Good morning.

All right, good morning, everyone.

Uh today is Tuesday, March 10th.

This is the Committee on Public Works Sanitation and Environment.

Uh, can I please get a roll call?

Yes.

Councilmember Hughes.

Here.

Councilmember Willard.

Councilmember McCarran.

Councilmember King.

Councilmember Green.

Here.

We have four members.

We have a quorum.

Thank you very much.

Agenda item number two.

Let me do some housekeeping first.

Agenda item number three, agenda item number four, and agenda item number six will all be deferred.

We will not take those up today.

So that's agenda item number three, four, and six.

Um with that, we'll move to agenda item number two, adoption of the minutes.

Uh I will move adopts.

Well, Councilmember Green moves adoption, second by Councilmember King.

Uh four years, no nays, those minutes are adopted.

Uh we're gonna move uh a little bit out of order, members, just for the public's uh viewpoint.

Uh we'll take up Lincoln Beach first.

That'll be roughly five-minute presentation or less.

Uh we'll then move to Department of Sanitation.

Uh from then we'll take up the Morrison Road project.

This is required under city ordinance.

Uh, and then uh we'll take up the star of the show, sewage and water board.

Uh so with that, let us move to Lincoln Beach.

I think Miss Megan is present uh from the city.

Good morning.

Uh I will be very quick.

I know we got a long agenda today, um, but I just wanted to provide a quick update on the Lincoln Beach project.

Um since um, I guess about November of last year, we've been working on routing contracts for digital engineering and renegade um as the CMOR consultant and contractor.

Uh we have executed contracts for both, and we had a design kickoff meeting on December 15th.

Uh we are proceeding towards the 60 percent design milestone.

Uh we have been evaluating some cost-saving measures recently and have decided to split the package into split the project into three separate construction packages, uh, some for permitting purposes and some for uh grant purposes.

So the parking lot construction, uh we have a period of performance that ends in April in August of this year.

Uh so we'll be finished with the design of the parking lot by August and anticipating construction on the parking lot starting by the end of this year.

Um we are anticipating having a design meeting with the community um at the beginning of April ahead of Earth Day, and then again in June, once we get the 60% submitted from the consultants.

Um we are rapidly moving forward.

We're meeting weekly with the consultants, uh, with both the consultant and the contractor to keep this project on pace.

Um and we've met internally with staff as well to provide some updates, so we will continue moving forward with the project um with the anticipation of getting the beach open as soon as possible.

Uh thank you, Megan.

In the interest of transparency, first of all, I want to publicly thank you.

Um you, myself, uh Mayor Moreno, uh, and and members of our respective staffs had the opportunity to meet on last week uh to get the most comprehensive update on Lincoln Beach I've ever received.

I really appreciate the level of detail that you put into that.

I want to assure the public that myself, Mayor Moreno, and this entire council is committed to moving this project forward.

So I know you'll be joining us monthly for uh regular updates, and we really look forward to giving that update to the community.

Um and both myself and Mayor Moreno have made a commitment to transparency to the public moving forward.

Really appreciate your leadership, Megan.

Uh looks like the board is clear.

Um with that, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Uh next up, uh we'll ask sanitation, please come back.

All right, and we have our director of sanitation, Mr.

Torrey.

Good morning.

All right.

Thank you.

Um we're getting the presentation set up just for the public's point of view to kind of set the tone here.

Um this committee has wide jurisdiction over a lot of matters, and I know that sewage and water board gets a lot of attention, but sanitation is also in the purview of this committee.

Uh, we know that illegal dumping, construction, debris, and sanitation sanitation enforcement uh remains some of the most common concerns raised by residents across the city.

And so today we want to get a better understanding of the department strategy for uh addressing this issues, including enforcement cleanup operations and coordination uh with other agencies, and also get an overview of their budget.

So, with that, uh Mr.

Torrey, uh let me thank you for your leadership, your partnership, and the floor is yours.

Well, good morning.

Uh, thank you for uh having us here.

Happy to be before you again to talk about the great work of the Department of Sanitation.

I'll start with just providing a quick overview of our organization and our current staffing.

So the Department of Sanitation is uh has three primary working organizations, our administrative office, uh enforcement, and field operations, which comprises the majority of the department's work.

You see here our current staffing.

We have five FTEs in the administrative office, five uh in enforcement, so that's one sanitation ranger per council district, and 51 FTEs and field operations, which is comprised of four supervisors, 16 equipment operators, 31 laborers.

Obviously, for a city the size of New Orleans, 61 FDEs could be described as extremely light uh for the work that's before us.

Um you see here the breakdown of our field operations staffing, which uh works 365 days a year, seven days a week.

So when you spread those 51 resources across seven-day week scheduling, um our staffing becomes even more limited on four days a week where we don't have the full complement of the operational team.

So certainly um looking forward to better financial times for the city where we can replenish our ranks and and staff up to perform the valuable work that's before us.

You see here a summary of our 2026 adopted budget, um, a little over four million dollars in personal services.

The majority of the sanitation budget, of course, is is comprised of other operating contractual costs for a total of 70.4 million dollars.

You see here our 2026 FTE allocation, 73 employees.

So when you look compare that to the previous slide, we currently have 12 vacancies that we from our 2026 allocation.

Just wanted to give a quick overview of the other operating expenditure categories, given that that comprises the majority of our budget.

You see the overwhelming majority is dedicated to our curbside collection contracts.

It's $55.9 million.

Disposal contracts cost the city $6.2 million per year.

Mardi Gras and special event cost around $1.7 million.

So this would be admin supplies, materials, tools, repairs, basically anything that's not captured in these other categories, approximately $1.6 million.

The Department of Sanitation oversees the solid waste collection at city facilities, $300,000 a year.

We provide our weekly recycling drop-off as well as four annual shred days and one annual hazardous waste day at cost around $300,000 as well.

And then the purchase of curbside recycling carts for issuing new carts for opt-in program and replacement repairs of existing carts.

It's around $200,000 a year for those carts.

So those 61 Department of Sanitation Employees provide a wide array of services across the city.

Our field operations, of course, providing litter removal on the public right-of-way for the entire city of New Orleans outside of the French Quarter in DDD.

So that's a very large area for those 51 field operation employees to cover.

We do public litter can collections and maintenance for over 2,500 receptacles, most of those getting collected on a daily or a semi-weekly schedule.

We perform mechanical street sweeping and flushing on major thoroughfares and bridges throughout the city.

Do illegal dumping and waste hire remediation from the public right-of-way as was alluded to.

We remove illegal signs, provide cleanup for Mardi Gras special events.

We take the lead in the event of a disaster, a storm event when it comes to cleanup, providing the immediate push there after the storm, and then oversee our standby activation of our contractors for debris removal.

The city fulfills recycling cart requests for curbside collection right now.

So we purchase, deliver, and maintain those recycling carts to the city's opt-in program.

We also provide recycling services at city facilities across the city.

As I mentioned, we provide a weekly drop-off service for residents to take advantage of where they can recycle common single stream items as well as items that shouldn't be going in your household trash, which would be things like light bulbs, batteries.

We take up to five tires per week at that drop-off, Mardi Gras beads, and other items.

The annual household hazardous waste day, which is actually coming up on April 11th, and I'll talk about that more later in this presentation, is an opportunity for residents to safely dispose of items such as paint, gasoline, oil, pesticides, and things that of course should never go in your curbside trash as well.

And we provide four annual shred day events free of charge to the public to safely dispose of those sensitive items.

The next one coming up on March 21st.

We do operate the city's transfer station on Allegiant Fields Avenue.

This is available to our city departments to help operate more efficiently with regards to solid waste disposal.

We provide contractual oversight for those $60 million in other operating expenditures.

Our five sanitation rangers enforce city ordinances with regards to sanitation.

We participate in regulatory compliance permit approval.

And you know, one of our most important activities is our partnerships with communities for cleanups that occur throughout the city.

Our contractual services, so these are provided by the city's third-party contractors.

Again, largest share and most visible services happening are those curbside solid waste and recycling collection services that happen one time per week in areas one through four outside of the French Quarter in DDD, and then of course, solid waste collection happening daily in the French Quarter in DDD and recycling collection happening once per week there as well.

Our curbside collection contractors are responsible for issuing, maintaining and replacing solid waste carts throughout the city.

That also includes providing a second trash card to any resident or location that wishes to have one for additional capacity.

They provide removal of dead animals from the public right-of-way.

Within the French quarter, which is referred to as area five, our contractors provide a wide array of enhanced services given the volume and foot traffic in that area.

So our contractors are responsible there for litter removal, public litter can, collection and servicing, mechanical street sweeping and flushing, pressure washing, organic waste removal, orphan bag removal, graffiti and sticker removal from the public right-of-way and special event cleanup.

We contract for landfill disposal services for both municipal solid waste and C and D and Green Waste.

And we have a third party that does provide the actual solid waste collection at city facilities.

We have support from contractors for those special events that we talked about drop-offs, hazardous waste day, and shred days, and wouldn't be able to do it without them.

And of course, as was evident during Mardi Gras, we have a big support from our contractors with regards to labor and heavy equipment for special event cleanup and our standby contracts for disaster events in the event that we need to activate those should a storm hit New Orleans and we have debris removal associated with that.

Illegal dumping is one of the most important and high profile issues that the Department of Sanitation addresses on a daily basis.

So our team is responsible for removing illegal dumping and waste tires from the public right-of-way.

You can see here some information from 2026.

These first couple months, we've already remediated 411 illegal dumping sites, an average days to close of 70 days.

We have 541 pending requests with an average days outstanding of 40 days.

At the bottom here, you see the summary of requests that we've closed.

So we closed remediated around 3,700 illegal dumping locations in 2025.

That included the removal of over 46,000 waste tires from the public right-of-way, and that 40 to 50,000 waste tires is a pretty solid annual number when it comes to waste dumping.

We collaborate with a number of agencies, both within the city and outside of the city when it comes to illegal dumping.

Of course, NOPD is plays an important role when it comes to illegal dumping in potentially issuing municipal summons when we can identify perpetrators to bring uh bring them before court.

We also coordinate with outside agencies.

That includes the Louisiana Department of Transportation, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, Wildlife and Fisheries, and other agencies when we're seeking to partner in combating illegal dumping on rights areas that may not be the public right-of-way for the city.

Enforcement is handled by our five sanitation rangers.

As I mentioned, we have currently have one sanitation ranger dedicated to each council district.

They both proactively and reactively respond to enforcing the sanitation code.

So we receive complaints daily, and they may come in from residents directly from your offices, from the administration, and other channels.

We also, our rangers are proactively riding those your council districts to identify sanitation issues in these areas in the municipal code to seek voluntary compliance.

So the rangers are looking at violations with regards to solid waste.

So this is primarily within our trash and recycling collection area with people putting illegal set outs, leaving carts on the public right-of-way.

Section 26 with dumpsters, we're addressing dumpsters on the public right-of-way, not properly screened or overflowing.

Litter and dumping, Section 66, so this could be issues at households or unattended areas.

Illegal signs, placed on the public right-of-way, and waste tires.

So our sanitation rangers are meeting and visiting waste tire shops throughout the city to make sure that they are properly permitted by DEQ, have their manifests, and are storing and disposing of their tires correctly.

As I mentioned, you know, our primary objective with regards to enforcement is voluntary compliance.

It takes a lot of effort to bring folks through formal enforcement actions, seeking getting that voluntary compliance is the best outcome we can get.

And we do have great success with that.

But when we don't, we will issue an actual written warning, which you see a copy of here, which will be followed up by a certified letter to the property owner.

And if that all fails, we will bring them before an administrative adjudication hearing where they may face fine.

At that hearing, a last resort in some of our most severe cases, of course, are partnering with NOPD for municipal summons.

Lastly, I just wanted to wrap up with high highlighting two important events that are coming up, making sure the public are aware of these.

We do have our first of four shred days available to the public on Saturday, March 21st, followed by the annual household hazardous waste day on April 11th.

I can't stress how important the annual household hazardous waste day on April 11th is.

