Calcasieu officials to present new drainage plan to Police Jury

Published 7:51 am Friday, June 3, 2016

Having identified drainage problems and collected data, Calcasieu Parish officials will now prioritize projects and present a drainage plan to the Police Jury in September or October, said Allen Wainwright, parish public works director.

A lack of water detention is “one of the fundamental things we need to change,” Wainwright said Thursday during the Police Jury’s Drainage Liaison Committee meeting. Officials can’t widen and deepen all drainage ditches with the growth that is going on, he said.

“We feel like regional detention might have a positive impact all over Calcasieu Parish,” Wainwright said. “I’m not saying that we won’t do projects. We do have to add regional detention to our toolbox as a more practical and cost-effective solution.”

Wainwright said people shouldn’t be building in floodways, which aren’t mapped by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Not developing in those areas would help to avoid property damage, he said.

Alyson Gaharan, consultant for Emergent Method in Baton Rouge, said officials in the fall identified a need to bring everybody together to discuss ideas. In January, officials held public meetings in Moss Bluff, Lake Charles and Sulphur.

They made a recommendation to the Police Jury on Jan. 28, she said, and the panel later voted to try to identify a new approach toward drainage. Officials are now developing and refining the standards, Gaharan said.

She said officials will conduct more meetings with mayors, drainage districts, city councils and other groups to gather input.

Police Juror Dennis Scott, committee chairman, said officials must look into regional detention as a way to reduce flooding.

“We can’t make them bigger, we can’t make them deeper, but we can figure out a way to help these different rivers and drainage laterals by taking some of the pressure off of them,” he said.

“We as citizens have to protect these laterals. We have to keep stuff out of our ditches and do some maintenance on them ourselves.”