$343 million Baton Rouge anti-flood project won't be done until the end of 2022, Corps says

The Comite River Diversion Canal, a long-awaited flood-control channel for the Baton Rouge area, is expected to take a year longer than anticipated to build and won't be finished until December 2022, federal officials say.

The 12-mile-long channel will divert water from the Comite River and other smaller waterways into the Mississippi River.

Discussed since the 1960s and studied intensely since the 1980s, the channel gained new relevance, political momentum and long-needed federal and state funding after the 2016 floods devastated tens of thousands of homes in the Baton Rouge region.

While the canal route beginning between Baker and Zachary is largely a downhill shot due west to the Mississippi, the path cuts through highways, railroads, swamps, pipelines and other obstructions that have complicated its design, cost and construction for years.

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