Again, this is the opportunity for the public to just safely dispose of items like paint, gasoline, oil, pesticides, mercury, and other items which should never go into the solid waste cart to go through the landfill.

So this is the one annual event that we have per year, and I encourage all residents to take advantage of it.

All of our drop-off, our weekly drop-off recycling events, as well as shred day and hazardous waste days take place at our yard at 2829 Elysian Fields Avenue from 8 a.m.

to 1 p.m.

And you see our website there, nulla.gov backslash sanitation, where you can find more detailed information on those events and timing.

So with that, I will wrap up and of course I'm available to any questions.

Thank you, Director Torrey.

Um let me first uh just publicly uh again thank you and thank the employees within the division of sanitation uh who literally work 365 days a year, 366 in a leap year, including Christmas, Thanksgiving, and holidays when we're enjoying our families.

Uh looking at the number of FTEs you have within your department, uh, you're literally doing a lot, but little.

Uh so we appreciate that.

Let me just ask uh on the record are the employees within the Department of Sanitation furloughed as well.

The operational employees and the enforcement rangers are not.

Only the administrative office, the five employees in the administrative office are furlought, and within that, there are several employees who uh were exempt based on the income guidelines that the mayor provided.

Okay, great.

Um quick question, and I know Councilmember Green has a question, I'll yield to him.

Um can you talk a little bit about about the budget?

This has been in the news a lot lately, uh, and it appears as though for many years.

Um the division of sanitation has been running roughly a 24 million dollar deficit.

I guess the the amount of money we're collecting from the sanitation fee does not match the true cost of sanitation.

So can you walk us through that a little bit, please?

Yeah, of course.

Uh so the current sanitation fee for residential locations was set to 24 dollars in 2012.

So 14 years ago, a long time.

Um, as with anything costs uh over 14 years have increased with inflation.

Um cost that we uh pass along to residents for that sanitation fee has not changed in those 14 years.

After Hurricane Ida, uh we had a significant breakdown in the delivery of service within our sanitation services.

We embarked on a two-year process to transition and transform those services to be able to reliably provide sanitation services, as well as provide protections and enhanced benefits to the workers who are providing those services.

So higher pay, uh benefits protection, PPE protections to them, and we've seen tremendous success with the new contracts that took effect in 2022 and 2024.

When we look back historically in 2022, we had a peak of uh an average of 1,400 miscollection complaints a month.

We're down 80% from that peak, uh we get uh less than 50 or around 50 complaints a week.

Um that's 200 to 250 missed collection complaints a month.

That's for 165,000 households to get service weekly for both trash and recycling collection.

So a very, very small amount of complaints.

When we take a deep dive into those complaints, we find that even that reduced number is even lower because the overwhelming majority of them actually are invalid.

So these new contracts provide for a level of technology which the city's never had with regards to solid waste, all of the equipment that provides solid waste and recycling collection across the city as GPS route management software where we can see where vehicles are, whether they've passed your home.

They also have 360 degree view cameras on them, so that if a resident has a complaint about a miscollection, property damage, or anything that may have happened, we can ask the contractor to pull that video from that truck and review it.

And in many instances, it shows you know something that accurately happened there, whereas maybe you know a resident thought that their location was missed when in reality the truck passed early in the morning and the cart wasn't curbside, so in fact it really wasn't.

So we've seen uh a tremendous increase in service and these enhanced services.

I think I know from your offices there was a period of time where we were communicating many, many times throughout the day uh on trash collection complaints, and I'm happy to say trash collection complaints are something that I rarely hear uh from you all about, which is a testament to the great work that our contractors have been providing.

But with that transformation and an enhanced service level and improvement, we saw a right sizing of the costs associated with those contracts and a pretty significant increase starting in 2022 and and wrapping up in 2024.

So, right now, the current uh cost associated with the collection of solid waste and recycling as well as the disposal is around 60 uh 62 million dollars.

We uh last year in 2025, via the sanitation fee, we only brought in 38 million dollars.

That's what we generated via that fee.

So a very significant gap deficit of 24 million dollars exists there.

The city um bridges that gap by providing funding via the general fund to make the sanitation department whole so we can provide those services as well as other services.

But by doing that, we're taking those monies from other critical things that the city could be allocating that for, and I know you all have uh long list of things that you'd like to see us get to when the city gets on better financial footing.

So, what the city now is seeking to do is to cover the cost of service with the fee that's that's provided.

So when we look at our neighboring parishes, Jefferson Parish, East Baton Rouge, Lafayette, all of them, all parishes in Louisiana for the most part have what we view as a pass-through.

They charge the fee that covers the cost of service.

Each year, as that that cost of service increases based on CPI or the number of household service, that fee changes as well, and that's an annual thing.

So again, our fee hasn't changed in 14 years.

When we look at the costs that our neighboring parishes are paying, um, we have a very good and uh value case for the rates that we're paying.

So on average, we're currently paying around $26 per unit for that weekly solid waste and recycling collection.

When we look at neighboring Jefferson Parish, they're paying uh $26 and 63 cents for two collections a week.

Now their two collections are for two solid waste collections.

Ours is for one solid waste and one recycling collection, but still two.

In Baton Rouge, they're paying over $35 uh per week for twice a week trash collection as well as recycling collection in Lafayette, they're paying almost $33.

In almost all of those parishes, if residents are seeking to get uh a second trash cart, they either have to outright pay for that trash cart, which may cost them $80 to $90, or they're paying a monthly monthly rental fee of of seven dollars for that cart in New Orleans.

Uh, and I want to stress this every household in this city is eligible for a second trash cart to assist with containment, to assist with the volume of debris that they may have.

Since we started offering that second trash cart in 2022, only two percent of service locations have requested a second trash cart from the city.

So we know that there probably are many households that maybe probably don't even know that that uh free second trash cart is available to them.

Of course, as well, the city's uh opt-in curb side recycling program is available to all 165,000 service locations as well, and we know that right now only 42% of residents have opted into that recycling program.

So there's many households as well that could be could be requesting a solid recycling cart at no cost.

So again, each household in the city could have two 95 gallon trash carts as well as one 65-gallon recycling cart to contain all of the debris that you'd be generating on a weekly basis.

But to get back to your your question at hand, yes, we are running a structural deficit, we've been doing it for a long time.

It grows every year as we adjust these contracts for CPI, which is important uh to make sure that they remain healthy for the seven-year term that we have them.

And I think as the mayor mentioned uh in recent comments, if we don't seek to bridge the gap and balance this uh deficit, that we will eat into other services very shortly in next year as well.

Uh thank you, Matt.

Um, the last thing I'll say, I've been saying this to everyone who will listen to me, I'll now say it to you.

Um, the one place where I think we've unfortunately missed the mark as a city is by explaining to our residents in very layman's terms, going to the people, uh, explaining this is what you're paying, and this is the actual cost.

And when we have a 24 million dollar deficit or an $18 million deficit or $30 million deficit, and those dollars are taken from the general fund, that's $24 million less for parks and recreations.

That's $24 million less for youth and families and seniors.

That's $24 million less to fill potholes to repair street lights.

The list can go on and on and on and on and on.

I think we have got to hit the road.

We have got to go to the people.

We have got to pull out the whiteboards.

We have got to explain the true cost of sanitation and the consequences and the reality that we find ourselves in at this time.

Councilmember Green is recognized.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

And Mr.

Torrey, I also would like to thank you for the work that you do and the members of your team do.

You get a call from our office, an email from our office every day because it's bred out because we have interstates that run through the district and people can dump under them at night.

We have areas such as off People's Avenue where there's nothing between people and a railroad track, so it's easy for the criminals to dump without being seen.

But I do want to I have a question about illegal dumping, but I want to also ask you to talk about what changes have taken place since 2012 regarding bulk item pickup.

Because I remember that we would have a problem throughout our city with all these bulk items remaining out there for a long period of time.

I'd like you to also talk about the vehicle change since 2012, the reduced emissions vehicles and also the cost of labor.

This is a good setting, as was alluded to.

This is a good setting to begin the education process relative to the changes that have taken place in 2012.

Yeah, all great points, Councilmember Green.

So you're right.

The uh the opportunity that the city had when we were uh issuing these new contracts in 2022 and 2024 really allowed us to transform the service bases.

So to start with at its most uh base level.

Historically, the city had contracted for solid waste and recycling collection services via low-cost bid.

And as many folks are aware, sometimes a low-cost bid, the result that you get isn't the best service level, but the the lowest cost basis, and that's what we were operating under.

What was demonstrated time and time uh over again uh through a series of contracts was that those low-cost big contracts were not sustainable through the course of their terms.

They were 10-year contracts, they started out okay, but quickly the costs went up as the durate the term went on, and contractors were uh incurring additional costs and where the service level was going down, but they weren't able to reinvest into those contracts.

These contracts that we uh procured in 2022 and 2024 were done via RFP Social Selection Committee via scoring criteria that allowed us to weigh not only costs but also experience level service and worker benefits and equipment, which you alluded to.

So all of these new contracts required brand new equipment to be purchased by the contractors in larger quantities to provide uh the level of service that the city expected.

Many people around the city will remember uh leading up to and during Hurricane Ida, we had a lot of issues with older trucks leaking uh what we'll call uh trash fluids around the city, which is quite noxious, and we received complaints daily about that, where residents would have debris and fluids left in front of their households, it would leave an awful smell, which would need to be maybe or maybe not cleaned up, and that was happening quite frequently based on the age and the condition of those uh that fleet.

We also introduced new equipment types uh as part of these contracts.

So, in addition to our traditional rear load uh garbage truck, which has two hoppers on the back, we also have automated side load trucks which operate in area three.

So these are trucks that have an arm on the side which allows the truck to pick up the 95-gallon cart and empty it without the assistance of uh physical person.

We introduced what we refer to as grapple trucks.

So these are the larger trucks that have a uh container on the back with an actual claw uh that an operator uh operates, and as you mentioned, Councilmember Green, this allows our contractors to pick up those bulk items, which may be furniture, mattresses, um, eviction debris and whatnot that that for two people on the back of a garbage truck to pick up can be quite cumbersome, but for that grapple truck, which we see most frequently post-hurricane uh events, now you're seeing those every week uh in your neighborhoods picking up those large debris items.

We also included flatbed trucks.

So, as part of these new contracts, our contractors will pick up uh every week up to four waste tires from eligible service locations.

If you call 311, they'll also pick up e-waste and bring it to the Department of Sanitation to safely dispose of.

So, again, if you have TVs, you have computer monitors, any other electronics, you should be calling 301 uh to put in a service record for that.

If you have waste tires that you want to get rid of, the same.

And then the reason why it's important that you call 301 is because a different truck comes to fulfill those requests.

If you have waste tires or electronics, that flatbed truck is coming to your house.

If you have bulk items that's too big for the regular garbage truck to pick up, that grapple truck is going to come to your house.

So all of these equipment equipment enhancements again provided us to provide a higher level of service.

As you mentioned, this is brand new equipment.

It is operating much more efficiently and is much more environmentally friendly with it with regards to emissions.

A big change that happened when we switched from twice a week to once a week trash collection was that we went from operating six days a week to five days a week, which meant we're not in your neighborhoods on a Saturday, which is a great thing.

And we're only coming to your house once a week.

So that means that our large heavy equipment vehicles are only traversing down your city streets, which in a lot of cases are historical and not in the greatest condition, once a week versus maybe twice or three times a week, which they previously work.

That equates to a significant reduction in the wear and tear on the streets in our neighborhoods, the damage that those heavy trucks can potentially do, the vibrations on your home and whatnot.

And again, we're there less frequently.

Trash and recycling collections occurring the same day.

That means carts are hopefully only curbside once a week and they're out of sight, out of mind the other six days a week.

Um a major uh factor in the scoring criteria for those RFP was around workers and worker protections.

So ensuring these were full-time positions that provided uh wages above the city's living wage that included benefits packages for health care for these employees, and that uh uh an overabundance of PPE protective equipment was made available to these employees.

So now when you see uh the new trucks traversing throughout the neighborhood, you see employees uh uniforms with PPE operating safely on new equipment, and all of that provides for a really good work environment.

