Mm.

Alright, good morning everyone.

Today is Tuesday, May 19th.

This is the joint committee meeting on quality of life and public work sanitation and the environment.

Can I please get a roll call?

Roll call.

Councilmember Hughes.

Here.

Council Member McCarran.

Here.

Councilmember Harris.

Council Member King.

Councilmember Green.

Here.

Councilmember Willard.

We have one, two, three members.

We do not have a quorum.

Thank you very much.

What we'll do is we'll go right into the presentation from Sewage and Water Board.

Director Heyman and members of the sewage and water board team.

Good morning.

What we'll do is we'll let you get through your entire presentation and then we'll take any questions.

But let me publicly acknowledge Mr.

Director, the fact that you have hit the road and have started going directly to the people.

And I really really appreciate that.

And as you continue these meetings, please keep our offices in the loop.

As I told you, I definitely want to help with uh attendance for district E.

But I really do appreciate you engaging directly with the community.

And before you start your presentation, I know we had a uh little hydrant break in New Orleans East, so if you want to just talk about that for the benefit of the community.

Yeah, good morning, everyone.

Uh Caitlin Timrak, interim general superintendent.

This morning there was a uh a broken hydrant uh out in the New Orleans East area, and as such uh pressures, water pressures in that area did drop below 20 for a short 20 PSI, I'm sorry, for a short period of time.

And as such, uh we are presently um issuing the precautionary boiled water advisory for an area bound by Bullard, Morrison, and Paris, and then of course the lake.

So our website is being updated now if it is not already, and uh our press releases are going out on that.

So that is just an emerging item this morning.

We'll be our crews are already responding and uh fixing hydrant, and we'll be looking into that further.

Well, thank you all for uh letting us know so timely and and being so transparent with the public.

Mr.

Executive Director, uh turn it over to you.

Okay, good morning.

I want to say that we have a large agenda, but we want to make sure we highlight all the work that we're doing, and we'll discuss today our community engagement, our enterprise asset management system, our water system, our sewer system, and our drainage system.

As you noted, uh the sewer and water board has an obligation to keep our customers informed, and to that end, community engagement is a major focus right now.

Most recently we hosted two water talk community meetings in May, and we'll be scheduling more in June.

It's our goal to go to all of the council districts in the city.

Additionally, the annual water system consumer confidence report will be sent in June.

And again, I just want to stress that we have an obligation to keep the public informed, and we will be doing so with the public meetings and doing more as far as uh leaflets and other things that can help inform the public about what's happening.

And of course, uh using the social media.

Next, we'll look at our enterprise asset management system.

We're pleased to be making progress on beginning to implement our new uh enterprise asset management system.

This system will replace a 30-year-old legacy work order management system, will give us the tools we need to manage all of our equipment from pipes to pumps to buildings in a centralized location.

Uh we selected a cityworks platform, which is now Trimble, which is a cloud-based GIS integrated system that will have mobile capabilities.

Contract negotiations are underway, and we target an implementation start of Q3 of 2026.

As I said at the beginning, I have some good news to share with you.

The LDH water grades are in.

And we're very excited to announce the good news that our grades for the Algier Point plant, we maintain an A grade, which was achieved in 2024.

And for Carrollton, we improved from a C to a B for 2025.

This reflects improvements at the Sycamore filter gallery, which reflects efforts from our engineering and water treatment teams.

Now LDH determines these grades based on several key factors, including federal and state water quality standards, financial stability, operations and maintenance, infrastructure and other performance areas.

And I'll hand it to Kaitlin.

All right.

So keeping on the theme of the water treatment system in general, in in April at our April board meeting, we formally presented the water quality master plan, which is a nearly two-year effort that was intended to look at all of our water treatment facilities and identify the path forward for the uh the next level investment in those systems.

So this identified critical system needs and established a prioritize risk-based risk-based path forward for this next level of investment and has informed a five-year capital plan, which is included in a state capital outlay application this year, as well as a 30-year capital plan.

This entire plan is posted on our website, and we encourage everyone to take a look at that in the recommendations of the report.

I did want to point out that one of the first actions that we're taking is to expand upon the existing corrosion control treatment process at the Algiers water plant uh to uh kind of future-proof against potential future saltwater intrusion events.

Uh, this was uh certainly a concern several years ago.

And while there is no detectable level of lead leaving the water treatment plants, uh we know that lead can enter drinking water through lead pipes and other plumbing fixtures, and increased chloride levels from a saltwater intrusion event could make that worse.

