When lawmakers set aside $300 million in federal pandemic aid in June to help upgrade Louisiana’s antiquated water and sewer systems, they talked about the urgent need for improvements and maintenance. But the dollars have taken longer than expected to divvy up.
Hurricane Ida temporarily disrupted the application process, and an inundation of interest from local water and sewer systems means it’s taking longer than lawmakers expected to sift through requests for money. Plus, federal restrictions governing the cash added complications.
A first set of 29 projects totaling $23 million won approval last week from the two legislative panels overseeing the money: the Water Sector Commission and the joint House and Senate budget committee.
That list includes $1.4 million for the Jeanerette water system, $2.5 million for the Kinder sewer system, $2.1 million for the Turkey Creek water system, $1.8 million for the West Monroe sewer system and $2.5 million for the Westlake sewer system.
Dollars should begin flowing to some of those projects soon, though several of the local government agencies still need to complete paperwork.
Meanwhile, a broader list of projects in line for the remaining $277 million could win passage by late January—if lawmakers can agree on which applicants should get the financing.
“It’s frustrating that it’s taken so long, but it’s encouraging that we’ve got at least some of the dollars out. But we also want to make sure that we get it right, to get the dollars to go as far as they can,” says House Appropriations Chairman Jerome “Zee” Zeringue.
Zeringue, a Houma Republican, is co-chairing the 10-member legislative Water Sector Commission created to decide which community water and sewer systems should share in the $300 million. The other co-chair is Sen. Mike Reese, a Republican from Leesville.
“I don’t think we realized the sheer volume of applications” the program was going to receive, Reese says. “The need is so great.”
Louisiana has nearly 1,300 water systems statewide. About half are operating off structures that are more than 50 years old, according to reports documenting their vulnerabilities. In some rural areas, systems are teetering on the brink of failure.
Gov. John Bel Edwards’ administration—which is running the application portal, scoring the requests and handling the grant paperwork—described $4 billion in identified repair and upgrade needs. Read the full analysis of Louisiana’s water systems from the Associated Press.