The the people that are providing solid waste and recycling collection services around the city are doing that 52 weeks a year in all conditions.

When it rains, trash and recycling still gets picked up.

When it was cold this year, trash and recycling still gets picked up.

When it's extremely hot for the summer months of the year, trash and recycling still gets picked up.

So it's important that we really uh you know provide the due that's due to these employees who provide this valuable service and and make sure that they're being taken care of because it is an extremely valuable service and they do deserve to have that pay and those benefits that comes along with this.

Please be very deliberate about sharing with the public the differences between 2012 and now.

As you did so eloquently just now in response to my question and council um member Hughes' questions, but the public does want to know that, especially now that the issue has been raised relative to the potential increase.

A two-pager, something that you use and go to every community meeting that you can, social media and the like.

But I appreciate that thorough explanation.

I do want to mention one thing, and it's really not a question, it's a message to the illegal dumpers in our city.

The city's Department of Sanitation cleaned up 3,700 illegal dumps last year.

That's an average of 10 a day plus, seven days a week.

My office receives messages from constituents almost daily, and we contact your department, and therefore the police get the get contacted.

It's a lot of it's a lot of work and it's a lot of money spent, and it's something that takes up a lot of time that other people could be doing.

My message is kind of a simple one, and it's a consistent message.

If you get paid to take somebody's refuse and bring it, you're supposed to bring it properly to a dump and you stop at the corner of such and such under I-10, or you stop by the railroad track, or you stop at somebody's vacant house or an elderly person who's not living there anymore, you are a criminal.

And that is why the police put out beyond the lookouts, B-O-L-Os, bolos, for those sort of persons.

I appreciate the work that the New Orleans Police Department is doing on the very trying circumstances, but I want to let illegal dumpers know.

There are people who are being caught who are paying fines who aren't going to be doing it again because of the significance of the fines.

I wish that we could get higher fines for it because I think some people have just decided that it's a cost of doing business.

I just want to emphasize how much to you I see the workers of the Department of Sanitation when we call for a cleanup, including for situations where there are people who are living outside who should not be living outside, they get helped by the departments of health and also the Office of Homeless Services and Strategies and maybe other organizations.

But I do see the cleanups and I appreciate it.

It could be a lot more simple if those who have been paid for the jobs to properly dispose of trash would go to Almanasta Avenue and do it correctly.

You've been paid.

You're a criminal if you decide that you're gonna do it and you're gonna dump it in somebody's neighborhood in their backyard and the like.

So thank you for the work that you do.

Thank you very much.

Councilmember Harris is recognized.

Thank you.

Uh Chair Hughes.

Matt, I want to first start by saying thank you for always participating, you and your team in our community cleanup days.

We have one coming up in April.

And I can tell you that when we clean up these areas, they actually stay clean, so we're not seeing um relapses in illegal dumping.

I do want to follow up with Councilmember Green's question about illegal dumping.

I know that we have a lot of illegal tires and and mass tire dumpings in District B and throughout other districts as well.

Is your team equipped to um handle those to get those tires out of areas, or do you need additional resources?

I mean, certainly we are equipped to remove the tires, but the sheer volume, 40 to 50,000 tires, takes up uh a significant amount of our time.

And as I think all of you are alluding to, the city has a lot of needs, and when we spend time doing things like removing 50,000 tires from the public right-of-way, that just means that that's time that those 51 employees aren't doing something else.

And there are a lot of uh higher value ad things that I think the Department of Sanitation could be doing with our time.

I'm gonna put on my Michael Burns side hat and ask about the tire shredder.

I know that that was in the past four years we kept talking about getting a tire shredder rather than I guess we take the tires to a private entity to shred.

Is that still on the table?

We haven't we haven't explored doing any tire shredding in-house.

The uh the main bottleneck continues to be where the end use of those tires, right?

So the city has uh four permitted waste tire processor sites, colt uh tires in New Orleans East is where the city and uh and most people in our region bring their tires to they shred the tires and and take them to various end uses.

The issue is providing a valuable end use for those tires.

The city could shred the tires, but we would have to do something with them, and right now there's no outlet for what to do.

If we had a business, an enterprise that somehow said bring us as many shredded tires as you could, I'd be begging you for a tire shredder uh today for that.

But essentially, we'd be stopped piling shredded tires and not really have anywhere to take them at this time.

So, some entrepreneur should come up with a tire shredding uh mechanism.

Or or just that what you trans, what that that shredded tire is transformed to.

And it seems like there are some things coming on around the world, um, maybe not specifically right here just yet, around an end uh value-added end use of tires where a tire actually has value at that point.

Which would be right.

I uh I know Steve uh Nelson has talked about using shredded tires in um asphalt and and other you know playground areas.

Um I do want to turn to uh 311 and how people can request a second cart or a recycling cart.

Can you just touch upon that?

So as we we touched on every service location in the city that provides against city services eligible for up to two trash carts and one recycling cart.

And with regards to those carts, any time something happens with that cart, uh the wheel comes off, the carts cracked, you should be calling 311 immediately.

The lid, the lid gets damaged immediately to get it repaired.

There's no cost to those carts or the repairs associated with them.

So you can make the request by going online to 311 or calling 311 and putting that request uh into them.

So you're gonna either put in your request for your new cart, your replacement cart, your repair cart, you're gonna specify solid waste or recycling, and our contractors within five business days will fulfill that cart, and they do that uh universally.

So there's there's not no service request that go beyond those five business days when it comes to cart.

So um I know that a lot of folks um you know don't have total faith in the 311 system.

I can tell you when it comes to our curbside collection contracts and the service requests they're responsible for, carts, missed collections, debt animal pickups, they are meeting all of their SLAs.

We review them weekly with them, they are meeting and exceeding those and providing those carts within five business days.

So we encourage you to do that.

As I mentioned, only 2% of the city is requested a second cart, yet we hear time and time again about uh people wanting additional capacity to contain trash with once a week collection.

Please make that request.

You'll get a cart within uh five business days if something happens to that cart, which you can no longer use it again.

Promptly call 311.

So one of our contractors can get out there to repair your cart.

So uh council member McCarron and I were at a uh neighborhood association meeting yesterday in 311 system apparently was down.

You do not run 311.

But if 311 is actually up and running, someone can get a tra a second trash can or a recycling cart within five business days.

Absolutely.

All right, just uh very very quickly.

Um at that same neighborhood association meeting, we always get this question about seafood and what people should do, and why can't we do twice a week pickup in the high seafood times of New Orleans life?

Um what is the answer to that?

Well, I guess just to start with around twice a week trash collection.

So obviously, we're we're here and we're touching on upon the fact that we're already facing a 24 million dollar deficit with regards to our current service level, which is once a week trash, once a week recycling, so that's our baseline.

It would cost another million dollars a month for the city to provide twice a week trash collection to our existing service locations within our current contracts.

So that's 12 million dollars a year.

We're talking about it.

Three months, that's three million dollars.

We don't have three million dollars, we don't have twelve million dollars.

Um, and I think the value that's it's provided via that is extremely low.

We don't have issues around the city for the most part around uh collections.

People's trash is collected on time, it's collected completely.

Uh we don't have issues with debris remaining curbside for long periods of time.

So I think there are some specific locations where uh volumes exceed what one cart can handle, and that's where that second cart and recycling cart are extremely valuable there.

Um providing a second collection on uh any period other than the full year becomes extremely problematic.

When you're thinking of trying to ramp up to a second collection, that would mean that we would have to double the number of trucks, people, drivers that are out on the streets providing that service, and we again we would go from five days to six days for the contractors to ramp up to twice a week collections.

There's no doubt that if the city ever decided in the future they wanted to go back to that on a permanent annual basis, they could.

It would be a significant uh level of effort.

But to do it on a temporary basis, I'm not gonna say it's impossible, but is but it's near impossible to ramp up to to double your staff for a three-month period of time.

One employees are not gonna sign up for a three-month contract, especially drivers in this in in this market right here where it's highly competitive.

But for the contractors to do that only for a short period of time, it it's really challenging for them to put it put it uh politely.

Um so we have the cost component, we have the operational challenge of doing it in a short period of time.

I think when we look at the summer months and we're talking about you know, waste that is um not you know that has food and other things in it.

You always want to make sure that waste that goes into your trash cart is in a bag and that bag is securely tied.

You don't want to put loose waste in your trash can, you don't want that bag to be open because the way that maggots form is by getting onto that food waste.

So if you're putting it in there and it's bagged and the bag is securely tied, you're gonna have a tougher time for that to happen.

It takes a period of days for maggots to form.

You want to limit the amount of time that if you have waste like uh like uh food waste in there.

So I know we've talked about this in my household.

If I have you know leftover food waste and trying to keep it in the refrigerator until the last possible time before I put it in the trash can, we know that's not an option for everybody.

So again, making sure things are bagged, making sure that lid is closed and you're keeping that cart clean.

Um, if for any reason you do start to have issues in that cart with uh flies or maggots, spraying carts with a mixture of water and bleach will address that.

Uh and again, we don't want to get to that point, but if you do, that's something that can be done.

Thank you, Mr.

Torrey.

I can say that you know, from the time I started four years ago up till now.

Um, you your department, Department of Sanitation, when I started, had the highest number of complaints.

I will say, and Matt, my Matt will say you probably have the lowest.

So thank you for you and your team and everything that you do for the city.

Thank you.

Uh thank you very much.

Uh the board is clear.

We will now move to public comment.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me just say um I know there's a lot of passion around an EPA grant.

Uh and and I have several comment cards related to an EPA grant related to recycling.

Uh currently the city is not engaged in any EPA grant.

And we are going to take comments germane to the agenda.

I will not take up public comments regarding an EPA grant.

So we are not taking that up in this committee.

Uh we have three public comment cards related to sanitation.

Uh I am going to ask that your comments remain germane to sanitation.

I will politely and respectfully cut you off if not.

Uh Sage Michael Pillay, followed by Renata Collins.

Hey, good evening.

I mean, we were gone and I know it's gonna be a long day.

Um well, Matt, thank you so much.

I want to start off, man.

You know, I know you people give you a lot of praise and everything, but from the community side, thank you so much uh for all you've been doing with illegal dumping.

You've been uh then taking care of all the dumping tires for cleanup events.

I mean, every time I have a cleanup event where it's on the spot, you respond and you come through uh Madi Gras, you you team all to do it.

And listen, y'all, Cleb on Cordor is one of my um uh all-site offices I hang at park a lot.

And um, to me, you know, um I know we have a culture down there that that have the vendors, trust me, I eat on clip on every day uh as well as I enjoy the culture, but it's just gonna be Matt Torres Sanitation Department that's on a regular schedule cleaning up behind ourselves.

We gotta stay up the culture cleaning this.

We gotta do for selves.

I mean, if we talk about cost reduction, the cost reduction is waste reduction.

Let's make a more sustainable city.

Uh let's let's stop doing these one-ofs and let's create a culture cleanage.

We've I've been working on for a long time and actually how formerly the nonprofit called the same.

Uh, you know, let's work on a comprehensive strategy with illegal tide dumping.

There are many uh uh uh there are many efforts that have been happening now, but we're working on a comprehensive strategy, Matt, where we all come to the table and we're working on those solutions in buckets.

Um that that'll be coming your way.

So it's all about a comprehensive strategy uh and make sure that we clean up behind ourselves, and it shouldn't be the Department of Sanitation doing that and waste and reducing waste is the way we save money.

We can't keep throwing money at the problem.

We gotta throw self-accountability at the problem.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um I am gonna make a motion to suspend the rules to allow one minute per speaker.

Can I get a second?

Second by council member green.

Um, all in favor can respond by aye.

Aye, five years, no names.

That motion is adopted.

We'll move forward to one minute per speaker.

Awesome.

This won't take us long at all.

One of my mic is off.

Okay.

One of my biggest things is working in the sanitation department while living in Minnesota.

We also had a compost department.

I haven't seen a compost here yet.

That would assist with the reduction of the cost.

That's one thing I want to suggest.

Compost, because that's a big thing.

If we can do that, we can be able to reduce the cost.

The next thing is I heard how Green you stated that when we have sanitation, it reduces the resources we can bring to the community, recreation.

