BATON ROUGE - Nearly 150,000 taxpayer dollars will be spent to cover damages from a sewer malfunction last September when raw sewage flowed out of the Gardere Treatment Plan, flooding several apartments.

“If they were impacted and they were displaced from their residence, they can recoup those costs,” District 3 Councilman Rowdy Gaudet said.

Wednesday, the Metro Council unanimously approved a $143,842.20 settlement to compensate a Gardere Lane property owner for apartment damage from the sewage flooding from a wastewater treatment plant in September.

“This was an unfortunate incident, but this is the right thing to do, to approach those folks and make sure they get recovered for the losses they experienced,” Gaudet said.

Three other sewer backup claims were introduced Wednesday. The council is expected to vote on them at its next meeting.

So far this year, the council has had sewer backup settlements totaling almost half a million dollars.

“Through a process with an insurance specialist, they come up with an amount that is fair to that landlord,” Gaudet explained.

But in the end, it's taxpayers who are covering that amount.

“We start working in the treatment plant to make sure this doesn't happen again, which is the most important thing. But then number two, these people were impacted. Their livelihood was impacted. Their homes were impacted, and so the right thing to do is go get in touch with them and make right what the City-Parish is responsible for,” Gaudet said.

Councilman Gaudet said we will likely see more settlements during future meetings.