So we will be adding a food grade additive called zinc orthophosphate, which is very commonly used in water treatment systems around the country.

We'll be uh using this in our Algiers water treatment plant, which will help prevent against future corrosion in the event of a future saltwater intrusion event, and this is done by uh creating a protective barrier on the insights inside of the pipe that can uh be supportive in a case of a future event.

So we will be starting this later in May or nearly June, and we'll be doing additional community outreach on this work as well.

All right, moving on a little bit to inf uh street infrastructure work.

This is a sewer main relocation on Arado Street, but I put it in our water section.

Uh the last week folks would have seen the the barricades coming up in this area.

Uh this is to perform a sewer main relocation on Arado Street, which has resulted in traffic changes at the intersection of Washington and Norman Sea Francis.

The map that we have shown here is still in draft, so I want to point out that our team is uh reviewing the traffic control plan, optimizing it.

Uh, we want to minimize the impacts, and so we're going to be making some changes to what we have here, but we will be updating our website as well as uh you know updating this on social media and making sure that everyone is informed of the final plan.

We also recognize that there is a major bike path that goes through that area and our meeting with representatives of that community as well to make sure we have the appropriate signage and uh rerouting is necessary.

So this work is planned to go from May of this year, and I I do the slide is incorrect through February of next year.

Uh that's that's the present estimate.

We will be splitting this into phases to reduce the number of traffic detours into enclosures.

Crews will generally be working between 7 a.m.

and 6 p.m.

Monday through Friday.

So again, this the traffic plan is being revised and will be updated and formally sent back out again.

Chair Hughes.

Um Councilmember Harris, if you don't mind, can we get through the entire presentation and then you'll be first up in the queue?

Sure, thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

And keeping going back to the theme of the water system, a quick update on our uh water transmission might main immediate action plan.

I hope everybody has seen that we are working at the leak at the location of South Claiborne and Third Street.

That repair is underway.

We are still investigating the exact location of where the leak is on the pipe.

Oftentimes the leak will surface at a different location than where the exact leak is.

We do have a temporary repair completed and are continuing to investigate that further and make sure that we have a formal repair completed at this when we're done in that area.

But we are we're proceeding with that work at this moment.

And you know, we have been talking about proceeding with the immediate action plan.

The next major milestone we had in that was to accept the results of the request for information, which we've spoken about several times.

We have received those RFI responses.

We received 27 responses from 15 companies and can be generally broken down into these areas of analyzing the situation, inspecting, repairing, and replacing.

So right now, what we are focused on is the analyze and inspect area.

And we are presently working towards implementing our starting a satellite leak detection program.

We're working through final contracting with the vendor to be able to do that.

What this would do is identify areas of hot spots and allow us to go and investigate that further.

We are also looking at the inline acoustic tools, which will give condition of the pipe itself on the inside, as well as pursuing some data analysis options using data that we already have through the Smart Mew program and like.

These are all things we've already been looking at, and at this point, we are looking at what funding we have available that will allow us to continue this work, primarily again in result in the space of condition assessment to identify the next areas that we need to be focusing on.

But again, very pleased to be making progress on South Clayborne and Third, as well as another repair on Willow Street as well this week.

Good morning.

On this slide, we want to update the joint committee on the financial planning for the immediate action plan.

We met in front of the infrastructure advisory board last month, received approval for the four million dollars.

Move forward on those critical repairs underway.

So very thankful appreciative for that support from the infrastructure advisory board on the middle term and near and longer term.

We know those are bigger dollars that require planning and strategy.

But just to let the community and the joint committee know, in the in the past, we've received over two billion in external funding through VEMA and other sources in addition to the billion in uh SEAL of federal programs.

So our priority is to pursue these external funding sources, grants, loans, capital outlay, whatever uh preferred financing uh to avoid the ratepayer uh and then also bonding.

Uh, but at this point, as we mentioned before, we are uh capacity on additional water bonds, so we uh need to work to grow the net revenues to be able to issue bonds to pay pay back over a longer period of time.

So all solutions are you know, of course, being looked at uh working with our executive directors faces you know in other communities or bond council financial advisors uh in the city.

So we'll continue to partner in uh form strategic solutions to look at these uh generational uh challenges with infrastructure and deferred costs over over many decades, really.

So just that's all I want to update to there.

