IHNC and the Lower Ninth

The locks at the Industrial Canal provide river traffic access to the inner navigation channel, the Intracoastal waterway and the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet. Locks at the river entrance to the canal provide the translation from river level to sea level. The locks are 640 feet long, 75 feet wide and 31.5 feet deep. The inner harbor contains the original container handling equipment  at the port. At New Orleans the river is 2-17 feet above sea level. Construction began in 1918, opened in 1923.

Plans to upgrade the locks have been resisted for decades by environmentalists and residents who stand to be displaced by the construction. Current recommendations are to close access to the Lake with a dam and place a floodwall in the GIWW/MRGO channel which would be closed when a big storm threatened.

The floodwall plan contains the same problems as other floodwall plans around the city. Namely, that when the floodwalls are closed, the locations of the current pumping stations are such that rainwater pumping must cease.

These levees failed during Betsy and failed again in Katrina. Three failures occurred during Katrina flooding Gentilly to the west and the Lower Ninth to the east. Overtopping let water into New Orleans East.

In addition to the water driven in from the lake to the north, studies continue to implicate the MRGO/Intracoastal Waterway structures as a funnel that accelerates and concentrates storm surge from the east into the Industrial Canal.

There were also barges in the canal that ended up in residential neighborhoods. Did they break loose before or after the levee failure? If before, could they have been driven into the levee provoking its failure? November - Engineers have concluded the barges were not culprits inthe levee failures.

Conspiracy rumors include the "they dynamited it (again) to get rid of us" theory aren't getting much attention but certain racial activists are clinging to  the idea.

Various recommendations for flood protection for the canal include closing the access to Lake Pontchartrain with a dam and installing flood walls in the GIWW near the MRGO intersection. These two measures would limit the amount of surge that could get into the Industrial Canal. They would be far more effective than the levee repairs currently under way.

Replacement of the locks on the Industrial Canal has been a long desired but controversial project of the Port of New Orleans.