Case History
Deep Mixing for the New Orleans East Back Levee (USA)
Wesley Schmutzler, Project Manager, TREVIICOS Corp., Boston, MA, United States Mitsuo Nozu, General Manager of International Department Fudo Tetra Corp., Japan Masaru Sakakibara, President of Fudo Construction Inc., United States
Alessandro Bertero, Trevi Spa, Design, Research and Development, Italy
Introduction
Reach LPV-111 is a part of a levee system designed to protect the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas from the storm surge resulting from a 100 year hurricane event (URL:http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/hps2/). This reach specifically protects the Bayou Savage National Wildlife Refuge, which is the largest urban wildlife refuge in the United States and home to several threatened or endangered species of birds as well as many reptiles, amphibians and small mammals.
Due to the sensitivity of the protected marshlands, deep soil mixing technologies were utilized to limit the footprint of the raised levees. The increase in the load bearing capacity of the treated soil allows for a significant decrease in the footprint necessary to attain the required height increase.
The Hurricane Protection Office of the US Army Corps of Engineers attributed failure of the New Orleans East levees system to overtopping, erosion, and subsequent breaching of LPV 111 along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (GIWW), as well as other sections of flood protection during hurricane Katrina in 2005 (Figures 1 and 2).
Figure 1. DamagedSectionof Leveeafter HurricaneKatrina(LPV-111)
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