New group sees the N.O. as a water-management leader

By Susan Buchanan
Contributing Writer

“Our city is payday loan cda learning to live with water,” Aron Chang, a spokesman for the Greater New Orleans Water Collaborative and a Waggonner & Ball Architects staffer, told a gathering at the foot of Bayou St. John on Sept. 26. He announced the launch of the water collaborative, partnering more than 100 local groups, businesses and individuals. Based on lessons learned from flooding and land subsidence, the Crescent City can become a world leader in water management, engineering and drainage, sharing its expertise and applied technologies with others, he said.

The work of the collaborative, which had its first meeting in late May, is guided by the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan. Unveiled more than a year ago, the $6.2 billion, federally funded plan was developed by Waggonner & plan was developed by Waggonner & Ball on Prytania St. and is overseen by Greater New Orleans, Inc. Local, national and foreign experts contributed to the plan. In the post-Katrina, Dutch Dialogues in 2008, water specialists from the United States and the Netherlands considered how to protect New Orleans in the future. Those talks laid the foundation for the Urban Water Plan, which may look expensive but should have far greater benefits than its price tag, according to GNO, Inc. Implementing the plan should boost property values, keep flood insurance rates in check and help the city maintain and attract businesses.

Last week, executive vice president Robin Barnes of GNO, Inc. said the water collaborative is liaising with the city and Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes, which are all Urban Water Plan participants. The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority and the Sewerage & lowest rate short term loan Water Board are already involved in large- and small-scale water-management projects. “Sewerage & Water Board just released a list of seven projects this week,” Barnes noted. S&WB’s Green Infrastructure Program for managing water was unveiled on Sept. 25.

To reduce flooding and slow the sinking of land, several NORA and S&WB projects use vegetation to store and drain rainwater. Rain gardens have been built in the Lower Ninth Ward, Filmore, Gentilly Woods and Algiers. Other city entities with rainwater projects include the Housing Authority of New Orleans and the Department of Parks & Parkways.

The city’s future depends on how it handles water and on broader coastal protection and restoration efforts, Chang said. When used strategically, water can be a resource to enhance quality of life and spur economic growth. The new collaborative is focused on demonstration projects, policies, research, education, advocacy and outreach to reduce flooding, address subsidence and improve water quality in Orleans, Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes.

But “as we implement the Urban Water Plan, we can’t lose sight of our communities,” Arthur Johnson, executive director of the Lower Ninth Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development, said last week. The Lower Ninth suffered considerably when the levees failed during Katrina, and less than a third of its population has returned. ”It’s important to represent our residents, who are our constituents,” Johnson said. In other words, water collaborative projects should be more oriented to locals than are, say, plans to build people-movers for conference goers at the Morial Convention Center.

“Everything’s coming together now,” New Orleans City Council member Susan Guidry of District A said at secured installment loans bad credit Bayou St. John. “When you have a master plan, things start to happen. People and projects gel around it.” She pointed to a project at Conrad Park in Hollygrove in her district, organized by the S&WB and Mid-City landscape architects Dana Brown and Associates, Inc., along with the Students & Young Professionals Committee of the Virginia-based Water Environment Federation.

“Entrances to Conrad Park have always flooded when it rains,” Guidry said. To restore the park, volunteers in late September built bioswales, a rain garden and a permeable walkway. They were part of WEF’s 87th Annual Technical Exhibition and Conference, or WEFTEC 2014, held in New Orleans early last week. Bioswales are vegetated ditches used to collect, convey and filter rainwater.

New Orleans is one of the wettest cities on the U.S. mainland, averaging nearly 62.5 inches of rain annually from 1981 to 2010, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That compares with more than 90 inches yearly in Singapore and over 85 inches in Mumbai, India. The Crescent City, especially in recent decades, has mustered its resources to rebuild after hurricanes. Robin Barnes said other regions already look to the city and the Pelican State for water expertise. In October 2012, “the instant that Hurricane Sandy hit, Louisiana contractors received hundreds of millions of dollars of work in New York and New Jersey,” she said at Bayou St. John.

To learn more about the Greater New Orleans Water Collaborative, visit nolawater.org on the web.

This article originally published in the October 6, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.