LA: 17th Street Canal Seepage

More digging is scheduled in the next few days to trace how water has been seeping — even bubbling — onto Bellaire Drive near the Katrina-damaged 17th Street Canal.

Relatively small amounts of water have been leaking from the Lakeview canal levee for a year or longer, despite $24.4 million in repairs by the Army Corps of Engineers since Katrina breached the eastern floodwall in 2005.

The corps dug up some wet spots in April but couldn’t find the underground path of water from the canal to Bellaire. The wet spots disappeared after that site was filled with tons of compacted clay, but new ones have gradually appeared several hundred feet to the south.

It is these new sites, one of which sometimes bubbles and sends water pooling along Bellaire, that will be excavated once summer rainstorms slow enough to dry the ground a bit, corps spokesman Randy Cephus said. The spots are in a grassy area about 100 by 40 feet between the floodwall and Bellaire.

The corps has agreed to give to the authority all geotechnical data gathered on the 17th Street Canal and the corps’ analysis of that information. The authority will give that data to the engineers it plans to retain for a second opinion of floodwall stability.

If a seepage source isn’t identified during this week’s excavation, levee commissioners said they will next seek an independent analysis of that issue as well.

FL: Will Cost More To Be Cool

This is a sore spot with all residents in the Gulf South area.

In about a month, Gulf Power residential customers will see a whopping 11.3 percent increase in their monthly bills, and commercial customers will see a 15 to 18 percent increase.

The Florida Public Service Commission approved Gulf Power’s recent request to raise its fuel charge to its customers from Pensacola to Panama City, said Gulf Power spokesman John Hutchinson.

The average residential customer’s bill of 1,000 kilowatt hours will rise from $102.22 to $113.76 on Sept. 1. That doesn’t include franchise fees or utility taxes added by cities and counties.

Gulf Power attributes the hike to sharp increases in the costs of fuels such as coal and natural gas, used to make electricity. Without the increase, Gulf Power was facing an estimated $76 million shortfall by the end of 2008, Hutchinson said.

The fuel charge is only one component of an electric bill. Fuel costs account for almost 50 percent of a total electric bill. This will be a 28 percent increase to the fuel charge.