FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: John Hall, 504-862-2201

September 5, 2000

NEW ORLEANS - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, has awarded a $299,098 contract to Xavier University of Louisiana for the first year of job training to help replace the Industrial Canal Lock.

The contract, awarded Thursday, August 31, is the first expenditure of $35 million authorized for a Community Impact Mitigation Plan. Options over four years could bring Xavier University's contract total to $1.58 million.

"Our $585 million lock project comes at a good time to help the metro area, where construction jobs are down from a peak in 1998," said Col. Thomas Julich, New Orleans district engineer. "The project will average 950 jobs for 10 years."

Xavier University, based in New Orleans, was selected on a best-value basis under the New Orleans District set-aside program for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority Institutions.

The first-year program will focus on preparing unemployed or under-employed people living in the communities along the Industrial Canal to work on the construction contracts scheduled for award early in 2001.

These contracts are expected to include demolition of the Galvez Street Wharf, demolition of the abandoned Surekote Road businesses between the canal's east bank and the floodwall, and levee and floodwall construction on the west bank between St. Claude Avenue and the Mississippi River.

The construction contracts all will include a local-labor preference clause that requires that 10 per cent of the work force reside in the lock neighborhood.

The project can help replace some lost jobs. Construction jobs have fallen in metro New Orleans to 31,900 in July this year. That's down 300 from July 1999 and several thousand less than the current total for smaller Baton Rouge. New Orleans' peak year of the past decade was 1998 with 33,400 construction jobs.

Xavier University will recruit potential workers from the lock neighborhood. Recruits will get six weeks of training in basic job skills at Xavier. The second phase will be eight weeks of technical, hands-on training at the Laborers-AGC Training Center in Livonia. Technical skills will include environmental clean-up, construction and concrete work. Xavier will provide placement services, and monitor and support the graduates.

The first class of 15 students will begin in the next few months. For information call Kojo Livingston at Xavier University, 486-9544.

Media Advisory: For lock information, see www.mvn.usace.army.mil. Do index search for IHNC.