HOUMA -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has proved inefficient, and the state must take control if it hopes to succeed with the coastal master plan, agreed members of the future governor’s Coastal Restoration and Hurricane Protection Advisory Council on Monday.

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"The state must take over this program if we want to succeed. Forget about the corps," said Jack Caldwell, a coastal-protection and wetlands consultant who testified before the council.

The council gathered at the Terrebonne Parish Main Library for the first of several public hearings to take testimony from experts on how Louisiana can reduce the time and expense on large-scale emergency projects and take action quickly to restore and protect the coast.

Members also brainstormed how to streamline the relationship between local, state and federal partners.

The Coastal Restoration and Hurricane Protection Advisory Council is one of three councils that will eventually make recommendations to Gov.-elect Bobby Jindal about Louisiana’s ongoing hurricane-recovery process. Other groups include the Hurricane Recovery group and the Emergency Preparedness group.

The group is chaired by outgoing state Rep. Loulan Pitre, R-Cut Off.

Many council members expressed frustration at the lack of progress in implementing the state’s expansive agenda for coastal restoration and hurricane protection, despite promises made from federal and state officials after the 2005 storms.

"We’re at a precipice," said Berwick Duval, a Houma attorney and a member of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Restoration. "Do we have the political will to move ahead with these projects, or do we let them stagnate and let our communities die?"

With the wetlands and marshes deteriorating rapidly and the prospects of future storms, something has to be done to jump start projects, council members agreed.

"I’m concerned that we’re returning to some of the systems and the lack of urgency we had before the storms," Pitre said. "We have the opportunity to provoke change."

Pitre pointed to the state’s coastal master plan, Congress’ recent passage of a Water Resources and Development Act that authorizes more than $3 billion in Louisiana projects and the release of hundreds of millions of dollars in offshore-oil revenue to the state to pay for coastal fixes. This, he said, is evidence that now is a pivotal time to act.

Steve Wilson, Ponchartrain Levee District board president, added that "waiting on the corps" has been a common refrain for levee districts.

"If we rely on the corps’ time scale, we’ll never get it done. Let the state set a time scale that is very demanding," said Dominic Izzo, a coastal engineer and chairman of the Wetland and Sediment Management Committee of the Coasts, Oceans, Ports and Rivers Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Randy Hanchey, former deputy secretary of the Department of Natural Resources and a former corps engineer, agreed that the state needs to take a stronger role when dealing with the corps. Creating an integrated office to deal with both coastal-restoration and hurricane-protection projects will be key, he said.

Currently, most hurricane-protection projects are under the jurisdiction of the transportation department, and most coastal-restoration projects are the responsibility of the Department of Natural Resources. This creates unnecessary confusion, he said.

The state will be coming upon reliable sources of money to pay for projects, including about $510 million in offshore-oil revenues over the next four years. Another $200 million for coastal projects will come from the state’s budget surplus.

It’s unlikely that the state will see any serious money for projects authorized in this year’s Water Resources Development Act until 2009, Hanchey said, and the state has about 18 months to use money currently available.

"We need a strategy where the state takes the lead and gets back in front," Hanchey said. "If the corps wants to stay in business they will eventually have to change their practices.

"That’s been a question we’ve had for a really long time -- do we really need the corps to do all this work?" Hanchey added. "The time has come. They need to be challenged."

Izzo also suggested that the state should be "biased toward action" when it comes to rebuilding the coast. Projects have slowed under the permitting processes and numerous authorizations required.

Instead, the state could conduct one environmental-impact study for all barrier-island restoration projects from Grand Isle to the Texas border to avoid repeating studies that would probably end up being very similar, he said.

Hanchey suggested bypassing the traditional project-feasibility studies in favor of a fast-tracked process that combines planning and design.

Izzo also suggested combining many smaller projects into large-scale efforts. Instead of bidding out restoration of Raccoon Island or Wine Island, for example, restore the entire Isle Dernieres chain. This would attract world-class engineering talent.

The state needs to make sure it’s keeping itself open to the latest innovations in science, Hanchey said.

"We need to bring in more science," he said, adding that it is important that the state invest in a research facility that would attract coastal-engineering talent. "If we invest in this capability, our risks will diminish with time."

Chip Groat, a professor of energy and mineral resources at the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin, said he believes the state should open itself up to creativity when it comes to projects of a larger magnitude, like proposals to re-route portions of the Mississippi to create a new delta.

"We haven’t provided that opportunity for engineers and universities. We should be saying, ëHere’s what we want you to do. Give us your best ideas,’ " he said.

In the long run, Groat said, we need to be focused on creating a new, sustainable ecosystem, and that will require large river diversions and engineering of a magnitude that is hard to imagine.

"Those are the hardest decisions and the biggest commitment, and perhaps that’s why we’ve shied away from those decisions in the past," said Ted Falgout, director of Port Fourchon.

The advisory council will meet again in two weeks in Jefferson Parish.

The team includes many other locals, including:

•Chet Morrison, Jr. of Schriever, president of Chet Morrison oilfield contractors.

•Charlotte Bollinger, an executive at Bollinger Shipyards in Lockport and a Restore or Retreat board member.

•Windell Curole of Cut Off, executive director of the South Lafourche Levee District and a Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority board member.

•Lori Leblanc of Houma, director of the coastal-advocacy group Restore or Retreat.

•Larry Picciola a Lockport engineer and developer.

•Clifford Smith of Houma, board chairman of T. Baker Smith Inc.

•Kerry St. Pé, director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program.

•Mark Pregeant of Gailliano, operations manager of Grand Isle Shipyards.

•Jerome Zeringue of Houma, director of the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District.