Thank you.

Okay, next, we'll talk about the fire hydrants.

Fixing fire hydrants continues to be an important task for our crews.

We are nearly at 16,000 fire hydrants in the city, and so far in 2026, we've inspected 649.

Repaired 135 and replaced 13.

There are still over 400 open work orders for hydrants, not all of which are out of service.

But we're working on getting this number down.

The warehouse has the parts needed for the majority of the repairs, and ordering ordering continues as matter of normal business.

Alright, now we are going to shift a little bit and focus on the sewer system side of things.

I wanted to provide this group with an update on the sewer force main break that happened in the industrial canal.

This occurred on April 17th when a sewer force main break that goes under the industrial canal was damaged.

Sewage and water board mobilized contractors on the 18th, and we were able to cease and stop the discharge of sewer into the canal on April 27th, which was accomplished by installing two large line stops on either side of the canal.

We estimate that approximately 50 million gallons of sewer were released at this time.

Fortunately, the majority of the flow of sewer that goes to the water to the wastewater treatment plant in this area actually goes through another pipe that is nearby and adjacent to the one that was damaged.

So there was a relatively small amount on a daily basis that was already going through this pipe, the majority was going through another pipe, and anything that was already that was going through the pipe that was damaged has been re-rerouted through these through those other pipes, and there's no major impact to sewer operations as a whole because of this.

In conjunction with LDEH and DEQ, the recreational advisories in the canal systems have been lifted.

And based on data that is collected at Lake Poncha Train at the Seabrook Bridge, there were also no impacts to Lake Poncha Train from this event.

In terms of a permanent repair, the immediate concern was getting the sewer stopped.

In terms of the permanent repair, removal of debris around the pipe continues to be underway, and we have a preliminary repair plan that will involve replacement of the damaged section of pipe under the water, as well as some welding of some additional additional damage that doesn't necessarily need to be a fuller pipe replacement.

There can be some welding.

So the debris has been extensive.

We're continuing to remove that, or our contractors are continuing to remove that, and uh we'll we'll update with a repair plan when we have that at that time.

Alright.

Uh we wanted to take a moment to discuss the topic of uh you know sewer impacts to stormwater overall.

Uh we will go into more specifics on the Dwyer Canal in the next slides, but just wanted to talk a little bit more high-level.

So the primary concern with you know any sewer contaminated water is through is through contact.

So through swimming, boating, fishing, uh, etc.

Fishing and shellfish harvesting can also be a concern, and it can also have negative impacts on aquatic life and the ecosystem balance.

We also know that odor is a concern, which um can be a nuisance at lower levels and can be a health concern at higher levels.

Um the primary cause of stormwater contamination with sewer that we see is through what is called inflow and infiltration, as well as through sewer manhole overflows.

So there's some more information on this slide around the definitions of those.

Uh, inflow happens when there is a direct connection between the sewer and the drainage systems.

For example, if something was installed incorrectly directly into a storm line.

This is this happens but is less common than infiltration, which is when there's a break or a crack in the pipe, which causes sewer to leak from a sewer pipe into a stormwater pipe.

Uh again, we have a graphic here that shows the different uh areas of the system that can happen where this can happen.

And finally, an overflow is what occurs when sewer cannot flow through the pipe and comes out through a manhole in the street, uh, which we do see in other places.

So in addition to sewer uh contamination, there is also other sources of uh, there's gonna be also other sources of bacteria in in the water, such as pet and animal waste as well as yard waste after major, after rain events.

So specific to the Dwyer Canal, uh wanted to share kind of a summary uh and continued updates of of what we've been working on there.

At the end of April, we met with local community members who we have been engaged with throughout this process, and we reviewed all of the work that we have done along with our continued actions and our next steps.

We have been working in this area since December and and early January, and it has involved multiple courses of action to investigate the sources of the issue and make the necessary repairs.

We'll review the specific steps we've taken on the next slide, and do want to fully acknowledge that we understand and appreciate the concerns of the community.

This is not an acceptable situation, and we are continuing and have been continuing to work on this uh on addressing this problem.

Specifically, our most recent efforts have been focused on dye testing, and I think I spoke to that a little bit the last time in this meeting.

And we're focusing on six streets that appear to have the most persistent issues.

Those are Galahad Street, Lurline, Bonita, Citrus, Charlene, and Arthur.

What the die testing does, it is identifies areas underground where there is a broken pipe or a defect in the pipe.