So, how about we take the tires and do events with the children so that they can be able to have something to do, and then we create that in the budget as well so that we can maximize our opportunity while also uplifting our community.

I hear a lot of issues.

I do believe that it's time for solutions, and solutions means that we are a government that not only takes but give.

Thank you for your time, and I hope you take this into deep consideration.

Thank you very much.

Uh Annie Moran, followed by Chris Lang.

Thank you.

My name is Annie Moran.

Um, I'm a citizen of the Seventh Ward.

And I'm here to ask the city the that the city continue supporting residential curbside recycling and expand access to recycling by transitioning to an opt-out program.

We are a city plagued by garbage.

I cannot take a stroll around my block or even City Park without encountering litter.

What disturbs me more than the eyesore of the piles of litter under the Clayborne Bridge or the plastic films that blow into my yard almost daily, is knowing that there are tons and tons more of it sitting in landfills that could have been reused or recycled.

Tons of usable material that instead of polluting our land, water, and bodies could have been utilized, sparing us from a significant amount of additional extraction of the earth, of which we only have one.

We have funds from the EPA that are not being thank you very much.

Chris Lang, followed by Darnell Phillipson.

Thank you very much.

Chris Lang.

I really want to ask.

We presented a cart contract in front of you guys.

My name is Chris Lang in September to the former administration, and you guys swept it under the rug for six months.

This is related to the EPA Swiffer grant for curbside recycling.

You cannot sweep this under the rug anymore.

As far as capacity is concerned, there is an offer on the table for a Murph in New Orleans East that has been on the table since 2022, but a failure to rezone that land has been keeping us uh a throwaway city for the last three years.

As Matt was alluding to, we lose, we're spending 55 million dollars on contracts.

6.1 million dollars of that is lost to a service not provided because 42% of our houses have recycling carts.

58% do not have carts but are paying for that service, the majority of whom are working class black New Orleanians.

To reverse that disparity, we have the funds to provide those carts, but you guys, all of you are complicit and withholding federal funding to provide a universal access for people.

It is on you, not Matt Tory, nobody else.

Thank you very much.

You have a contract in front of you that you can approve.

I don't know if I can top that.

Darnell Phillips in 1411, Henry Clay.

What are we gonna do if we're not collecting property taxes?

We can raise them, but what are we gonna do?

District A.

I am a middle-aged woman with this laptop that's six years old, and just doing some quick math on my own.

In 25, 2025, we have outstanding taxes in district A of right under 400,000 dollars.

Ms.

Phillipson.

No, no, no, no.

No, no, no.

No, it does make sense.

This we we are on sanitation.

We are not talking about property tax.

I will give you 30 seconds if you want to talk about sanitation.

We are going to stay germane to the topic at hand with all due respect.

I will not allow grandstanding in this committee.

Now you can cut on the mic, and if she wants to use the duration of her 32 seconds to talk about sanitation, you may do that.

How are you getting the 24 million?

Where are you getting the money?

Where are you getting the money for?

Where are you getting the money for the garbage?

Where are you getting it?

If you're not collecting property taxes, thank you.

Ben Bagneal.

Forgive me if I'm mispronouncing your name, followed by Lily Kane.

Good morning, Ben Bagwell.

Just wanted to reintroduce myself to all the council members here.

Some of you are very familiar with my work.

My family has been in New Orleans for over a hundred years.

The future of recycling in New Orleans is not recycling.

It's called real cycle.

We have the potential to show the world what happens when as a community we respect the earth, we respect our resources, we respect each other, and we respect the natives who are here and have been here for a very long time.

Real cycle is based around Mother Nature.

There is no waste in nature.

We have the opportunity to turn our waste, those crawfish shells, the organics, the mulch, into soil.

We're losing land.

We are sinking.

Please.

Let's think creatively.

A co-mingled recycling system, if you pay attention to trends around the country, is broken.

Let's just collect aluminum cans.

They're trading at one dollar a pound right now.

We're throwing away money.

There are creative solutions.

Let's work together.

Thank you.

Lily Kang, followed by Keely Lewis.

Hi, my name is Lily Kane.

I'm a constituent of Leslie Harris, and I've spent over a thousand hours picking up and sorting waste and recycling at a local park, as well as uh working with Compost Now, which is a compost organization within the city.

Uh we absolutely have to look like look at the situation.

There's money on the table.

I'm hearing rumors about grants.

I'm hearing rumors about Ivy waste how not doing recycling properly.

We need to help hold all the teams accountable.

And Louisiana is not in a talent journey.

They're talented people who are making plans, they're talented people who have been speaking up for their communities, whether it's the East or like rural parts of Louisiana.

There are talented like other like Compost Now, uh, Smellies, real cycle.

There are lots of people working on this, and we have to work together, and we have to use the money that's on the table and stop.

I don't know why people are acting like there's not money on the table or grants that we might lose.

Like we have to keep the waste, there's no way the waste can be sorted, the waste can be used for other things, and we're killing ourselves when we're not doing it.

So we've got to get with it.

Thank you very much.

Keighley Lewis.

Good morning.

I just wanted to speak for a minute because I'm really upset about the sanitation issue, and I'm really upset about a recycling issue and the composting issue because it's an issue about circular economy.

We're not investing in our youth, we're not investing in our economy or even taking advantage of the job creation that we could uh generate simply from properly recycling and generating, you know, products through circular economy, specifically thinking about the recycling um and making mighty grab beats, correct?

Now, one of the things that I'm really upset about is we do know that the city does believe in causes that don't necessarily uh help our community in the way that we expect it, right?

I'm a design thinker.

You know, we don't throw away the community lighthouse program because they close their doors at eight o'clock.

We don't throw away our C libraries because they don't have libraries.

Um thank you very much.

Uh we appreciate everyone being here today.

So now we're gonna move on to agenda item number eight, which is the Morrison Road project.

Agenda item number eight.

Thank you, Mr.

Torre.

No, no, we're moving on, Councilmember.

We're moving on.

We're now gonna go to agenda item number eight, the Morrison Roll project.

Thank you, Mr.

Torr.

Thank you.

Hey, we're committed.

Uh good morning, everyone.

Whoever would like to start, uh Mr.

Nelson, I don't know if you like to start them.

And this is on the agenda per city uh ordinance.

This is a requirement per city ordinance.

Excellent.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Councilman Hughes.

Thank you all for having us here.

Uh, this is an update on project DPW 574.

This is a significantly uh significant project in New Orleans East on Morrison Road.

We wanted to provide a schedule update, some background information, uh, and some updates on the start date, finish date, and make sure that everyone uh on the council and the public understands how they can get regular weekly updates on the status of the project as it goes forward.

And with that, I will turn it over uh to Lewis Haywood, who is our project manager on this project.

Good morning.

Morning.

Good morning, council.

Uh my name is Lewis Haywood.

I'm the project manager for the Morrison Road Mayota Buller Project.

I'm here with uh Andrew Logan.

He's our communication specialist for the mobility and safety group.

And uh he'll give a quick introduction for the uh what to expect in this presentation.

Good morning, everyone.

Like Lewis said, my name is Andrew Logan, and I'm the communications manager for the mobility and safety division of the Department of Public Works.

Um, so today we'll have next after introductions, we'll have the city's complete streets policy, a project overview, and a scope of work, a summary of major operational changes, which is why we're here today, a project phasing and duration, status of current work, and how residents and uh constituents can receive information, updates, um, or get questions answered from the Department of Public Works.

All right, so the reason that we requested to be here uh heard the the city's municipal code chapter 146, uh, Article 2, Division 1, uh Section 14636 complete streets program.

Uh when a project is anticipated to involve a major operational change, uh, the Department of Public Works uh shall conduct a few meetings, uh hold two community engagement meetings and appear at a hearing of the city council uh transportation airport committee meeting or similar meeting.

Um we also work with the neighborhood engagement office uh and other city engagement channels to ensure the advertising of those community engagement meetings.

So as part of this project, there is an operational change per that ordinance, namely a lane reduction for one section of the project.

So as part of that, we requested to be here today.

So the Morrison Road project is a 23.6 million dollar project funded by 80% by the Federal Highway Administration and 20% by the New Orleans Bond program with the goal to improve community access and travel along the Morrison Road Corridor.

Specifically, it's a roadway pavement rehabilitation project as well as sidewalks.

We'll be doing repairs to three bridges, the Lawrence Canal Bridge, the Citrus Canal Bridge, and the Bird Canal Bridge, as well as replacement of two bridges, the Benson Canal Bridge and the Ferrar Canal Bridge.

As well, we'll be installing a new bicycle facility, a two-way curve protected greenway path along the eastbound side of Morrison Canal, that's the south side of the canal between Mayo and Reed.

We'll also be doing some additional landscaping improvements near Lake Willow Drive and near Benson Street.

You can see that on the screen right now, how we conceive those.

So basically creating new neighborhood parks where we have these complex intersections.

Next and another example here at uh Benson Court.

As far as the operational changes that we're here to present to you, between generally speaking, it's going to be the same the same layout with the with the exception of one part of Morrison Road, which is the south side of Morrison Road between Mayo and Reed.

Right now we have two eastbound through lanes.

In the future, or after this project's complete next year, the left lane, today's left lane, eastbound left lane will be a two-way neighborhood greenway path.

And you'll be able to walk or bike on alongside the canal.

We performed a traffic study and found that there'd be no impact.

We will have capacity maintaining a similar capacity to today at the intersections in order to kind of compensate for that lane not being there.

So in terms of the project phasing, phase one is already underway.

So that's where we're starting with concrete repairs in that area.

So last month and July.

So today's status as of today, crews have installed temporary traffic control measures on both sides of Morrison Road.

Construction right now is taking place between Wright and Bullard, working on concrete panel replacement, ADA ramps, and sidewalk removal and replacement.

And I'll pass it on to Andrew to talk about what to expect.

Hello everyone again.

My name is Andrew Logan.

And what residents can expect during construction is noise, dust, debris, temporary detours, or lane closures, equipment or materials staged in the area, contractor and subcontractor on site meetings with staff.

So meaning you'll see people invest walking around, talking, inspecting the work, and everything will be secured on site ahead of any major storm event if that should occur.

The type of notices that residents can look forward to are notices of construction, which will include construction timeline, any impacts to parking, mail delivery, and trash pickup.

We have committed to giving those every 30 days throughout the construction process.

Any road closures will be notified and communicated to the public.

Notice that one or more travel lanes will be temporarily closed.

Sorry.

Oops.

Sorry.

So we encourage residents to sign up for text alerts.

Residents can text road work to 77295.

And it'll take you to, it'll respond to you and allow you to give your zip code.

And by giving your zip code, you'll be able to curate your text messages to whichever neighborhood you live in.

You can do multiple zip codes.

So if you live in New Orleans East, let's say, but you own a business uptown and you want to know what's going on uptown, but also what's going on near your home, you can do that by entering multiple zip codes.

So they can stay informed during construction.

We are working on putting on a newsletter that residents can visit NOLA.gov/slash DPW newsletter, and they can sign up for email updates.

We put out notices on Nextdoor, which is a social media platform, and also looking to use utilize Instagram.

A simpler way to get to it is going to NOLA.gov slash DPW projects, scrolling down and finding the Morrison Road project.

On there, we share two-week look-aheads.

There's PowerPoints that we've presented to the public available there, renderings of the project and any traffic advisories or press releases that we put out, we update the website with those as well.

So again, my name is Andrew Logan, and residents can call 504-658-8036.

That will take you to Farron in our DPW office.

You can ask her your question and she'll relate it back to me.

You can also email DPW project info at Nola.gov, which will take you to that same person.

She'll relay the question back to me.

And then from there, me and the resident will have constant communication between one another.

From there, I'll share my work phone number, I'll share my email.

Um, and I'm always available to answer questions for us.

I if I may add one more thing.

I know that the contractor had previously noted they would be starting before Mardi Gras.

Just started on March 9th.

We've got renegade here, our NGD here to answer any questions, and they have also assured us that they will still complete the project within the original contractual timeline.

