News Service June 4, 2003

Bridges To Skirt Private Land

Tuesday June 03, 2003

Months of lobbying paid off for a group of residents near Abita Springs when new plans unveiled Monday night called for replacing three bridges along Louisiana 435 without taking large chunks of their land.

Instead of taking property for rights of way from 16 property owners on the south side of the state road, the state will take land from 900-acre Abita Preserve on the north side of the highway.

But the news wasn't all good. Denise and Mike Wagner, who live on the south side of the highway and led the effort to have the plans redrawn, said the revised project still might chew up about 30 feet of their property for new rights of way. The initial proposal would have consumed 70 feet of their property frontage and had the rights of way nearly in their living room.

Design engineer Richard Savoie of the state Department of Transportation and Development, told the Wagners he will continue to look at the maps and may be able to shift that 30 feet to the north side of the road.

An original design to replace three bridges along the highway from Downs Road to near Hillcrest subdivision would have required the state to purchase substantial portions of land on the south side of the highway.

Initially, the state didn't want to purchase the rights of way on the north side because it feared harming an endangered plant on the preserve called the quilwort. But Larry Burch of the Nature Conservancy said the quilwort is in the bottom of the Abita River and not on the land needed for right of way.

The conservancy has no problem selling the land to the state for the rights of way, Burch said at the department hearing at Abita Springs Town Hall. "We want to be good neighbors. We don't want these people to lose their property and yet we all agree we need new bridges here."

After learning from a local developer that the bridges are dangerous and accident-prone, Savoie said he will try to start the project sooner. Originally, the project contract was to be awarded in 2005 and it would take two years to build the bridges. Savoie said he will try hard to get the contract awarded by June 2004.

Savoie said the entire mile-long stretch of Louisiana 435 from Downs Road to near Hillcrest will be raised three feet to avoid flooding, which closes the highway during heavy rains. Savoie said the three-bridge replacement will cost $2.5 million.

Several residents said they worry that higher and wider bridges over the Abita Creek Relief Drainage Canal, over Abita Creek itself and another unnamed drainage relief bayou will increase flooding downstream in an already flood-prone area. Rep. Michael Strain, R-Covington, said the parish is aware of the possibility and working to develop a comprehensive parish flood-plain plan.

. . . . . . .

Richard Boyd can be reached at rboyd@timespicayune.com or (985) 898-4816.