We identified seven locations of these defects on Galahad Street and have completed all of those repairs on that street.

We have identified five more on Bonita and Lurlang combined, and our crews are making these repairs now.

Uh the intent is for the die testing and all other repairs to be done by the end of June, at which point we are hoping that we will see improvement because of these actions.

We have also recovered sewer from multiple locations.

In the canal, we've identified blockages and clean sections of sewer lines.

We've also identified some areas of illicit discharges that were contributing to discoloration of the water in this area.

And as we previously reported, we made repairs to the Ceres pump station in March.

This station was being bypassed from December due to some issues with the pump, and the sewer levels in this area were elevated due to the station not being fully operational.

But we did make those repairs in March, and that station is back in service.

And finally, as also we previously reported, there was an overflow at the Castle Manor Pump Station in December, which was corrected at that time.

So I just want to reiterate there is not one specific location that is the problem.

We've identified and are continuing to identify multiple underground repairs that need to be made.

We are confident that these repairs will make a positive impact.

But of course, if testing shows otherwise and there's still issues, then we will continue to investigate the problems and make repairs.

Okay, we'll look at the cost and timeline for Dwyer Canal action.

To summarize, we can group this work into three buckets, identify, repair, and prevent.

In the identification phase, this work is continuing by completing dye testing on six streets.

Three streets are done and three remain.

In the repair phase, we are making point repairs based on the findings of the dye testing.

Repairs on Galahad Street are completed, and the remaining repairs that are found will be done by the end of June.

We also invested nearly 400,000 to repair at the Cerrus pump station to replace piping valves and pumps.

In the prevention phase, we just received response for RFI for a biotechnology pilot test that can help to address blockages in sewer lines and wet wells.

We are reviewing those now, and we're working on updated public education campaigns around fat orals and grease and wipes.

Wipes are not flushable and can cause blockages in pipes and pumps.

And we want to make sure that the people know not to dump bats, orals, and greases as well.

They may not be the specific issue of the Dwyer Canal, but in the general, but in general, this is good practice that we want to make sure everyone is aware of.

And I just want to say again, fat, oils, and grease, especially where you have the restaurants and all, it's imperative that they don't simply put that directly into the system because it does make for a lot of problems for us, and that's across the country.

And then again, the wipes, while often they say they're a flushable, they end up making a problem in our system because there are basically rakes that pull up through the water and they'll they clog it up and make it hard to manage the system.

So I hate to interrupt and break my old rule, but just for the public benefit, and we can all understand this.

So you're saying that even flushable wipes are not advisable for our system here.

Alright, I think that's something we really need to do a public education campaign around because I'm I'm guilty.

So all right, thank you.

Okay, and we can, but that yeah, that's something we have to address it in DC and the different agencies, the uh National Society Clean Water Agencies, they have bulletins on it too.

So I'll be glad to share that.

Yeah, we are we are already working on those campaigns as well.

All right, so from a you know continued public health and safety concern around uh you know the the Dwyer Canal and sewer in the stormwater as well as related to temporary pumps that we do have out uh around the system.

I'll talk to that in a minute.

Uh, but again, we are continuing to collect samples along the Dwyer Canal area to help us uh determine the effectiveness of repairs.

I want to emphasize that we still are recommending no contact with the water, bacteria concentrations are unfortunately still high, and uh we also acknowledge that there are smells that people um are experiencing, and that is uh from hydrogen sulfide, which is a component of uh sewer, uh, this is the source of odors that is often observed via smell at low concentrations.

So from a you know, health and safety perspective around temporary pumps.

We have a photo here of what it looks like when uh we're pumping from a manhole from one manhole to another.

Uh, when we do this, then of course we have to remove the manhole cover, and so that can create uh that does create an open hole that we are making sure that we are instructing our crews and our contractors to put barricades and coverings around.

There, I just want to do want to mention that the manholes are not naturally tight, which is to avoid a buildup of of any gases.

So we we do want to do these coverings and make sure that we are eliminating as much uh sewer gas exposure into um into the community as possible, but we also have to make sure that we're not creating another hazard by doing so.

But we are doing this is an example of one that we have recently done.

There is also concern that we have heard around uh noise and emissions from the temporary pumps.

And just to just to reiterate the reason we would use a temporary pump is if the pump the permanent pumps at a sewer pump station are not operable or one is operable and and another is not, uh, we have to pump sewer from one manhole to another around the station.

