Coastal Resilience (.com)

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Learn more about Stantec’s Coastal Flood Risk Reduction & Restoration experience.

NEW ORLEANS

DONALDSONVILLE

MID BRETON SOUND

Orange County Coastal Storm Risk Management Project

Client: USACE Galveston District

Project Orange will mitigate interior flooding during surge events. The 26.7-mile system includes 15.6 miles of levees, 10.7 miles of concrete floodwalls, 13.5- to 16-foot gates, and 7 pump stations. Stantec is part of the Galveston Coastal Services Joint Venture.

Client: USACE New Orleans District

This $700M post-Katrina capstone project in the 350 miles of hurricane protection surrounding New Orleans. PCCP includes floodwalls, levees, sluice gates, and three storm drainage pump stations with a total capacity of 24,300 CFS.

Permanent Canal Closures & Pumps

Client: USACE New Orleans District

Stantec, as part of the FFEB Joint Venture, provided investigation and design upgrades to 260+ miles of the Hurricane and Storm Risk Reduction System under multiple AE contracts.

A-E Services for Hurricane & Storm Damage Risk Reduction System (HSDRRS)

Client: USACE New Orleans District

The project includes 4 pumping stations with a capacity of 5,600 CFS, floodwalls, bypass gates, and levees as part of the 100-year risk reduction system featuring an 18-mile levee system.

West Shore Lake Pontchartrain Pump Stations and Drainage Structures

Client: USACE Vicksburg District

The project, which restored current authorized flood protection levels within the New Orleans Levee District, includes 10,450 linear feet of earthen levees and construction of 2,850 linear feet of new floodwall, including vehicular and pedestrian flood gates.

Carrollton Levee Floodwall & Levee Enlargement

ORANGE COUNTY

Stantec is recognized as an innovator in the delivery of flood risk management, coastal storm risk reduction, water resources, navigation, and ecosystem restoration projects that support coastal programs across North America. We help create safer communities and resilient environments through design partnerships on local and state levels.

On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina brought 120 mile per hour winds and a 26-foot storm surge to the Louisiana coastline, cutting a swath of devastation up through Mississippi and into Tennessee. Flooding breached over 50 levees built to protect New Orleans, submerging 80 percent of the city under water in a single day. Eighteen hundred people died; tens of thousands more were displaced. At over $81 billion in damages, it was one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history. The storm caused a nation to search its soul—and to respond.

The Storm

A Story of Coastal Resilience

Coastal Resilience

The response was the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) $14.5 billion Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System (HSDRRS), designed to significantly reduce the risk of flooding from a 100- year storm event in New Orleans and surrounding metropolitan area. The HSDRRS required unprecedented field explorations and laboratory analyses. As part of the FFEB JV, Stantec provided critical geotechnical information for the stability and seepage evaluations that determined the safety of existing embankments and structures protecting the area. Within a week following the JV’s notice to proceed in January 2007, Stantec mobilized 23 drill rigs and six cone penetration testing (CPT) units, with samples tested by 80 technicians in a USACE certified laboratory. We completed 360 geological investigations over a 10-year period, resulting in 3,232 undisturbed borings totaling 257,829 feet.

Stantec Mobilizes

Part of the PCCP design process included a 1:16 model of key parts of the system to test assumptions that could not be verified by computer simulations. Our innovative plan to cost-effectively integrate computer and physical models enabled us to study our design with the required level of detail.

Model Behavior

The last major piece of the HSDRRS program was the $730 million Permanent Canal Closures and Pumps (PCCP) project, completing the storm surge barrier along the City’s northern limits at Lake Pontchartrain. Stantec led the design of three massive pump station and flood gate facilities, one of the world’s largest systems of its kind. During a major storm, the 18-foot high flood gates lower to prevent lake surge from entering the canals as water from the canals is pumped into the lake. About 450 Stantec colleagues representing 55 offices contributed to the five-year project. “Those of us who moved to New Orleans to help deliver the project were welcomed as part of the local community,” says Stantec executive vice president, John Take. “Together, our strong feelings about the importance of this effort were clear, and our drive to deliver the best possible project was infectious.”