Looking to my left to make sure we get nods of affirmation.

So I know there were issues with submittals and getting their paperwork in order.

I'm sure they can answer any questions around that, but I do want to be sure that it's clear that the contract schedule will be met.

Yeah, thank thank you very much, Steve.

And I was gonna ask that on the record.

Look, let me just say um, I don't know the last time any of you at the table um prior to uh January.

Uh took a trip to New Orleans East between Crowder and Van de Cloot.

Uh Morrison Road has been blocked up and torn up uh for quite some time.

Uh well, not one truck bulldozer or anything else in sight.

Just been shut down.

Um people are literally driving the wrong way up Morrison.

Um on January 12th, today uh I raised my hand and took an oath uh at 6 o'clock.

I was at Garetti Church hearing from public works and the contractors, and um it was announced that day uh that construction this project would commence the day before Mardi Gras, to which the residents responded with chuckles and asked on the record, are you sure this project is gonna start the day before Madigras?

To which they were assured it was.

I want all of you to know there's a lot of skepticism from my residents that this project is gonna be done timely and that it's gonna be done with high quality.

And so we're gonna be looking uh with a very fine-toothed comb uh to make sure that the things that renegade promised on the record to my constituents are being fulfilled.

So I want to hear from the contractors on the record that will this project be completed on time, or will we hear excuses when we're at the end of the project next year?

This project will be completed on time.

And can you identify yourself for the record?

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Michael Poe, project manager for renegade construction.

And if I may add some uh clarity to the uh delayed actual construction start.

Although you may not have seen large construction equipment on site, I will note that our in-house survey team uh mobilized to the site on the 15th of January uh to complete topo topographic survey and actually in doing so identified issues with proposed finished uh grading of the roadway prior to our mobilization in an effort to minimize inconveniences on residents uh by beginning the work and ultimately stopping demobilizing.

We decided to delay the start of actual construction to uh gather this data and required for development of the grades.

Uh moving forward, as Lewis mentions, we do have the lane closure installed on eastbound Morrison Road from Reed Boulevard to Bullard.

Uh we have crews on site, workers on site beginning to uh demolish the existing Orland Cement concrete pavement.

Uh and moving forward, some measurements that have been implemented to prevent further delay.

RNGD in conjunction with DPW and engineer HNTB uh have uh developed a process in which work together on the front ends, identify potential issues with the grade work and work it out ahead of time.

Okay.

Uh I just want to be clear moving forward, if there's any delay whatsoever, uh I expect to be notified directly.

My last question, the residents were very passionate on January 12th asking about DBE participation, uh, to which renegade did not have concrete responses.

So can you give me an update uh on the DBE participation uh within this project?

Yes.

Uh as mentioned in the pre-construction meeting, we do have a 13% DBE goal uh contractually required by this project.

We have subcontractors signed up to uh appease this goal to adhere to this goal regarding a question that was asked in the pre-construction meeting, I believe related to specific percentages of our workforce.

Uh we are in equal employment uh equal opportunity employer, excuse me.

And uh for residents who are uh who inquire about possibly working, I'd be happy to uh direct them to our website, rngd.com slash careers, in which case they can apply uh and they will be evaluated based off of uh performance and hired if so.

Okay, so to use your term a piece, uh have you appeased the 13 percent goal?

Have you met it or where are we on that?

We we are we have contracts established meeting the 13 percent.

Okay.

Are we striving to exceed it?

Yes.

Okay, thank you very much.

You want to say something?

Well, my name is Brett Ellison, sector leader for RNGD Civil Heavy Bridge.

Um we have Megan Beckham in our audience right now, who is our uh HR coordinator, and she has told me that if the community is interested, we'd be uh more than willing to set up a set up a job fair in the area discussion opportunities in the construction industry.

Okay.

My phone door email is always open.

I'm happy to coordinate with that, so you all can feel free to reach out to me anytime, 24-7.

Yes, sir.

Thank you very much.

Um, with that, the board is clear.

Um we have uh one comment card on this item, Renata Collins.

Thank you so much.

Um, my biggest question is because the quality assurance being a matter of the issue that I hear, and I heard for on the record to say that how things would be done in order.

What quality assurance do we have in place that will effectively create a timeline so that we can know exactly what to expect because if we don't know what that timeline consists of and we don't know who's in charge of it, how will we know that this here matter has been taken care of according to the um information that's been shared, such as that it will be done in a recordable time.

The next thing is if that is going to be met, how is it that we still looking for employees at this time if we already have a time frame in which we're trying to meet?

So will that be proper training in place?

Would it be a service that we're gonna have in place, but not only have it done, but quality.

We've had too many buildings that collapse in New Orleans in the last few years.

So we don't just need people to work.

We need to make sure that we have quality work so that we don't have to be in this place again, refixing a problem.

Outstanding point, may I?

Yes, thank you, ma'am.

Great questions.

I know that we will have regular, is it weekly or bi-weekly updates that we'll be sending out?

Uh bi-weekly.

So every two weeks we will send out an update with the schedule.

It will include a look ahead.

As Lewis and and uh Andrew mentioned, we will have monthly regular updates.

We intend to appear before this this meeting uh and provide accountability and transparency.

There are also inspectors involved in the job, making sure that the construction takes place in accordance with the plans and specifications.

Uh and as far as the job fair, I can't speak for RNGD, but I know that they are doing a significant amount of work uh in the region, and my guess would be, and I'll let you speak to this if you would like, is that they're looking for motivated employees uh for a number of projects, would be my supposition if I could be so bold.

Yeah, for the record, uh RNGD has over 450 employees.

The civil division alone has 235 uh plus and it's growing every day, and we're always on search.

So the offer to do a job fair was for the future, not only of our company, but of the community and the uh people that are interested in joining the industry.

Thank you very much.

Uh, look forward to following up on those conversations.

Uh thank you all for being here in closing.

I just want to say I want to look renegade in the eye.

Um, you are doing a lot of work in New Orleans East.

You're doing this project, it's my understanding.

You're involved in the Lincoln Beach project.

You owe it to my community to do right by my community, meaning to complete this project on time and with high quality.

My community deserves that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next up, uh sewage and water board.

All right, I know members have a lot of questions.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna allow sewage and water board to uh cycle through their entire presentation, uh, and then we'll give uh members uh the opportunity um to ask questions and council vice president Willard is already in the queue, so he'll be first.

All right.

Oh go ahead.

All right, good morning, everybody.

Caitlin Timrack, the interim general superintendent of the Surgeon Water Board.

Uh, as you said, we do have another number of items to speak to today.

Uh we are going to start with the water main breaks that we have experienced over the last several weeks.

And I do want to start off by acknowledging that we recognize the uh extreme frustration and hardship that uh many residents have felt because of this, and we are uh on site this morning with our customer service representatives, meeting with those uh homeowners and individuals to talk with them and and address some of their concerns.

Uh so we will start with uh the uh we're we're working backwards a little bit from the most recent item being the water main break at Carrollton Panola, which occurred Monday morning around 2.15 a.m.

Uh this is uh the 48-inch water main at Pinola and Carrollton.

Uh this break was isolated around 5 15 a.m.

But unfortunately uh we had to issue a precautionary boil water advisory for a large portion of the East Bank, including Uptown, CBD, French Quarter, Mid City portions of Gentili, uh the upper and lower ninth ward, and uh to some small sections of New Orleans East.

That uh precautionary BWA has been lifted as of this morning, however.

So if folks have not yet received that uh notification, that has been lifted.

The crews uh presently on site and are working to make a repair, and we expect the main to return to service by the end of the week.

Excuse us one moment.

Okay, no, all good.

So just as a quick sequence of events on this item, uh the break occurred around 2 15 a.m.

We are alerted to a pressure drop.

Uh our inspectors went out to identify the location.

We called in our valve crews to go out to be able to turn the necessary valves in order to isolate the leak.

Uh NOPD had already identified or around the same time had identified a large flooding in the street at Clayborn and Carrollton, and they had initiated an initial NOLA ready uh post regarding a uh what was called a public safety incident at the time.

That's something they had initiated and initiated street closures in that area.

We first put out our social media posts regarding the incident around 3 15, and we're able to close the first valve to isolate the break around 4 35, and we're able to complete the final uh closure to make the final isolation around 5 15 a.m.

After that, we were able to determine the boil water advanced uh boil water advisory boundaries and uh did notifications to uh the state health department, board, council members, city council, NOLA ready, and uh officially issued the official boil water advisory uh around 6 15 that morning.

Via website, press releases and social media updates as well.

Right.

So again, uh that work is the repair is active, and uh at this point we believe we'll be able to return the main line to service by the end of the week.

However, there will be lower than normal pressures uh around the city during this time, uh, which is additionally partially and related to the uh previous water main break at Magnolia in Jackson.

This occurred last Wednesday, right around 11 a.m.

This is a 30-inch water main in that area.

No boil water advisory was required due to that.

However, we have not been able to fully isolate the break yet due to needing special equipment uh to uh to complete that work, and we are now reevaluating the timeline to repair that in light of the uh the Panola water main break.

Our system uh we have a number of valves and isolation points, but um our system is looped in many ways, and so it's not easy for us to necessarily isolate small sections without having a larger impact on the entire area, on the entire city.

And this takes us to Monday, February 23rd, uh not very long ago, when there was a similar situation uh at Clayborne and Toledano.

This occurred at around 4 a.m.

that morning.

And we we do have a timeline of events that occurred for that break.

Uh that that section of the the street was again flooded as well, as many as you saw.

We um were able to isolate that in the morning.

We're able to um began repairs on Tuesday, and on Saturday, the water main was returned to service with the full roadway in service by Sunday morning on March 2nd.

We did have to issue a limited boil water advisory a second item, uh the second BWA during this time for a small section uh of Broadmoor, Marleyville, Fountain Blue, BW Cooper and the Hoffman Triangle due to a 12-inch uh water main repair that caused a drop in pressure in that area because pressures were already low.

Uh this event, which would not normally cause this type of impact, uh just had an additional effect.

Good morning, Mandy Heyman, executive director.

I want to stress that communication is important, and especially when we have a boil water advisory notification.

I want to provide a reminder of the ways we communicate with our stakeholders and affected residents and visitors when we have to issue a precautionary boil water advisory.

These include press releases, participating in media coverage, posting a banner on our website, automated call center notifications, notifications sent through the customer portal, and also partnership with NOLA ready alerts and social media posts.

I want to also stress that our water main work continues.

All of the green lines that you see on the map were replacements completed as part of our previous transmission main replacement projects.

While there is focus on the large main brakes, key work on our mains continue.

We have repairs underway at a 48 inch main on Pinola and Carrollton, a 30-inch main at Willow and Calhoun, and a 48 main at Cal at Carrollton and Calhoun and a 48 main at Carrollton and Sonita, as well as a 24-inch main at Burgundy and Desalande in the Holy Cross neighborhood.

We also have repairs that are upcoming, including a 30-inch valve at St.

Clairborne, I'm sorry, South Clareborne and Earhart, and the 30-inch valve at Fillmore and Cartier.

One thing I want to stress at this point is as we deal with the water main brakes.

It's our position we need to guide two trains at one time.

The first train is we have to audit and implement repairs to the system.

Also, the second train is that we have to aggressively pursue funding to allow us to do that very act.

I want to stress that when I was at Clayborne Street when we had the flood there, we stressed that we needed to change the narrative, and that to do that, we need to use new technologies, we need to possibly secure the joints on our system, we need to investigate putting a pipe within a pipe to reinforce it.

Those are all things that we are analyzing and reviewing.

And so staff is looking at it, they're analyzing it, they're putting a cost to it, and we will, in the end, I believe we'll use a variety of opportunities in that bag of systems that would assist us in repairing what we have.

So I think it'll be more than just one, is what I'm trying to say.

Now we have been working since Clairborne on an in uh on an analysis of our system, which also includes that we believe we're gonna have to do an in-pipe review.

Okay, it's gonna be more than just leak detection, an in-pipe review.

We're able to put equipment inside the pipe and it analyzes the structure of the pipe.