Uh that is the situation that happened at the Ceres pump station.

When possible, we use electric pumps at these stations, which uh reduce noise and emissions concern.

Sometimes we do have to use diesel pumps for diesel-driven engines, rather, for these pumps.

Uh, we do use quiet pumps, uh quiet pack pumps as they are known, and also tier four engines, which are intended which are designed to have lower emissions.

So we do recognize the nuisance and the concern to nearby homes and businesses.

The ultimate solution is finalizing the repairs at the stations, which is a combination of various things.

Uh some stations need pumps replaced, and in two cases we have those pumps ordered and should be installed in the next couple of months.

Uh there's also other stations where we need to replace valves and piping similar to what happened at the Ceres station, and a couple of them need some much larger rehabilitation.

So there are um again, recognizing these are these are a concern.

We are doing what we can to reduce these.

It's a certainly cost for us as well.

Uh, but there is um we have to make purchase new equipment or uh invest in new pipes and valves as we did at the Ceres pump station for these to not be necessary.

I'll now provide an a minor drainage update.

Our minor drainage cleaning efforts for 2026 are well underway.

Uh we have a dashboard on our website where you can track our progress.

Thus far this year we've cleaned over 1,000 catch basins and over 760,000 pounds of debris.

We're paying for the contractor by pounds of debris removed, which incentivizes debris removal rather than just inspection.

The dashboard on our website shows the areas where contractors specifically have cleaned from 2024 to present.

The contractor has five crews and ramped up efforts in April when the funding was available and should achieve the same production as as last year in 2026.

Our priority cleaning areas are in Tremay, Lower Garden District with assessment to be done at the bywaters, Algiers, and Audubon.

SWIPNO has two primary crews working seven days a week as well.

Most of our funding right now is for cleaning, but we also have capital repairs to make.

But that is a long-term goal.

There's also a 311 dashboard that shows the open requests.

We are continually working on Q Sing reviewing the 311 data and the 311 backlog will be going down with SWIBNO crews dedicated to new 311s going forward.

Okay, next we have these are photos of uh work that the team did last Sunday after the rains over the weekend.

We can see how much debris was in the catch basin, and then you can see what a clean catch basin looks like.

As previously mentioned, our contractors will be focused on the two priority areas for cleaning and the three areas for pre-assessment.

These areas were determined based on the highest concentration of 311s via heat maps, which is how DPW focused their efforts.

SWIPNO crews will be responding to new 311s in 2027.

We plan to switch to a drainage basin focused approach.

We should note that some catch basins are being reported repeatedly, even after they have been cleaned.

This is primarily due to underground pipe repairs needed.

As you can see in these photos, the cleaning is very helpful, but does not address broken pipes.

Additional funding is needed to address those efforts.

And next, I'll talk about the and last of the hurricane preparedness.

All departments are on track to reach preparedness goals before June 1st.

We're meeting with departments throughout the spring.

Final hurricane preparedness meetings along with a tabletop exercise will take place prior to June 1st.

The Office of Emergency Management recommends departments review their emergency procedures, finalize contracts and agreements, and double-check emergency supplies, placards, and emergency contact information.

Mr.

Chair, that's all that we have with the presentation today.

Thank you, Mr.

Executive Director and the sewage and water board team.

Councilmember Harris is recognized.

Thank you, Chair.

I want to get back to the Errata Street slide.

And right now, there are streets blocked but no work happening.

So what's what's the deal with that?

Because we're down to one lane, but there's no activity happening whatsoever.

It's just the street is blocked, and it's been blocked for the past week.

Yes, so the uh the barricades will typically go up before construction starts, as was the case in here.

But uh the the team is um we've challenged the team to go back and look at that and look at splitting this into different phases from a traffic control perspective, fully recognize the the impact this is having and uh need to uh get additional communication out on that project.

When is the work actually gonna start?

It will start in in May.

There's stage there's sorry, staging equipment and beginning preparations now.

So until the work actually starts, can you remove those barricades so that this major thoroughfare is not impacted?

Yeah, we're we're looking at seeing what we can do at this point.

Fully agreed and and understand and respect that.

And then what is the plan for the bike lanes?

It says you're working on bike lane impacts.

Yeah, we're we'll be meeting with representatives um from Bike Easy and uh the biking community, and we'll be sharing that as well.

Yeah, please keep in touch with my office and please let us know so that we can get the information out.

