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Baton Rouge inches closer to stormwater management plan

4 years 6 months 1 day ago Wednesday, September 25 2019 Sep 25, 2019 September 25, 2019 6:12 PM September 25, 2019 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - Two and a half years from this spring, and the city-parish will finally have a stormwater management plan. 

"I don't like hurrying through things because I like to make sure it's correct, but we also know that it has to be done in a timely fashion to try and address the overall needs of this parish," Transportation and Drainage Director Fred Raiford said.

A plan that will help mitigate flooding like this throughout the parish. 

"The stormwater master plan will be the basic roadmap that we need to efficiently face our drainage challenges as a community. Most successful cities have plans like this," Mayor Sharon Weston Broome said. 

It's something the mayor has asked for since she took office in 2017, and she'll have to wait a little longer before they get started. 

The city-parish has secured 75 percent of the project's $15 million price tag from FEMA but is still waiting on the remaining 25 percent from the state. It's expected to be fully funded by spring. But even then, it will be at least two years before it's completed. 

"As we endeavor on this project, we will be conducting extensive data collection," explained Michelle Kennedy with HNTB, the engineering firm behind the plan. "This will include collection of data on over 55,000 drainage structures, cross-sections and over 500 miles of channels and hundreds of bridges and culverts."

The city-parish hasn't just been waiting around for the funding though. The mayor says they've been working on their own projects. 

"We've made tremendous progress towards the $255 million that we got for the five tributaries, so that process is now underway," the mayor said. 

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