That's going to be part of the an audit that we're going to need to do, whether it's a full-blown audit of the entire system or if it's an audit of the areas that we know are problematic.

I want to stress that yesterday by fate, I was in Washington at the time that the breaks took place.

And what happened, I was in Washington because we had all day meetings already scheduled with our federal legislators.

And so I met with the staff for Representative Carter, Senator Cassidy, Representative Scalice, and Senator Kennedy's office.

I want to stress they were all enthusiastic about helping us.

They showed concern for what we have.

I was able to walk through what our needs are, and I'll be honest with you.

I was there because I wanted to be first in line to let them know what New Orleans needs were, and I wanted to be loud and accurate on what we need assistance with.

And so for originally the deadline was yesterday for some of them, as far as getting in your earmarks and all this.

So we were there and they met with us and they know what our concerns are, and we will go back at the proper at the proper time.

I'll go to the next slide, please.

Much of our water distribution system is past its usable life, our life expectancy.

Over 34% of our transmission mains are over 100 years old.

As part of our JRR program, over a hundred and fifteen miles of water lines, 7% of our system were replaced through transmission main projects.

The location of these projects was determined by FEMA using criteria such as pipe age, size, pipe material, and historical frequency of breaks and repairs.

An additional four projects are designed and ready to put put out to bid.

However, there's currently not a funding source for this considered construction.

We are seeking additional funding for these projects.

We also will also be seeking input from industry on availability of technology solutions to save us money to provide needed insight in the conditions of our buried pipe, as I mentioned earlier.

Randy, if I may just make one clarification.

Just to clarify, thank you.

Okay.

Next slide.

As we move from water main replacement to lead service lines, we'd like to clarify that the funding for the lead service lines cannot be used for main replacement.

It's a different bucket of money.

The funding sources have different purposes.

This in this is a brief update on the status of our lead service line replacement program.

Bids for the program management of this of this work were due on Friday, March 6th.

We received four bids and are evaluating them now for responsiveness.

In this upcoming legislative session, we are working with Senator DePlessis on legislation that would allow us to use SRF funds on private property.

In shorthand, we call that simply using private funds on public funds on private property.

It's not allowed at time at this time under the law.

And the issue is we cannot be rebirth reimbursed unless we're able to secure that the line is has no lead on the private side and the public side.

So we have to get over that hurdle first before we can receive reimbursement.

Next slide.

On this slide, I just want to make sure that the public is aware of sources of lead in their homes and in water.

EPA has good information on health impacts and how to protect yourself, which is shown here in the in the picture.

Also, as a reminder, the larger pipes in our system do not contain lead.

It is the smaller service lines under four inch that contain lead.

I'll hand it back to Caitlin.

Yeah, that concludes our update in the water mains.

Would you like us to continue or or pause at this point?

Um why don't we um Yeah, why don't we pause here?

Um I think members have uh some questions.

So uh Vice President Willard is recognized.

Thank you, Chairman Hughes.

Um Randy, what what you were laying out sounds fine and dandy, but doesn't get to um the immediate crisis, nightmares that the people of the city of New Orleans are being plagued with, seemingly on a weekly basis.

Um so my first question is I know there's a lot of construction work going on, uh, particularly in that Carrollton Panola area.

Um is is did that cause this water main to break?

Is is construction work having some type of impact on these these mains breaking, or is it just that they're old and they're gonna break?

I just want to understand if the construction is having any impact on those breaks.

Primarily it's based on age, but I would like the general superintendent to add on to that, please.

Sure.

So specifically at the um Clavorne, uh, we know that there's construction work at that area.

You know, I that is would be an uh further analysis that we'd have to be able would have to be done in order to make that definitive answer.

So um there would have to be some additional additional work looked at that.

Okay.

Um 34 percent over a hundred years old.

Eighty percent roughly, over fifty years old.

We should expect these things to happen, right?

What's the lifespan of these pipes that we have in the city right now?

I mean, I know it's past its due date.

But my understanding it's about 50 years.

The the lifestyle depends on the on the type of the the pipe.

And um some of them would have larger than some of them have a longer lifespan than that.

And so that's why you know the we're we're focused on these 34, 35 miles that are um the the larger transmission mains, excuse me, that are over 100 years old.

Those are the ones that we are we are seeing issues with right now, uh, not entirely, but those are the ones we've seen break recently.

Every time we have one of these water main breaks, we see on the news residents in the affected areas saying, hey, we reported this to the city to 311 to sewage and water board for months, for years, water bubbling from underneath the concrete or the asphalt.

Um are we tracking that?

How many instances like that do we have throughout the city right now?

Any idea?

We we will have to to we are combing through you know the the information that we have.

We we do want to take this report seriously.

I think as we mentioned the last meeting, what what will happen will be something small and um does does get worse over time, right?

And so that's that's an area um of improvement for us to go back and monitor these locations uh for changes in condition.

I mean, is that a sign that uh a water main break could be occurring?

A pipe could burst in that area and and cause flooding.

Uh go ahead.

Is that a good indicator?

I think I think leaks um no leak is is is a necessarily a good thing, I think, depending on the the size of the main though um would be would determine the impact.

That's true, and we have to evaluate where the leak is coming.

Is it kind of the service line or for the main itself?

But you make a good point.

But the issue we have as we saw on Clearborne is that we had a number of leaks.

And so we had to basically try to prioritize where we could put uh manpower to address the different issues that we have.

Again, this is where receiving additional funding is going to go a long way in allowing us to to fix the system.

When I was in Philadelphia, we were able to replace a certain amount of pipe on the water side and wastewater side every year because they had funding for that.

Uh here we don't.

And so we are limited funding that goes across water, wastewater, and drainage.

And so that money that water has is very limited and and puts us in a situation where we have to prioritize what we're able to address to our best of our ability.

Makes sense.

But when these water main breaks, we have to come up with the funding to mitigate, to stop the leak, to replace the piping, to fix the piping, to resurface the road.

We we have to do it.

Sounds like it's way more expensive to wait to act after ruptures, after it bursts.

Not to mention, not to mention the flooded cars, the flooded homes, the nightmares for everybody, for all the homeowners, the renters, and the businesses in those areas.

So what I'm talking about is identifying call it hot spot locations where you have reports of water bubbling up, which is an indicator that a water main is going to burst and coming up with some sort of mitigation plan, because what it seems like to me is occurring is every time we replace one of these water mains that bursts and wreaks havoc on a neighborhood, there's a redistribution of the pressure that causes another water main to burst at another weak spot.

And if we continue going at this rate, we're going to have one of these situations occur every other week, every week, every month, way too many for the people of New Orleans.

Not to mention, after all of this, you got the boil water advisory.

And I was a member of the legislature.

When sewerage and water board said our biggest priority, the administration said our biggest priority is the funding for this dedicated power plant uptown to reduce the number of boil water advisories the people and businesses in the city of New Orleans will uh will face on a regular basis.

We got the funding, the plan is up and running, and now we're having water main breaks, which are causing even more boil water advisories than the lack of power that we had.

So is there a plan right now to identify to troubleshoot weak spots where we could be dealing with another water main break next week in two weeks?

There is in that we're looking to do an audit of the system, and as I said earlier, we're looking at the problematic areas, the areas that are leaking, and so that's top priority.

We have to you can't fix it unless you know where the problems are.

I I get that.

I get that.

But every time one breaks, residents and businesses say we've reported this.

They have videos, they have pictures, they've reported it.

And so for me, that looks like low-hanging fruit.

So are we sending crews out right now to inspect those locations?

I mean, I can you tell me anything to give me a little sense of comfort or peace of mind.

Well, I I would say that on the one of the previous slides, we identified a number of breaks that we're aware of, and and I'm you know, also aware that the public is certainly aware of as well.

So, you know, these would be uh the the areas of priority for us right now based on the the severity of of the leaks that we're seeing, uh the size of the water main that we know of, and you know, they are um in multiple areas of the city right now.

So these are uh some major priorities for us.

There's um you know several others on the list as well.

So I'm just wanting to do that.

What's the timeline on that, Caitlin?

Um yes, so each of these um needs to be planned.

Uh these are because these are large transmission mains, we have to do what's called a closure.

Um, and so to plan for having the section of Maine from you know two points um out of service, so we have to plan that work around other work.

We can't do all of that at the same time.

And so, you know, the the team is preparing um uh a timeline to so that we can look at how we will be doing all of that throughout the year.

I would uh urge you to uh move at a rapid pace here.

Uh way faster than normal uh for government for sewage and water board.

Uh and I would urge you to keep the council in the loop as you go go about these these measures.

Um I will give you credit on the communication, Randy.

Um I think you and sewage and water board have been doing a good job of getting information out to the public.

Uh I just want us to get to a point where the information is not a crisis on a on a weekly basis, that it's not a nightmare, um, that it's not, you know, just just causing so much havoc and chaos in in the city of New Orleans right now.

So um that's my two cents.

Thank you for coming uh before the public works committee to make today.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much.

Um I know we have some additional questions, but let me just piggyback on the council vice president.

So um, Mr.

Director, let me um take this from a couple angles.

I I hear you on funding, the need for funding.

Um I personally reached out to you all.

I didn't kick this to my constituent services team.

Uh I have been getting complaints since January that residents cannot pay their bill by phone and that they get disconnected from the system.

And I personally tested this when I before I sent you all an email and I was kicked off of the system.

And the response that I got from your team was we ran an internal test and everything is fine.

The very next day I got a call from a constituent saying they can't pay their bill by phone, and y'all response to me was we'll reach out to the constituent directly and help them pay their bill.

So question number one is when are we gonna get the pay-by-fone system fixed so that residents can actually pay their bills?

If we're so strapped for cash, shouldn't we be making it so accessible for people to pay their bill and and and and every mechanism?

Have any of you personally tested out the pay-by-phone system?

I have not.

Okay.

I have not, but I respect what you're saying.

Now I I did speak with staff and they said there were five uh incidents where people had difficulty paying.

Five?

Five.

Okay.

And they called back.

They called back the individuals.

And so five that you all know of, right?

It was my understanding that what the computer showed, but I'll it's what we know of.

Okay.

Okay.

I've got far more than five complaints.

Okay.

Yeah.

If I may say though, but last week we received five calls from customers who reportedly had difficulty completing payments using the the pay-by-phone.

Import importantly, the system remained operational and continued processing payments during this period.

However, technical review identified periods of elevated server utilization that may have contributed to intermittent uh call disconnects during payment attempts.

And also important to note that the phone calls may disconnect for reasons outside of SWIBNO system.

They may include weak cellular calls, I'm sorry, signals, user input errors, or callers manually disconnecting before the transaction completes.

And I do know talking to our IT person, one of the and we did call back the individuals, the five individuals.

And one of them, it turned out that they had put in the wrong information and the system disconnected them.

But nevertheless, we want all the communications to be clear.

We want to make sure we get all the monies that are due to us, and so I agree with you.

And so we're gonna make sure the system's working.

I believe that we're if it's not working 100% today in the short in the very short term, it it will.

Um technology actions.

We conducted system long analysis and performance monitoring, we performed successful test transactions to confirm the system remained operational.

We increased server capacity on March 6th to expand memory and processing resources to improve system performance and stability.

We open support tickets and system vendors to review transactions activity and system performance, and we continued monitoring the system.

We will continue monitoring the system as far as next steps and performances track transaction activity to ensure there's uh reliable uh operations.

IT are coordinating with system vendors to review transaction logs to confirm the system interfaces are performing as expected.

So I I respect the the concern we did address all of the individuals that you reached out to us about.

Mr.

Director, let me let me just say what all due respect.

You know, you know one of my biggest frustrations with sewage and water board.

It just seems like the leadership historically is just so disconnected from reality.

Okay.

I need I need you all to get out of the ivory tower on St.

Joseph Street and really start getting connected to the realities that the everyday person is facing.

I don't expect us to rely on the analysis of an IT person.

I would assume that you and your entire leadership team are customers of sewage and water board.

So just like I personally tested the pay by phone system after I got a barrage of calls from constituents telling me that is broken.

I want you all to pick up the phone yourselves and attempt to pay your bill.

Blaming on weak cell phone service and all of that, it's just baloney.

