RACELAND -- In what is rapidly becoming her battle cry, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu slammed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Saturday afternoon for needlessly delaying the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane-protection project, making south Louisiana more vulnerable should a major hurricane strike.

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Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana).

Congress authorized the massive hurricane-protection system, which would protect Terrebonne Parish and parts of Lafourche Parish from a Category 3 hurricane, in November with the passage of the Water Resources and Development Act.

Since then, the project has stalled while the corps attempts to secure a second round of authorization.

"I believe the authorization already on the books is enough to move forward," Landrieu, D-La., said during a brief appearance at the Raceland Recreation Center. "We should not wait for the next WRDA bill. I feel like the current authorization is sufficient."

Morganza is a series of levees and floodgates that are designed to protect local communities from storms.

Earlier this year, the corps announced the system far exceeded the original $886 million estimate and requires a re-evaluation to form a new price tag.

Corps officials will then determine if the higher cost is justified.

The fact Morganza would cost more than originally thought is no reason to delay the project, Landrieu said.

"The corps continues to pull one excuse out of the hat after another and we’re tired of it," Landrieu said, adding that if she has her way five years from now the corps will not resemble its current incarnation.

"They should have started this project 20 years ago," she said. "The old approach was too slow and frankly too frustrating."

Morganza is far from the only levee system on Landrieu’s mind, though it is the largest.

Representatives from the corps recently told Lafourche Parish officials that the South Lafourche levee system is not high enough to keep the parish out of a special flood-hazard zone when updated FEMA flood-insurance-rate maps are released to the public later this month.

If the levee loses certification, new homes in south Lafourche might have to be built as high as 12 or 15 feet off the ground and residents’ flood-insurance costs could skyrocket.

Difficulty receiving levee certification is not something unique to south Louisiana, Landrieu said, noting that in her time in the U.S. Senate she has seen the problem everywhere across the country where there are levees.

"If you look at coastal Louisiana, there are pieces of levees that are federally authorized, but there is a big gap in those that aren’t," Landrieu said. "We are developing a comprehensive plan where all levees are authorized under new federal-state partnership. South Lafourche levees are a top priority in that plan."

A study unveiled Thursday from Louisiana’s top economists showed that a three-week closure to Port Fourchon, a Gulf of Mexico oil hub, would cost 77,000 jobs and a $10 billion loss. It would also cause a 22-cent hike in gas prices nationally.

"The more we can quantify, with hard data, the implications of the impact to the port, the better it is," Landrieu said. "Still, it’s a long, tedious, frustrating process educating the rest of the country about (the port’s impact)."

Local officials have long sought hundreds of millions of federal dollars to upgrade La. 1, the only road to and from the port. They say the road is sinking into the marshes that surrounds it.

Landrieu said it is now the congressional delegation’s job to use the study’s findings to make legislators on Capital Hill understand how important Port Fourchon is to the country’s economy.