PCCP Breaks Ground

New Orleans

While the initial HSDRRS program was being designed and built, Hurricane Isaac struck in 2012. The storm surge flooded approximately 7,000 homes and submerged Interstate 10 west of downtown New Orleans, delaying emergency response across the region for days. Studies revealed that a major addition to the initial HSDRRS system was needed to protect more than 60,000 people in the area. The solution was the West Shore Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System. Part of that system, the $760M West Shore Lake Pontchartrain project, was funded by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. Currently in design, the project features an 18-mile (29-kilometer) levee system that includes four pump stations, flood walls, levees, flood gates, environmental canals, drainage canals, safe houses, and bypass drainage gates.

Expanding the Barrier

Texas

To make the area less vulnerable to natural disasters, sea-level rise, and land subsidence, the USACE is developing the Sabine Pass to Galveston Bay Coastal Storm Risk Management and Ecosystem Restoration program. The program’s largest project is the $1.9 billion Orange County Coastal Storm Risk Management Project. Project Orange, as it’s called, is being delivered by the Stantec/Jacobs Galveston Coastal Services Joint Venture. The project includes 15.6 miles of new levees, 10.7 miles of new concrete floodwalls and gates, seven new pump stations to manage interior flooding during surge events, 453 acres of marsh restoration, and 560 acres of forested wetlands preserved. The project will also include navigable sector gates and drainage structures.

Project Orange

As Louisiana and Mississippi were responding to catastrophic storms, so was Texas. From 2005 to 2017, the area from Port Arthur, Texas, 90 miles (145 kilometers) east of Houston, to the coastal city of Galveston, southwest of Houston, was slammed by storm surges ranging from six to 14 feet. Although many of the area’s flood protection systems performed well, numerous communities were nonetheless inundated by storm surges and relentless tropical rainfall. Studies showed that about 2.26 million people live within the storm-surge inundation zone. The area also includes three of the nine largest oil refineries in the world, 40 percent of the US petrochemical industry, 25 percent of the nation’s petroleum-refining capacity, and three of the ten largest U.S. seaports.

Rita, Ike, Harvey…

Improving resiliency for coastal communities

A sampling of Stantec’s Gulf of Mexico Coastal Storm Risk Reduction and Management Projects

Client: CPRA

To reconnect the Mississippi River to deteriorating wetlands in the Breton Sound Basin, we provided numerical modeling, including morphodynamics, sediment transport (fines and sand), and Delft3D hydrodynamics model.

Mid-Breton Sediment Diversion

Client: Bayou Lafourche Freshwater District

The new 1,500 CFS pump station has 500 CFS redundancy capability within a coastal environment. Stantec provided full design services, including the outfall structure, river intake system, pipeline, levee, and permits.

Bayou Lafourche Pumping Capacity Improvements

John montgomery

Coastal Restoration and Protection, Program Manager

Sub-Sector Leader, Urban Waterways

john menninger

Coastal Restoration and Protection, Environmental Sector Lead

DOM KEMPSON

Coastal Storm Risk Management, Delivery Lead

Dan grandal

Principal,

GREG SPRICH

Project Manager, Water Resources

DANIEL PROCTOR

Executive Vice President,

JOHN TAKE

Discipline Leader, Riverine Hydraulics

matt hoy

Discipline Leader, Coastal Engineering

Jeff Tabar

Our Experts

Stantec’s long legacy of coastal flood risk reduction and ecosystem restoration projects includes numerous built interventions, such as levees, pump stations, floodwalls, gates, and diversions. Our goal is to protect communities by reducing flood risk for our cities and vital infrastructure.

Senior Environmental Specialist

chuck roadley

Senior Geotechnical Engineer

jay mazzoni

Vice President,

APRIL VANCE

Senior Project Manager, Heavy Civil Infrastructure

Hilary Thibodeaux

Senior Geotechnical Engineer

jacqueline harmon

Global Practice Leader, Environmental Hydraulics

Fangbiao lin

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Urban Infrastructure

Coastal Restoration and Protection,

Environmental Sector Lead

Principal,

Urban Infrastructure

Coastal Restoration and Protection,

Environmental Sector Lead

Senior Pump Station/Hydraulic Engineer

Senior Pump Station/Hydraulics Engineer

USACE Account Manager