Orleans and Jefferson parishes pursue new water strategies
14th December 2015 · 0 Comments
By Susan Buchanan
Contributing Writer
If anything has been learned from a regional water study that began ten years ago, it’s that results require persistence, David Waggonner, president of local architects Waggonner & Ball, said last week. He spoke Tuesday at Greater New Orleans, Inc., where local leaders discussed progress on the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan, adopted two years ago. Waggonner & Ball began working on the plan in 2006 after visits to flood-control structures in the Netherlands. In the ensuing Dutch Dialogues, experts from the Netherlands assisted in the initial study.
It’s one thing to have a big plan on paper, but quite another for those projects to be implemented. “Politicians have to allow conditions for change,” Waggonner said Tuesday. In what’s become “a numbers story” since his firm’s initial look at regional water, each project’s costs and and benefits must be weighed, he said.
A Waggonner & Ball study released in late 2013 warned about the dangers of inaction. The urban water plan’s strategies, if fully implemented, could cost $6.2 billion. But they would save Orleans, Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes an estimated $10.8 billion in flooding, subsidence and insurance costs over 50 years, the firm said. Water management efforts will create jobs and boost property values. The plan’s benefits were forecast at over $22.3 billion within 50 years—more than three times early investments.
New Orleans and Jefferson Parish leaders last week said they’re committed to better water management. And on December 2 in Paris, Mayor Mitch Landrieu signed a pledge during climate change talks, or COP 21, with 20 other cities around the globe to devote 10 percent of municipal budgets to resilience-oriented projects, including those that are water related.
In 2010, Louisiana’s Office of Community Development Disaster Recovery Unit tapped GNO, Inc. to administer a sustainable, water-management strategy for the east banks of Orleans and Jefferson parishes and St. Bernard Parish, using funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Greater New Orleans Water Plan, released in November 2013 and based on Waggonner & Ball’s work, offers ways to “live with water” by using structures to fight flooding caused by runoff and to slow subsidence, or land sinking, from rainwater pumping.
Meanwhile, New Orleans in 2010 adopted a master plan for two decades to 2030. It calls for storm-water strategies, using best practices and runoff-control standards for real-estate developments and capital improvements. Parks, playgrounds and neutral grounds are to be retrofitted for water retention and filtration.
Under the city’s consent decrees from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans has implemented green pilot projects and has earmarked half a million dollars annually for them. SWBNO has contracted with Deltares USA in Maryland to monitor project impacts by, for instance, tracking subsidence rates.
Under the city’s Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, in effect since August, any developed or redeveloped land must detain and filter the first 1.25 inches of runoff during rain events. In new projects, half of the sidewalks at Lafitte Greenway, which opened this fall, are pervious concrete, retaining runoff. The city and community groups are developing 25 acres of land, owned by the Sisters of St. Joseph, at the Mirabeau Water Garden in Gentilly to divert water from the London Avenue Canal, catch runoff and slow subsidence. That project should cut the water load handled by the area’s Pump Station No. 4, making it more efficient.
The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority has sponsored six rain gardens at residences in Hollygrove, Filmore, Gentilly Woods, the Lower Ninth Ward and Algiers. And NORA plans to open a site for water education on Broad Street near Dillard University.
Meanwhile, Jefferson Parish is retooling paved areas, including Elmwood Business Park, the Fat City neighborhood and residential areas along Jefferson Highway, and it’s upgrading canals, parish public works director Kazem Alikhani said Tuesday. Revamped parking areas at the Jospeh S. Yenni building, under the Elmwood Fields and Water Lanes demo project, will show residents the benefits of slowly releasing water. Elmwood Business Park often floods and is slated for drainage alterations to balance storm-water storage and pumping. In Metairie’s central business district and in Fat City, drainage improvements will impact canals, Alikhani said. Walking trails and bike paths will be built along those canals.
Also addressing water issues is the year-and-a-half-old Greater New Orleans Urban Water Collaborative, joining communities, organizations and individuals. Ripple Effect, a program involving teachers, the SWBNO and Tulane University, raises water awareness in city schools, and was awarded a $91,000 EPA grant last year.
Local authorities, strapped for funds, hope to win money for water projects in HUD’s current National Disaster Resilience Competition. New Orleans, Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes, and the state are finalists in that contest, which will award nearly $1 billion overall to help areas recovering from past disasters respond to future calamities. Winners will be announced early next year.
In addition to creating jobs, the area’s growing water-management work can make it an international leader in the sector, Robin Barnes, GNO, Inc.’s executive vice president, said Tuesday. GNO president and CEO Michael Hecht said the region has the potential to become a master of disaster.
The Data Center in New Orleans last year said new water strategies in Southeast Louisiana could spawn 12,000 fairly high-paying jobs, requiring only moderate education levels, between this year and 2019.
Local leaders are preparing for RES/CON New Orleans, an international conference about resilience and disaster management, to be held at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in the first three days of March.
This article originally published in the December 14, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