And that's uh I with all due respect, that's the best thing I can say.

So I I need I need I need the upper echelon of sewage and water board to become connected to the everyday plight of the ordinary resident within the city of New Orleans.

Let me shift now, Mr.

Director.

Would you say that given the many weekly water main breaks?

Would you describe that we are at a crisis point in our system in the city of New Orleans with respect to sewage and water board?

Would you describe it as a crisis?

I do describe it as a crisis that we need to we should not have five a week of that size.

Okay.

And all.

So so with that, being that we're at a crisis point, I am going to join the mayor and asking the question.

What is the plan?

What is the real plan to solve this problem?

I hear you you you're saying give us funding.

As the chair of public works, I have not received the plan.

Meaning that, okay, item A, problem A cost X amount.

I agree.

And here is the plan.

Item B costs X amount, and here is the plan.

I'm happy to get in the car with our mayor tomorrow, as the former vice chair of the appropriations committee.

Councilmember Willett would be happy to get in the car tomorrow as a former senior member of the Ways and Means Committee to go advocate in Baton Rouge.

I don't know what we're advocating for because I don't see a plan.

I'm happy to get on a plane on my dime because I most certainly can't use the city's dime to travel right now and go to Washington, D.C.

and make the compelling case to our congressional delegation for more funding.

Unfortunately, when I get there, I won't have a plan in my hand.

There needs to be a greater sense of urgency from sewage and water board.

If we are at a crisis point, we need to be treating this like a crisis.

And that requires a plan.

With all due respect, we are treating it as a crisis.

And it's also working where's the plan?

But that's there's work that's being done that you haven't seen.

Now I want to say, as far as the plan, when I was in Washington, we requested earmarks for the uh the EPA drinking water SRF, the drinking water main replacement.

We're looking for 10 million dollars earmark, okay, and we have addressed to them that we have four aging transmission mains that need replacement.

Transmission Main 001, 6th Street, $2 million.

Transmission Main 007, Magnolia, St.

Joseph and Willow Street, 6.5 million.

Transmission Main 008, Cohen Street, 8 million.

Transmission Main 009, Spruce Street, 11 million.

And so we do have a plan.

We did speak with them about the drinking water.

We also, if I may, we spoke with them about waste water treatment plant improvements.

We have three critical projects there.

We have the Carlton water plant chemical delivery system upgrades, a new chemical storage and delivery system is needed to address existing deficiencies, noted by the Louisiana Department of Health as well as improved storage capacity to withstand severe weather events.

We also talked to them about the Sycamore filter gallery.

Rehab phase five.

Again, a the Sycamore Gallery is a group of dual stage filters, which are the final stage and filtering water from the Mississippi River for pumping into the drinking water system.

We talked about the Algiers plant, which was the uh Algiers filter gallery rehab.

That there is the uh again another filter gallery.

Have you shared that with the council?

Have you shared that with my office?

I believe it was.

I believe it was.

I know it was shared with the with the mayor's office.

Okay.

Okay, and we'll gladly give that to you.

But let me also add, because you are right in in in some degrees.

This is what we took.

These are specific requests for earmarks dealing with water, wastewater, and the treatment plan.

But there's more we have to do, and you're absolutely right.

Once we had the the break on Clareborne, staff has been working on trying to understand what kind of audit we could do, what kind of technology we can use, and to put money a dollar amount to it.

They are doing that, and I'm urging that they do it quicker, but you're absolutely right.

We need to give you the whole process, and and and we're working on that.

But it would be wrong to say that we're sitting on our hands and not doing anything.

We have a lot of information that we have presented to Washington to try to get funds, but you are right, we need to do more to make sure we know what the the audit of the system is going to be, and then to look at what the uh technologies we could use.

I'm not suggesting let me just say that you all are doing nothing.

I don't want to I don't want to create that picture.

I'm just saying, Mr.

Executive Director, we have got to operate with a greater sense of urgency.

Okay.

Uh with this council, what we inherited, everything is urgent for us on every every given day.

And given the crisis that exists within sewage and water board, we've got to operate with a greater sense of urgency.

Speaking of the plan, you all mentioned a potential audit.

What is the timeline uh of the audit of these pipes?

What's the plan around the audit of that?

How long will it take?

When will it be complete, and then what is the next steps?

We are in the process of determining that, sir.

Okay.

Some of these we cannot have an answer.

Let me put it this way.

It's a demanding question, it's the question that needs to be asked.

It takes a little more time with the science and engineering that we have to do to give you an honest answer.

Fair enough.

The sooner we can get that answer, the better we can partner with you to try to work toward a solution, is all I'm saying.

So uh if we could act with a great sense of urgency there, and then the final thing I'm gonna put on the record.

Uh, a couple weeks ago, uh, my team um and and me personally reached out to you um about Burgundy and Desalone.

Uh it's just a matter of time before the Lower Ninth Law is underwater.

So can you give me an update on what's going on there?

Because that appears to be uh a water main that's gonna break in the very near future.

Yes, that is a 24-inch water main right at that intersection.

Um your team did did bring that to our attention.

Uh we have done several closures.

Again, it this being a transmission main requires us to um unfortunately put about eight blocks of folks out of water if we were to do this.

Um we have uh made a couple of attempts to um to make this repair, and um it the the pipe needs to be kind of um re reset a little bit, and so um we need some additional equipment to do that, and uh we've again we've made a couple attempts at that, needed to pause on that this week due to the other, you know, unfortunate transmission main work.

So um that is on our previous slide as being one of our urgent priorities.

Thank you.

Um I'm just gonna flag the alarm again.

Um, you know, we we need to give that urgent attention.

Final question before I yield.

Um I've been reading um that uh flood insurance and homeowners insurance may not cover properties that have been damaged, bodies, water main breaks.

So can you confirm if that's accurate and if it if it is accurate, if if if property insurance and renters insurance is not gonna cover this?

Is sewage and water boil planning to cover it, or what what's the plan to make these these individuals whole I don't know about their individual flood insurance policies.

Um I do know that across the country uh and in the other utilities I've worked at, there is some sovereign immunity to the utility as far as what they are required to pay legally.

There's also an issue of whether we knew or should have known of a specific situation, so uh or potential for damage.

With that being said, we would have to look at each individual claim and make a determination, and we have a risk department that would be able to assist with that, and everyone has concern they could call 52 water.

Well, uh I think that's you know, probably something that should be all on our radar because residents are already starting to flag that.

Councilmember McCarran is recognized.

Thank you, Chair.

Um I just want to talk about one thing really in particular and echo, you know, both of my fellow council members about the urgency, and and I can tell you the the next place that's gonna be a water main break is gonna be at Willow and Calhoun.

And that is something that there's water gushing out of that right now, and and my office has been in touch with you all for for weeks now.

Um, and it it's my staff drove by this morning, and there's more water coming out.

So, you know, I I I'm worried for the residents in the area, uh for myself.

I you know, I can't sleep thinking about when is the next you know, 3:30 a.m.

tax that my residents in my district are dealing with ankle deep water in their house.

So, you know, for these little leaks that are popping up, now it doesn't seem little to everybody.

Everybody's anxious about this small thing becoming something big.

So, like Councilmember Hughes said, what is the plan to address these things?

And and all of these little things seem to be related because they're all in the same area.

So what are we gonna do specifically right now about Willow and Calhoun?

So tomorrow morning we don't all wake up with this happening again.

Yes, we have been in touch with your office about that, and um again, as as we previously mentioned, we had a test closure scheduled for that, uh, which had to be paused due to this other work.

So um, but we'll we'll have our teams go back, make a look at it, see if there's something we can do um while we're in this situation um with the 48-inch uh out of service and see if there's something we can do to reduce that impact at this moment.

But it is absolutely uh on our radar and uh one of our urgent priorities.

Okay, and then on this list you said that you guys have done some replacing uh uh pipes when you do the JRIRR FEMA road work.

Do you can you provide like a map or a list of that?

And then going forward, you know, when you do have a plan on how you're replacing these pipes, um are you going to be working in coordination with DPW on projects that are are currently scheduled to happen?

Because you know, in my opinion, if somebody has a a road work uh open road, then that should be your priority on how you're fixing these pipes and replacing them or repairing them, whatever needs to be done.

Because we we don't want this consistent thing that we've seen in the city for the last 20 years of going and and replacing something and then we're ripping up the street three and four and five times, and residents have had to live with constant construction going on.

So, you know, I'm curious whenever you do have that plan, please work in coordination with DPW on how you're gonna do that.

Same thing with the lead replacement lines.

All of these things need to happen at the same time.

So it's the same kind of coordination.

I agree.

We don't want to go back and we don't want to inconvenience the neighborhood more than we have to to do the work.

So I agree with you 100%.

We'll do all we can to coordinate with with DPW.

Great.

Thank you.

That's all I have.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Harris is recognized.

Thank you.

Uh Chair Hughes.

Like my colleagues, we have reported leaks to you time and time again, and we don't have a timeline on repair.

Specifically, there is a water leak at the intersection of Gravier and Norman C.

Francis Parkway that on your dashboard indicates that it is a water main, and it's been leaking, and we've reported it over and over and over again and have no plan of action from you.

So, what is the plan of action?

Uh that I will have to look into further.

My apologies.

Do you have a timeline on when you're gonna report back to us so we have some indication?

Because just like Councilmember McCarron has water main and issues in her area that she thinks is gonna be the next one.

We've been reporting this one over and over again, and we think that this is gonna be the next one.

Understood.

Um we'll happy to get back to you um by the end of the week at the latest on.

There's another leak that we reported at Magazine Street by Lilette.

Do you have any update on that one?

Um I I do not, and we'll put that on the list for evaluation.

There's another one at Talladon Taladano and Coliseum that I just passed recently that is uh significant leak.

Do you have any update on that?

Not at this time.

So what I'm hearing from you is that you don't have a comprehensive list of leaks, you don't have a comprehensive list of water main areas which might pose a risk of leaking, and you don't have any updates that you can provide to us about when these might be fixed or even explored.

Uh on these three locations, we will we'll look into this and and get back to you uh as soon as possible by the end of the week at the latest.

My question is do you have a comprehensive list of every leak that has been reported to you through our work order management system?

And are you?

And I would say the answer is yes, we have a work order management system.

So as it comes in, we have a listing of what the leaks are.

How are you prioritizing those leaks and those repairs?

Um those are based on the cond the um sorry, the assessment of the inspector at the time, uh depending off it's uh a water main or a service inlet um or you know severity of the condition at the time.

And so um there's initial assessment made and then um we're we're we address them that way.

I know we have a significant backlog right now.

Um we receive I think around 600 new work orders every single week.

Um and we are able to complete between four and five hundred.

So we are getting a large number of of um of water of work orders in general.

Do we have a master list?

Yes we do that is our work order when people call it in so we know what the leaks are as you said we have to prioritize them by when the inspector goes out and takes a look at it.

But let me interrupt you it sounds like you haven't even inspected these three areas even though we've reported them specifically the Norman C Francis Parkway one which we've reported time and time again.

So has that been inspected or not?

We would have to see I don't know she doesn't have the information in front of her at this time does not mean it has not been worked on by our our group we'd have to go back and check the well I would like an answer via email on all of these areas of whether or not they've even been in the queue to be inspected.

I will say that the water main breaks that have happened in district A and district B are older pipes right we can all agree to that fact.

Are you prioritizing the inspections or the repairs based on the age of the pipes I think it's based on the severity at the time.

But not the age of the pipes.

Stephen are you able to speak to that I want to make correction on the inspections so if it's in the work order dashboard that means it has been inspected.

Can you just identify yourself for a record yes this I my name is Steven Yang, deputy general superintendent of sewage and water board.

So I'm sorry what was the what was the question?

You you were interrupting me to tell me some information about inspections.

No in terms of inspection I wanted to make sure that that it's clear when we go out it when when it's basically reported by any resident it starts off as a service request through customer service.

So your question originally was do these are these uh water means inspected beforehand they are they're done by the inspector at the time the service request is put in and they create a work order based on that so you're telling me that because your dashboard says that the Norman C Francis is a water main that it has been inspected.

