Staff Report
The importance of a seven-parish drainage coalition announced in August may have come to the forefront after the flooding rains in Texas.
St. Landry Parish President Bill Fontenot said the plan goes back to the days when watersheds formed the basis for drainage plans.
Fontenot told Parish Council members at their Aug. 16 meeting that the timeline for the drainage work is slow.
“I would say within a year or so we will start seeing some results,” he said.
On Aug. 3, Gov. John Bel Edwards announced a grant for $30 million for flood hazard mitigation based on a Louisiana Watershed Resiliency Study.
The parishes of Lafayette, St. Landry, St. Martin, Acadia, Iberia, Evangeline and Vermilion parishes are jointly receiving $25 million for a regional study. The funding is based on the August 2016 flooding.
Another $4.6 million is going to Lafayette, St. Landry, St. Martin and Vermilion parishes. That funding is from hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008.
Fontenot said the regional studies are based on the watersheds of the Mermanteau, Vermilion and Teche.
In announcing the funding, Edwards praised the parish leaders as courageous for pooling their interests.
“It requires more work. It’s politically risky, but it is the right thing to do,” he said.
Fontenot said a 25 percent match will likely be required, but may include in-kind matches.
Four objectives of the resiliency study are to develop:
A regional approach to decision making;
And maintain strategic partnerships across different levels of government and across parish lines;
A holistic approach to future flood risk; and
Coordinated approaches to information gathering and sharing.