I can tell you that because these lanes are blocked, there are major traffic issues happening, including impacting our graduation events, um, and more to come at that Savior Convocation Center.

So again, there's no work happening, so there's no reason for that lane to be blocked.

Understood.

Uh Vice President Willard is recognized.

Thank you, Chairman Hughes.

Uh thank you for being with us this morning.

Thank you for the information.

Uh a few questions.

So on average, uh public water utilities in the country lose about 16% of their treated water.

Um your reporting indicates that in Q1 of this year, we lost about 77%.

Um I'm guessing a lot of that is attributable to the water main burst that we had this year.

Um do you do you know what percentage of water loss sewage and water board had for last year?

Because it's around 70%.

Still still 70%?

Um what about the year before?

It's it stayed at that trend uh last few years since we've been reporting at the public works committee, uh I think maybe the high 60s is uh is a number I've seen before around that.

Okay, so on average we're losing, you know, three more than three times what the national average is.

Is there um have you got and I brought this up at the last meeting, there's a reason I'm doing it.

Have you guys done any type of calculations on the cost that is to rate payers for New Orleans to lose that much of its treated water?

Yes, uh the marginal cost, uh, you know, there is a cost, but the uh obviously the raw water you know comes at no cost, but you that's that is a part of the strategic plan is you know, reducing that, part of some multi-strategy with the installing the smart meters, getting leaks addressed all throughout the system uh to work on that number, bring it down so that that is a very important part of the strategic plan.

I mean, I just think we need to be raising all the red flags about this, because on a regular basis, people in the city of New Orleans have trouble paying their monthly water utility bill, but we essentially give away by water loss, 77% of our treated water.

So that I mean this is a major problem.

Well, I'm sorry.

But also too, as you mentioned, the smart meters help us to see where there's possibility of leaks.

And also, as we talked about the water main breaks, you know, there are cracks in some of the system, and that's how you're losing it.

As you mentioned, the info and infiltration, uh they call it eye and eye in the business where you might have a break in the pipe that's allowing it to happen, you have a connection that doesn't belong.

Uh part of what we're gonna do with the water main program that we have, replacement program, is to is to analyze the system.

And so as we where we see there are breaks or cracks, we'll go in and make the changes of as we have funding to do so.

But you are hitting on top of what is a major issue.

I'd also add that it's an issue across the country to the point, just our system in general, to the point that the American Water Association said that to repair all of the water systems in this country would cost two trillion dollars.

And so it's an issue, and also, too, the water industry is talking about these issues in a different way.

They used to talk about in terms of maintenance and repair.

Now they're saying things such as we're entering a new era of water main replacement.

And so that's the drum I keep trying to beat when I'm talking to legislators in Washington about the fund that we need.

I'm also on the board for NACA National Association Clean Water Agencies and Hamble Association, Metropolitan Water Agencies, and I was stressing to them that we need to develop a new fund of money to allow us to help distressed municipalities address these multi-million dollar projects.

And so that's what we're going to continue to push.

You're hitting the nail on the head, but it is a problem across the country, and I think a good amount of what we're doing with the water main replacement will help us go in the right direction.

But we need I need to, and we all need to continue to work together and collaborate to try to get additional funding as best we can.

Yeah, I I agree with everything you just said, and uh I think it's going to take uh not only a regional push but a national push from local governments across the country to say patchwork is no longer working for our water utility systems for our drainage systems.

Uh we're at the point where they need to be redone, redesigned, uh reengineered.

Um, but in the meantime, um I'll keep doing my job as a as a regulator, and uh I think it's very important as a ratepayer in the city of New Orleans, I would be extremely frustrated, maybe even a little bit upset, probably upset when I hear that 77% of our treated water, which we invest in, right?

There's a cost to treat that water is being lost.

Uh next thing I want to talk about the call center performance.

Did you have something?

Okay, call center performance data.

It shows 71, and I'll probably drill, you know, look at this more for the next meeting, but it's showing total calls answered were 71%, 19% were dropped.

Um is that is that call drop that 19%?

Is that of the 71%?

Because on paper, that's you're missing 10%.

Right there, 71 and 19 only get you to 90.

So I was wondering how is this 19% of calls drop part of the 71 of answered?

How do you how do you categorize calls drop?

I have to check that those numbers that you're referencing.

That's in the the quarterly report.

Yes, yes, that was in your quarterly report.