That is correct.

Do we have do you know if there is a plan to address that significant leak.

I do not know this at this time but I will find out all right I appreciate that.

Ms ma'am I want to move to uh just communications I know when the first water main leak happened um Caitlin I spoke to you about communication and making sure that we are all looped in whenever an incident happens I know that we're all on a text thread now I just want to make sure that that communication is kept up because it it's important for us to let our constituents know what's happening because you know when that first one happened nobody knew what was happening on Clayborne.

Turning quickly to Magnolia and Jackson it sounds like you haven't repaired that yet.

No that requires additional equipment in order to fully isolate that that break we were not able to do that with the existing valves in our system that equipment is available to us now but we are having to pause on that for the moment because of the uh other the other issue.

Do you have a timeline on repair because the street is I believe still closed off it that that's correct.

So um when we are able to put the 48 inch on Pinola back into service uh we will continue that it could be as is as soon as Friday to to complete that work as soon as possible.

You know I think the the overarching theme here is we have to keep up a communication we need to know when we report a leak that it's actually being addressed.

And so I think that that's an area that you could definitely work on.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you Councilmember Harris um before we move to fire hydrants and we'll give you some some closing remarks just for the record is anybody uh furlold currently at Sewittan Waterboard I'm sorry I couldn't hear you.

No is anyone furlough currently at Sewage and water board no sir.

Okay yeah just for the record everybody on this day is for a little all of our staffs are for a little and we work with a great sense of urgency so uh just just wanted to to know um why don't you touch on fire hydrants and then uh we'll give you the opportunity to close out your presentation and we'll take some uh public comment sure so um I think maybe if we can go to the the well no that one's fine the well we'll stop there.

Um so uh we have uh nearly 16,000 fire hydrants in the city.

Um about just under three percent of those have leaks or in need repair.

This is uh while I would not say satisfied.

Um this um can be considered within industry standard.

I'm not suggesting that this is acceptable, but um there this is a large uh large number of fire hydrants um for a large city, and um we are working, we do have a number in our inventory now, and um our intent is to uh repair and replace uh several every week.

So 454 that we need to address and are addressing multiple each week with our individual zone crews.

Thank you.

I'll give you all the opportunity for any uh closing comments that you'd like to make.

Okay, I'll say quickly at Swimno we work very hard to assist our customers and provide excellent customer service.

But I agree there are areas where we can improve and we want to improve, and we'll dedicate ourselves to doing that.

And so when it comes to the call to phone in, the payments will go back and double check the system and have people call in and see if there's anything else we can do to make sure that operates at its at its best at its peak.

Uh as far as the urgency that and the emergencies that we're seeing now with the the flooding and the breakage of the the water mains, understand that a lot is happening behind the scene that we are aggressively with a sense of urgency trying to analyze it, what engineers do, analyze the the problem, analyze how we can do an audit, analyze what technologies we can use, and also put a cost to it, and then either we're gonna have to do some type of emergency acquisition to get it done quickly, or we'll have to do an RFI or RFP to get it done.

But we're working through those hurdles, but we can we have to do it faster, and even doing it tomorrow isn't fast enough.

So I understand you, I hear you, and we'll we're pushing to try to do it as quickly as we can.

Councilmember Green is recognized.

I just before we go to public comments, and I could have waited until afterwards, but uh Governor Landry set up a task force not too long ago, and it came up with a report, and there was talk about potentially funding some of the needs of the sewage and water board.

As the sewage and water board is technically a state odd agency.

I'm gonna ask you during this session to be clear with us and ask us to come and help you in terms of the monies that are needed to take care of some of these issues, but also to put a little bit of concern in relative to the governor's office, since I'm sure that since Governor Landry set up the task force and it came up with a report that he wants to see the recommendations implemented.

Well, one of the recommendations had to do with infrastructure, investment in infrastructure and the like.

Let me and other council members know how we can help make the sewage and water board a state agency, a stronger agency relative to this infrastructure repairs and addressing those needs.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much.

Uh, we're gonna take um public comment.

Uh Renata Collins, followed by Sage Michael Pillay.

Good morning.

Um, thank you for this time right now.

One of my biggest things is I did hear you guys say about 450 of the fire hydrants, and I know we have over 700 of them that that are either broken or some of them are even missing.

I've been doing my research.

The quality of life is definitely important.

So the fire hydrants, we definitely need to make sure we have in order.

We also need to make sure that we have clean drinking water, and I'm not sure how we're reacting with the industrial companies because when they put the issues into the water, it's impacting us.

It's impacting our health, it's impacting our ability to effectively have a way of living, and then also now we have the water mains that are continuing to break.

Um, I don't even know if we are even working on how we're gonna lay the pipes, because I know that if we put the clay down first and then put the pipes down, we could also help with the flooding.

So I would like to understand the plan that we have because the quality of life that we do need here is important for us.

District two, New Orleans.

We are the richest district in Louisiana, but yet we're living the poorest, and that's unacceptable.

And our quality of life does impact our water.

Having to have to have a water bowl is un it we shouldn't be at that level.

I think that we should be at a greater level of being able to live and to rely upon because this is not a system that's new.

We can only have a hundred hundred-year-old pipes if we had a hundred year old system.

So, where did we drop the ball?

How can we get it done, and how can we work together with the community?

And how can we work together with the community?

It's my biggest question.

Thank y'all for all that you have done, but these are legitimate concerns because the quality of life should be yesterday, not tomorrow in the future.

But it'd be filmed yesterday ain't moving forward.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Sage Michael Palay, followed by Dreamer Goldsmith.

Forgive me if I mispronounce you, right?

Don't worry about it.

I gave up on that a long time ago.

I wasn't talking about the point of order right quick on the agenda.

I see here sewage and water board is set to present a sewer discharge presentation and is also in the packet, and I did not hear that announced to uh present today out prepared to make comments on that.

Um so my my my minute started, but this is a point of clarification for the order of the committee with the sewers discharge being on the agenda, and there's a package publicly submitted.

I I'm confused why they're not allowed to present that presentation publicly.

And I I use about minutes to that, but that's what we are here for as well, and it's publicly information.

I will say this with the um with my minute left since that point of clarity it was skipped on the agenda.

We talk about fire hydrants.

I will say that uh councilman um councilman Hughes, you requested water quality testing when you a state uh rep.

Um and um I visited a website, uh a site visit with Caitlin recently, and she said she would provide water quality test and results.

That was uh uh five days ago.

There was water quality test results are not here.

Um it's not there.

And I believe that she's been untruthful with being transparent releasing those water quality tests and results.

If you give your word, you gotta pass on your word.

And I request that since she stated on a word on a site visit that she had those water quality tests and results.

I have an email right now that I sent out requesting those results.

I need those water quality tests done like right now before we leave.

Uh I would lose full integrity with this person.

Uh also um the dashboard is not accurate.

Uh the dashboard does not reflect all water leaks outside my house right now.

So the water board stood on a water leak on St.

Charles Canal, like pouring right now.

Uh right now, they stood on it, and that leak is not on the dashboard.

That bit leak been reported thousands of times, many times.

It's not on that dashboard right now.

So the dashboard isn't accurate.

Uh to answer your question, on that dashboard, there's 1,740 water leaks, 250 total source sewage work orders, 1,003 total repairs.

I don't work for sewage and water board, but they should have just provided information.

You know what I'm saying?

So what I'm saying is we have 22 infrastructure failures along the Dwight Canal, and we need that done.

So thank you, Sage.

Uh Dream of Goldsmith.

I'll start by saying I wish we had more than one minute for this.

And I knew that uh you know, I feel like this issue is uh anyway.

Um I'm solution-oriented, so I think that one of the faster ways we can identify where these leaks are about to happen is to start monitoring where we're seeing spikes um and utilization.

If your bill is going from $60 to $900, that's something that sewage of Moderboard can see in advance and start tracking.

And those, in my opinion, would be hot spots that they can start uh working on first.

Um in the meantime, we still have these bills we have to pay.

So allowing us to uh I don't know, pay a minimum payment of $50 a month until y'all figure it out or fix whatever the issue is on our street would be very helpful.

Um I've lived in the same house since 1995 and we've had the same issue three times.

This is a third water break on Panola Street.

Um the first one I I had addressed far in advance and let them know that there was a lead pipe in front of my house that had a baseball-sized hole in it, and they might want to get on it, and that was 10 years ago.

Uh, we need a quality assurance, better alert system to let uh people know that this kind of thing is happening, if a flood is happening, a text message isn't gonna wake me up.

I had to knock on all our neighbors' doors for a five-block radius to wake folks up.

So if there's a way we can implement some kind of better emergency alert system for flooding, since we are hurricane prone, flooding prone, um, that would be great.

Um this is an LDH uh issue, health issue.

So um for folks who have compromised immune systems.

I work in healthcare.

I know how scary this can be.

Not everybody can afford water.

What are we doing to supply water to folks in the community who have this ball water advisory?

Is there a distribution site?

Can you point us in the direction of that?

Can we treat this like it's uh a catastrophe because it is um that's all I have for today.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um I inadvertently skipped over Doire Canal, so why don't you give us that update as well as the update on the testing?

Sure.

Um so let me let me just address I I believe I may have missed an an email request, and I I do apologize uh to the community for that, and we will we will remove that situation.

So I just want to address that um regarding the request for that information.

Um so the we have um been working um to assess the conditions of the sewer system uh along this uh section of Dwyer Canal.

Um of the biggest improvements we've been able to make is returning the Ceres pump station uh back into service.

This was uh an issue where we were not able to pump um sewer out of the the actual station.

Uh we had to put a temporary pump in a park nearby and uh what we call bypass and so uh pump from one manhole to another instead of out of the uh sewer pump station itself.

Uh that uh was likely contributing to uh higher than level higher than usual sewer levels within that area.

Uh that has since been addressed, and we've been able to get the the sewer down in that area.

Um so that that pump that was uh in the middle of the park there uh has been removed.

We have made uh a point repair on Bonita Street, uh where w uh we we're aware of a sewer discharge.

Uh we have fixed several water leaks along Chef Highway that we think were also contributing to discharges through the storm drain.

Um and is shown in yellow.

We have number of streets that we are um going to be have been and will continue to be doing additional investigation to identify areas of subsurface dish defects in the sewer drain uh or in the in the sewer lines.

Uh one of the the other things based on the you know the the concerns we've heard from the community uh are regarding odor complaints and we have uh we are going to be con um putting in a a pilot test for a manhole monitoring system that's able to monitor hydrogen sulfide levels within the within um the the manhole so in the sewer system.

So that's one of the um you know the concerns that we hear and um are are very mindful of and want to be addressing that to to collect data um on gases in the sewer system and potentially expand that from there.

Okay.

Have we tested the water and do we have test results?

We do, yes.

Uh when can I get those results?

We will we will send them later today.

Today.

Yep.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Uh well, in closing, uh, thank you all for being here.

Uh we'll see you next month.

Same time, same place, but um I I just want to say I can't stress this enough.

I think all of us on this council go to bed on edge, looking at our phones at two and three in the morning wondering when is the next water main break.

Um Mr.

Director, we've gotta act with a greater sense of urgency and we need a comprehensive plan.

Thank you for being here.

Mr.

Chair, as we close out, may I say one thing?

I thought I was gonna get the last word, Councilmember, but go ahead.

You can.

Well, go ahead, Councilmember.

You can finish after I say I just wanted to give on the record recognition of Sergeant Marilou Augustine, who at three o'clock a.m.

she is a quality of life officer for the third district at three o'clock a.m.

on Monday.

She was calling around to everyone to let them know of the water break and that it was having an impact on their residences.

I think that sometimes we don't recognize what the members of the New Orleans Police Department do who are committed to their jobs and committed to their community.

I want to mention her name on the record because that was an important thing.

She reached our office and we were able to reach out to the sewage and water board to make sure that you knew of something that you didn't know about, but to make sure that somebody got out there right away and understood the impact.

I appreciate her doing that.

Thank you very much.

I move adjournments talking about Councilmember McCarron.

We stand adjourned.

Thank you all.

Okay.