LIVINGSTON — Livingston Parish received federal approval to move forward on a $20 million dredging project on the Amite River.

Years of sediment buildup on the river's bottom and along its banks have made it harder for water to move out of the basin and left some boats grounded on new sandbars.

"We're going to dredge the Amite River," said Stephen Avera, government affairs representative for the Livingston Parish president's office. "We're going to bring it back to its original capacity."

Crews plan to remove one million cubic yards of sediment from the riverbed. The goal is not to make the river deeper but to restore the existing channel, which officials say is about 15 to 20 feet deep.

"It's going to clear out the plumbing, if you will, of the lower Amite River where water just can't get out," said Paul Sawyer, chief advisor of the Amite River Basin Commission. "You know what's critical, what's very important about flood control, flood risk reduction in the entire Amite River Basin."

Avera said the project should go out to bid in about two months. Work is expected to begin in spring of 2027.

Phase one will cover the stretch from the mouth of the Amite River at Lake Maurepas up to Highway 22. Sawyer said floodwater currently has a limited path out of the basin.

"So when this project is done, we will have two viable outlets for floodwater to get out into Lake Maurepas," Sawyer said.

A second phase would extend the dredging from Highway 22 up to the weir and include repairs to the weir itself. Avera said that phase is still in the funding and engineering stages.

Once complete, the project is expected to reduce the risk of flooding like what Livingston Parish experienced in 2016. The last time the Amite River was dredged was in the 1950s.