Southern U gets $7.6M to reduce erosion in ravine on campus

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Southern University is getting $7.6 million to reduce erosion in a 45-foot-deep (13.7-meter-deep) ravine through the Baton Rouge campus that threatens to drop university buildings into the Mississippi River, officials announced Wednesday.

“This is more than funding for a drainage project. This is a move that will protect and shore up this historically Black university for the next generation,” U.S. Rep. Troy Carter said in a news release.

The money “will do more than put a band-aid on this problem, it will be a long-term solution to protect Southern University — and this beautiful community space — from tumbling down the bluff,” Carter said.

The grant from a U.S. Department of Agriculture emergency watershed protection program will go toward a $35 million project to stabilize the ravine, officials said.

About $43 million worth of buildings, parking lots and support equipment is at risk, according to the state Department of Transportation and Development.

The ravine carries out water from about 852 acres (345 hectares) of land along the Mississippi River.

When the river rises, its backwater fills the ravine’s main stem, “killing vegetation that holds the bank and bottom soils in place," according to a letter sent in February from the state department to USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service. When the river falls again, the moving water ”creates soil instabilities on the embankment,” it said.

The department said it spent $9 million in 2019 to stabilize and improve drainage at two crossings, and is working on another $3 million in emergency repairs approved last year.

Work under the new grant covers several features, including shoring up a retaining wall, installing weirs to control river flow and modifying the water channel alignment to...