BATON ROUGE - The Amite River Basin Commission is struggling to find a steady funding stream, as worries remain about its ability to reduce future flooding. 

This week marks eight years since the flood of 2016 when thousands of homes were destroyed after the Amite and other rivers overflowed their banks. Since then, work has been amplified to clear the streams and build the Comite River Diversion Canal to help prevent future disasters.

Members of the Amite River Basin Commission now say they're nowhere near where they wanted to be. 

"Have we turned a lot of dirt? No, I would like to say that we have but we're getting close," John Clark, the commission's president, said. "At this point, we're playing a game of inches, but we'll take feet too. So if this project can reduce the flood stages of what we've had in the past by a couple of feet, that's substantial."

At the group's meeting Tuesday, Clark said that while lawmakers have set out an aggressive plan to address floods, the funding hasn't followed.

"The idea for the new program, the way it's organized under Act 490, it's a big boy program but we don't have big boy funds," Clark said.

He said there was a time when projects were planned but not executed. As time went by, costs doubled and even tripled. 

"Our Congressman Garret Graves stepped in and nudged and a lot of our local state representatives stayed on them constantly," Clark said.

Graves played a big part in gathering funds for the panel, but with his recent decision to not seek re-election, the committee is looking elsewhere for funds to help prepare for the next big rain. 

"I have a feeling Garret Graves is going to be right where we need him," Clark said. "We want to make a difference more than anything for the everyday people that suffered in 2016 and many many floods beyond then, and our future."

Though work has been slow on the Amite River, the commission members said they're expecting work on the Comite River Diversion Canal to finish sometime in late 2025.