But yeah, normally we just report uh abandoned rate or or some number versus percent answered.

So I would think the 71% is answered, abandoned would be more more like 29.

So I have to check that.

Okay.

Can you can you look into that and get get back to us on that issue?

Um the next thing, this is in your quarterly report as well.

Uh average days to completion for water system complaints, 52 days in-house, 103 for outside contractors.

So the timing almost doubles when you go to outside contractor, average days to completion for sewer complaints, 19 days, 32 days for outside contractors.

My question is why does utilizing the outside contractors almost double the time to completion?

So typically when we're involving one of our contractors, that's a much more complicated job.

It's not uh a typical point repair that our that our team would be doing on the normal course of business.

This would be something more more complicated.

Uh so the the streets pump station is a good example of that.

So it's it's it's different type of work that they are accomplishing for us.

Okay, that makes sense.

Uh maybe look at re-classifying that or relabeling it.

Um in your report that we just went through.

I just had a question because I saw it, you know, I work chemicals industry stuff.

Um zinc orthophosphate, you're gonna use that as a pilot in the Algae Algiers water plant.

Um my question is um, is this our first time utilizing this chemical for water treatment purposes for sewage and water board?

Yes, it would be, and so this is a this is a um a treatment process that is used throughout the country.

So this is food grade, this is a standard industry practice around this, uh, and it's it's supplementing our existing corrosion control uh process that we already have in place.

Um, so why are we just now trying this out?

Yeah, so this is one of the recommendations that that came out of the water quality master plan.

And we had asked that uh group to look at uh ways we could mitigate uh potential negative impacts from future saltwater intrusion events.

So this is one of those recommendations from that report.

Okay, and we're doing it as a pilot just to see the if we if we have better performance, less less leakage, um, is it financial?

We can only do it for the Algiers plant.

In the event of a saltwater intrusion event, the Algiers uh intake would be impacted first.

So that is farther downriver and would be impacted first.

So that's why we're focusing on that system at this time.

Got it, thank you.

Um the next thing for the industrial canal sewer break.

Um so we had leakage into the canal for 10 days, 50 million gallons of sewer was released into the industrial canal.

Yes.

There's no impact to Lake Ponchatrain.

Uh we collected uh samples at various points within the within the canal system, and uh there was there was no indication that there was any concerns.

How often did we sample Lake Poncha Train?

Uh we so we did not sample Lake Poncha Train, we sampled the canal itself, but the I want to just point out that the Pontra Train Conservancy does sample there at the Seaborg Harbor, and there was there's really no no concerns.

So there is a lot of water that goes through those canals.

There's a lot of ship traffic, uh, and so there's this is not necessarily a stagnant body of water, um, and there's there's a lot of water yet in the canal in general.

It sure would make me feel better if we just stayed on top of it and continued sampling.

Uh 50 million gallons of sewer leak just that frightens me.

Um, and we have a lot of recreational activities happening in Lake Pontra Train.

So this is something that we need to stay on top of because if we start to get an indication that there are hazard hazardous materials in Lake Pontra Train, we need to issue warnings immediately.

So please please stay on top of that.

If you need help from water testing from LDH, please let please let us know so we can do uh whatever we can do.

Um, on that point, if something like this, if another situation like this happened again, are we looking at another 10-day period to uh fixing it to closing off the sewer leak?

I think if I can address, then you of course you can add each situation is unique, and it depends on where the break is, what's the remain of the pipe?

What type of specific uh repair has to be made or fitting needs to be made to stop the flow?

Uh so it's impossible for us to really predict in advance.

Uh but our engineers have gone through this before, they are professionals, and that we'll address it as quickly as quickly as we can.

Okay.

Um, on the canals in New Orleans East, when can the people of New Orleans East expect for the sewer discharge to come to an end in the canals?

So the work that we're doing right now to identify the locations of the underground breaks uh is ongoing, and uh our goal is to complete all of the repairs that we can identify right now.

Uh before by the end of the June at the latest, uh I'm confident that we'll have an impact, but or a positive impact, but again, if we will continue to be uh testing that area, and if there's continued concerns, then we will continue to investigate and make repairs.

So the plan right now is to have that discharge come to an end by the end of June.

So those six streets specifically that we've identified with persistent issues, uh that is our that is our goal is to find identify all of those and make all those repairs.

