GALLIANO — Advocates of coastal transportation had hoped a $700 billion federal economic-stimulus measure would help build the next phase of an upgraded highway to Port Fourchon.
But an application for $300 million in construction money has been rejected, and members of the La. 1 Coalition, an advocacy group, are regrouping.
“It was a big hope for us,” said Henri Boulet, executive director of the coalition, which is made up of business and government interests.
The group's goal is an upgraded highway that runs all the way from U.S. 90 to Port Fourchon, which serves as the supply point for more than half of all oil-and-gas production in the Gulf.
Currently, however, the only path to the port is a winding marsh road that's slowly sinking from coastal erosion and routinely floods during storms. And the area's small bayou roads are ill-equipped to handle the heavy trucks that regularly traverse them.
The coalition applied for about $300 million to build an 8.3 mile stretch from Golden Meadow to Leeville under the $1.5 billion Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant program, more commonly known as the “TIGER” program.
But they faced stiff nationwide competition from 1,400 projects totalling $57 billion vying for the money.
Though it was unsuccessful, Boulet said applying for the grant helped by familiarizing the new administration of President Barack Obama with the project.
In two weeks, Boulet and lobbyists from La. 1 Coalition members like Shell, Chevron and BP will sit down for a strategy session on how best to proceed. They will likely try to get the money by attaching a measure to a jobs bill or energy bill.
“We all agreed to come to the table on how important La. 1 is,” he said.
Boulet said he was encouraged by Obama's recently-released plan for the coast, which echoes advocates' longtime calls that energy vulnerability is one of the risks of inaction on coastal land loss.
Boulet says he hopes to harness that same argument with the new administration, since Port Fourchon plays a role in producing 16 to 18 percent of the nation's domestic energy supply.
The first part of the effort was the $161 million Tomey J. Doucet Bridge over Bayou Lafourche, which replaced an aging lift bridge that often broke down. That bridge, the area's first toll road, was completed in July.
The next part under way is a 10-mile elevated highway from Leeville to Port Fourchon. When it's complete, drivers will come straight off the Tomey Doucet Bridge and connect with a highway that goes directly to Fourchon.
That $141 million section, which started construction at the port end in March 2007, is 43 percent complete, according to Dustin Annison, a spokesman for the Louisiana transportation department. It's due to be finished in November 2011.
The next section to be built will run about 8 miles from the northern end of the Tomey Doucet Bridge to connect with the four-lane La. 3235 from Larose to Golden Meadow.
That section is already undergoing pre-construction work, but money to build it hasn't yet been found.
Another piece of the project, a $31 million bridge in Larose, is about 13 percent complete, Annison said. That bridge will allow drivers coming down La. 308 to cross Bayou Lafourche on a new bridge and merge smoothly onto La. 3235, a junction that now requires several awkward turns on bayouside roads.
