Corps Extends Review, Comment Periods For New IHNC Lock
The New Orleans Engineer District has extended the public review and comment periods for its Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IHNC) Lock Replacement Draft General Reevaluation Report (GRR) and integrated Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS).
Rather than closing on July 17, the public review and comment period for the IHNC Lock replacement project’s draft GRR and SEIS will not end on September 2. Additionally, the public review period for the project’s Clean Water Act Section 404(b)(1) public notice will end on September 2 instead of the original 30 days from its release on June 6.
The draft report, the Corps’ community impact mitigation plan and its traffic mitigation plan are all available on the New Orleans District’s website at www.mvn.usace.army.mil/about/projects/IHNC-Lock-Replacement. The New Orleans District held a public meeting in the city’s Lower Ninth Ward June 28, and materials from that meeting are also available online.
Comments may be sent by mail to District Engineer at U.A. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, 7400 Leake Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118. Comments may also be sent by email to ihnclockreplacement@usace.army.mil.
The draft report proposes to replace the existing 102-year-old lock, which measures 640 feet by 75 feet with a 31.5-foot depth, with a shallow-draft chamber measuring 900 feet by 110 feet with a depth of 22 feet.
The current cost estimate for the project, which will also include the replacement of the St. Claude Avenue bridge that spans the canal, is about $4.68 billion, cost shared between the federal treasury and the Inland Waterways Trust Fund. At that price, about $3.51 billion would come from the general treasury and about $1.17 billion from the trust fund.
According to the draft report, the New Orleans District anticipates that, if the Corps’ Chief of Engineers approves the recommended plan, engineering and design for the project could begin in fiscal year 2029, with construction going from 2033 to 2047, “assuming adequate future funding levels.”
Congress conditionally authorized the Corps to replace the existing lock in 1956.
