'Monster truck' excavator will combat levee issues

THIBODAUX -- A cutting-edge earth-cutting tool has been added to the arsenal of equipment for levee and drainage upkeep in the central and north areas of Lafourche Parish.

It’s a marsh buggy that resembles a tank, capable of roving through deep parish waterways.

Called a deepwater marsh buggy, the $800,000 amphibious excavator will begin operating in Bayou Blue Wednesday. It will sweep out the Hollywood Canal, which officials say is choked with silt.

The length of two automobiles, complete with a boom capable of extending 60 feet, the vehicle is the second marsh buggy operated by the North Lafourche Levee District.

But unlike its predecessor, which is inoperable when submerged deeper than 3 feet, the buggy is capable of operating in waters up to five feet deep.

Seven-feet tall and 5-feet wide pontoons that make it considerably more stable than a traditional buggy, which features smaller pontoons of about 5-feet tall and 6-feet wide, officials say.

"It looks like a monster truck more than a standard marsh buggy," said Dwayne Bourgeois, an administrative consultant with Leonard Chauvin Inc., an engineering and land-surveying firm.

It joins a $1.6 million hydraulic crane, assembled in January and paid for by parish government and the North Lafourche Levee District.

Parish government will pay for an operator and fuel, The North Lafourche Levee District, a state funded agency, pays the rest.

"What the North Lafourche Levee District has tried to do is purchase equipment that is not typical or already in the parish’s system," Bourgeois said. "This can even go to the South Lafourche Levee District, if needed in an emergency."

The older marsh buggy, officials said, has become a financial liability and will soon be put to rest.