Comite Diversion project receives funding needed to finish

October 23, 2023

Comite River Diversion project receives funding needed to finish project by end of 2025

See original story on WAFB

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - During a construction site visit, today, Rep. Garret Graves announced that the Comite River Diversion Canal Project will finish by November 2025.

He claims the project’s anticipated finish date won’t be pushed back anymore and that families in the area will soon be able to live without the fear of flooding.

“We’re not saying ‘if it happens again’, we’re saying ‘when’,” said Noel Hunt, a member of the concerned citizens for drainage improvement.

Noel hunt’s house, well over 100 years old, has only flooded once, during the 2016 flood when so many others in the area also had to evacuate due to flooding.

“We all have PTSD after that flood,” he said. “We start getting four, five, six inches of rain everyone starts panicking.”

The 2016 flood took everything from Hunt and he’s afraid it’ll happen again if the Comite river diversion canal project hits another roadblock.

“If the canal had been built which was conceived in the 1980s, if it had been built long before now then it would’ve kept the water out of my house,” said Hunt.

For years, he and thousands of other flood victims have been met with excuses when asking about the project delays.

And they were crushed to hear, a few months back, funding for the project would likely dry up before the end of this year.

But today, Congressman Garret Graves says they’ve been able to figure out ways to secure the added funding and they’re now full speed ahead.

“The thing that I tell people they should be excited about is that they’ve never seen anything like this,” said Congressman Graves. “This is what progress looks like.”

The cost of the project had skyrocketed from earlier estimates to more than $900 million.

“We’re going to go and work with the corps of engineers and hope by the end of next week we have a funding strategy in place and will include tapping those reserve funds as well as potentially looking at other sources,” the congressman added.