Bayou Lafourche Pumping Capacity Improvements

The mission of the Bayou Lafourche Freshwater District (BLFWD) is to provide a reliable source of drinking water for its residential, agricultural, and industrial users. To uphold this mission, they needed to increase flow from the Mississippi River to the bayou to address coastal land loss, water quality, saltwater intrusion, and channel instability.

Our team provided full design services for a new pump station, including the outfall structure, river intake system, pipeline, levee, and permits. Since the site was deemed historical, an archeological survey was performed to satisfy environmental requirements and avoid construction delays. Modifications to the Mississippi River Levee were required, with stability and seepage solutions including seepage sheets, sand cement-bentonite, and aquablock to seal the installation. The intake structure was hydraulically modeled and designed to allow freshwater and limit sediment into the bayou. Various configurations, including forebay and piped intakes, were modeled to establish the most beneficial design for minimizing sediment and debris impacts.

The project design was completed four months ahead of schedule and value engineered to limit costs—along with system automation and maximized siphoning—providing flexibility for future capacity upgrades and pump station reliability.