps officials ran the additional test in response to long-standing concerns from residents that water flowing west from Uptown backs up water in the Monticello Canal, which runs along the western edge of Hollygrove at the Jefferson Parish line and empties into the wider 17th Street Canal, then into Lake Pontchartrain.

In recent downpours, water has spilled over the Monticello Canal banks into the neighborhood, which unlike the Jefferson Parish side of the canal is not protected by a levee and floodwall.
That flooding stirred fears among Hollygrove residents that significant expansion of drainage capacity under five Uptown thoroughfares would cause water in the canal to rise even more quickly. But corps and S&WB officials have insisted that the mammoth capacity of Pump Station No. 6, which straddles the 17th Street Canal about two miles south of the lake, is sufficient to keep streets dry.

S&WB General Superintendent Joe Becker said in an email that the corps’ most recent modeling indicates the flow will increase about one foot during a 10-year storm but will stay below the canal’s containment walls. New Orleans City Councilwoman Susan Guidry, whose district includes the area, said she is satisfied with the findings.

Though corps officials have insisted that the Monticello Canal can handle additional drainage from Uptown, they have acknowledged that a narrow culvert at Airline Drive — about three-fifths of a mile north of the canal’s origin at South Claiborne Avenue — could force water to back up into the large section of the canal south of Airline Drive.

Becker said Jefferson Parish leaders have asked the corps to expand its computer modeling of the Uptown drainage work “to see if that one-foot rise would create any potential flooding issues” at the Airline Drive bottleneck, known as Hoey’s Cut.

“The corps has agreed to do that,” Becker said, adding that the analysis “is expected to be completed shortly and will be presented to both Jefferson and Orleans to make sure that all issues are addressed.”

Jefferson Parish officials last year announced that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration had committed $1.8 million to improve the flow of water in that area, though the sum amounts to a fraction of the $20.5 million likely needed to complete the job.
Wingate said a broader corps study of potential improvements to the area is “on hold pending receiving additional appropriations.”

Guidry said that until the full sum is in hand, she wants the Monticello Canal north of Airline Drive to be widened and an earthen levee on the Orleans side hardened with concrete.
The drainage causing concern includes construction of concrete canals under South Claiborne Avenue between Monticello Avenue and Leonidas Street; under Napoleon Avenue between South Claiborne Avenue and Carondelet Street; and along Louisiana and Jefferson avenues and Prytania Street. All of the work is expected to be completed by 2017."

Michelle Krupa can be reached at mkrupa@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3312.