New Orleans Levee rebuilds

Wasn't Sure what topic these would fall under so I'll leave it to the Mod's to put them where they belong.

This is the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain Levee a few miles from I-10 headed into New Orleans. This Job is one of the BIGGEST cluster **** I've ever seen. Trucks are dumping on swamp pads, then dozers push sand 200 yards out, hopefully to some type of grade. They do not use the GPS on the dozers very often that I've seen mostly because it looks like no one really knows how to use them properly or that they have limited operators that know how. Its hilarious to watch, frustrating to sit forever making very little money because the dozers pushing sand can barely keep up. All 7 of them at this levee. 5 or 6 at another levee off I-10.

Enjoy, I'll be happy to tell what I know and I'm sorry for the poor quality pictures, If I get caught using a phone/handheld device they will throw me off the job for the day:ban

coupla more

Looks like fun huh?ointhead

Not sure what they are trying too do,other then waste tax money!!!!! If they are trying to build another levee too the height of the old levee where the pickups are setting then they don't have worry about using GPS for quite awhile.

Where the trucks have the haul road looks like toe stakes for widing the old level.But the other pictures they just look like their wasting fill sand?You will have to explain,with more detail:beatsme.

Great pics for no handheld equipment.Thanks:usa

looks like a nice beach when they get done.lol I hope there not building a levee out of sand. no wonder they fail! Good pictures w/ a camera phone though

Boggled

Well I was hoping somebody with site prep experience could sum it up.

I'll get a few more pictures tomorrow.

They are spreading some type of fabric material over the swamp muck then spreading the sand over that. The sand is not compacted with the exception of the dozers running over it multiple times. Nothing can be driven on it without a swamp pad under it.

These levees are incredibly small considering whats expected of them. I reside in South Central Florida on a lake called Okeechobee. The levees built by the Army Corps of Engineers there at Lake Okeechobee are HUGE compared to these mole hills. Sadly I have not done much research net wise about this but its hilarious to watch. If what they are doing even survives a minimal storm surge this summer (hurricance season) I'll be shocked.

Stories from the locals are that there was a commission appointed by the state to maintain these levees not long after they were constructed, but the usual corruption/misappropriation of federal/state funding lead to the disbanding of such.....now this massive effort to fix something that should have been maintained and upgraded systematically.

As a tax payer I'd really hate to know how much is being spent here and I'm pretty sure the federal government just shuts up, signs the cheque hoping the media never get wind of it and make a stink about it.

I know this too, the dozer operators are making some of the best hourly wages paid anywhere in ALL the southeast.:drinkup

Without the engineering design and the overall project plan to look at, it's hard to come to a conclusion on the operation. The process may not seem efficient to the untrained eye during the different stages of the project. From the pictures we don't know what the finish elevation is or the width of the levee. Regardless it looks like a lot of fill is required.

Or it could be just a big waste of taxpayers money.:beatsme

Yes Sir, Lots and lots of fill.

I did some research and saw the Army Corps Of Engineers is still looking for 13.4 million square yards of clay for various projects in the area.

CM1995 said:

Or it could be just a big waste of taxpayers money.:beatsme

Click to expand...

amen

Fiber

This is the paper/fiber spread they are putting under the sand. On close up its heavy duty stuff, very thick and they mesh it so it won't separate.

Found it

But the resolution sucks because of the sun....I tried to play with it a little to clean it up but...

It kind of looks like they are building a living shoreline to take the wave action. Is there a stone sill out in the water from the edge of the sand?

I worked on some levees in st bernard parish. Any time you get the corrupt corps and local contractors to work down there,there is something going on. Any way we removed and bags and broken concrete chunks that where air dropped in to close the hole in the levee. We replace it with sand then a heavy fabric liner and then compacted clay. I am sure what we removed was stronged than what replaced it.

milling_drum said:

Yes Sir, Lots and lots of fill.

I did some research and saw the Army Corps Of Engineers is still looking for 13.4 million square yards of clay for various projects in the area.

Click to expand...

Did they actually say they were looking for SQUARE yards?

Just a thought, how about we stop building cities in swamp lands except for shipping docks, and my favorite one if they keep adding to a city that is already below sea level and sits at the coast it deserves to sink. That seems to make as much sense as trying to grade water.

whos the company doing the work......looks like their using woven geofabric , ive used it before works good keeps the sand from pushing down into the mud, its kinda like the black silt fence but woven tighter

Looks like fun. We do alot of Corps levee projects all over the pacific northwest and we have never used sand unless we were building a beach or the related. Keep sneeking the pics and would like to see the finished product.

Doubt I'll be around here much past the warming trend that occurs up north where theres actual money to be made....

This is what a section of the pad they were working on looked like this morning, its wrong for me to pass judgement on them but....they aren't very organized. Any reputatable grading foreman would have set an area clear for the morning with over 100 trucks expected before 7 am. Instead, it was a cluster **** most of the day waiting 45 mins to dump. Being paid by the ton isn't a very good deal working for them.

Hard to say whether they "asked" for clay but this is the web version.

http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/hps/borrow_pits_home.htm

They have another Job in a Section of New Orleans called Belle Chase. They run over 80 trucks close to 24 hours a day on clay only too that jobsite. I was down there once and it looks like they are building a huge turbine pump for water or....something like that. There's 6 cranes over 200 ton lift capacity each, equipment everywhere. Kiewit have that job. The section I am involved in is Phillips and Jordan.

Excuse me again....I'm such an idiot around experts.

They are looking for "Cubic" yards. So sorry.

They have another Job in a Section of New Orleans called Belle Chase. They run over 80 trucks close to 24 hours a day on clay only too that jobsite. I was down there once and it looks like they are building a huge turbine pump for water or....something like that. There's 6 cranes over 200 ton lift capacity each, equipment everywhere. Kiewit have that job. The section I am involved in is Phillips and Jordan.[/QUOTE]

P & J! that in it self tells a story.

I'll comment later w/ insight; busy rebuilding my D8H at the moment.