BREC Superintendent Carolyn McKnight says she is carefully weighing the Baton Rouge Area Foundation’s request that the park’s department put up $5 million to help jumpstart the dormant effort to dredge and beautify the City Park and LSU lakes.
It’s not that BREC—which owns two of the six lakes—doesn’t have the $5 million. In fact, the agency has some $20 million in undedicated funds in its budget that can be used for capital construction projects.
But the challenge comes in trying to balance the needs of the lakes project with BREC’s many other needs. For example, BREC is trying to regain accreditation for the BREC Baton Rouge Zoo, which will cost at least $5 million.
“We have approximately $250 million in needs and requests from the public and groups to fund projects over the next five years,” McKnight says. “It’s difficult because we just don’t have the money to do everything that everybody wants us to.”
It will ultimately be up to the BREC Commission to decide whether to allocate the money for the project. McKnight is expected to make a recommendation to the commission at its November meeting.
If approved, BREC’s $5 million would only cover a fraction of the cost of the ambitious project. Dredging the six lakes would cost an estimated $25 million, not including enhancements like new lighting, signage, walking paths and piers. But the BREC money would be a key piece of the puzzle because it could be leveraged to generate additional dollars from LSU, which owns the other four lakes, and the state.
State Rep. Steve Carter, R-Baton Rouge, who worked with BRAF in 2015 to get money for the project in the state’s construction budget before it was removed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, says he’ll push for it again if BREC helps plant the seed money.
“I think it’s an important project and should be done,” Carter says. “But if BREC doesn’t come up with $5 million we’re back to square one.”
Not all of Carter’s colleagues agree. State Sen. Dan Claitor, R-Baton Rouge, who opposed the project three years ago and whose district includes the lakes system, says he’s not any more inclined to support it this time, at least if BRAF is looking for money from the capital outlay budget.
“I’d rather spend $5 million on roads or the LSU library that is leaking and falling down than on the lakes,” says Claitor, who also questions whether a costly dredging project is the best way to restore the aging lakes to health. “If some creative person could find some sort of block grant from Natural Resources that might be different.”
For its part, LSU officials say they’re open to discussions about the lakes but have had only casual conversations with BRAF executives and do not currently have any funds budgeted for the project.
“To date, BRAF has not asked nor suggested in the past or recently that LSU put up any funds for the Lakes project,” LSU Interim Vice president of Strategic Communication Jason Droddy says.