Okay, uh final point, and I know council member McCarron is going to touch on this because we did a tour of a part of her district, Holly Grove last night, saw a lot of clogged catch basins.

Uh so I want to put this on your radar.

I know we've done it in the past.

I think it would be a good idea for sewage and water board, the city, the city council, and neighborhood associations throughout the city to organize volunteer catch basin cleanups, and we need to start that promptly so that we can get as many cleared out before hurricane season starts, but even before that, we are already in the midst of the hard uh persistent summer rain.

And so I think timeliness is of the essence.

So that's something that I want to put on your radar.

My office standby is ready to stand by however we can to help do that.

But I think we could really put a dent in the number of catch basins that just need to be cleared out of like mud and other debris that may be clogging half of the catch basin.

So that's all I got.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Vice President.

Well, Councilmember McCarron is working on us.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Thank you, Stewart and Waterboard for being here today and updating us on the catch basins.

There was an issue with a catch basin in the district on Esplanade that was preventing a business from being able to open because of the water on the sidewalk.

So I appreciate their attentiveness.

It was a weekend day, and they went out immediately to clear that, and the business owner was able to get his business open.

So I appreciate that effort.

But that goes back to this issue of catch basins.

So if my math is correct, you guys have 2,900 open 311 reports.

You've cleaned 1,002 nine, which is about seven and a half per day.

So we're basically on track to clean 2700 by the end of the year.

So we basically won't finish any additional 311 requests or catch basins that come through.

So I guess what is the plan to improve those numbers?

Because I'm about to put in a whole host of 311 requests or however we need to report, which I would like clarity on.

After my walkthrough yesterday in the Holly Grove Dixon neighborhood, we identified basically almost every catch basin we walked by was either clogged with dirt, was halfway covered, not draining.

I mean, it's clear that some of these have not been reported.

Not every resident likes to report or can report, which is why I've been doing these walks through the neighborhood to check on it.

So what are what are we doing to be a little bit more proactive about cleaning these catch basins?

Because my office is now inundated now that it's starting to rain again of my catch basin is clean, you know, is not draining.

So what can we do to improve on this?

Yeah, well, first of all, thank you for that information, and we definitely look forward to having your reports of that.

So the the 2900 open catch basin not draining code.

Um, we are continuing to to QC and review that, right?

So that we have a you know a truly accurate number.

Uh, but that is what is in the 311 system.

The numbers they're reporting this year are uh probably artificially low at this point.

So we have just been able to ramp up the efforts of our contractor, and that was something we were able to do last um last month when uh funding was available.

So as in as last year, uh kind of a slower start to the year, and then we're able to ramp that up in the spring going into the summer.

Uh, don't remember exactly how many catch basins we cleaned last year, but I think we had over 10 million pounds of debris removed, so uh there we will complete more than 2900.

I think the the key right now is to we do want to get this backlog down.

We recognize it's still high, uh, and and that's causing some concern.

So if these are new instances that you're speaking of, we definitely want to get those in there, make sure we're addressing them.

Uh, you know, we'd mentioned that there's some some pre-assessment areas and some target areas, those are based on the information that we have in 311.

So if if that information in Holy Grove Dixon is not in there, we look forward to receiving that and seeing how we can incorporate that.

Um yeah, we will definitely 311 making sure we're getting um the new ones handled where contractors assessing these priority areas is our approach this year.

Okay, and when um crews go out to clean a specific catch basin.

Are they cleaning out everything on the block or are they just cleaning the one that has been reported?

Typically, the crew is going to kind of look holistically and and um typically the one that's reported on the block, um, because that is that is the goal is to address that one that's been unidentified.

Um, but you know, I will make sure that if I will ask the team that if they're identifying others, we get those in there as well.

Yeah, because I mean I think there's plenty of times where one neighbor just reports one on the block but doesn't realize that the one down the block or a block over it has is has the same issue and is causing this this drainage problem.

So I think I would expect that maybe contractors or the crews that are going out there could look at okay, I'm cleaning this one, but let me check the other two or three on the block while we're there because easier for you guys if it's cleaned out, and then you can just report it in your dashboard that you know you guys have cleaned out four catch basins on that one block.

Yeah, they should look at neighboring catch basins.

Yeah.

Okay, is there a problem?

Because often, as you know, you might have a lot of leaves that kind of roll down the down the gutter.

So we can have them look at look at holistically as best we can.

Okay.

And about how long is it does it take from a time that a catch basin is reported for crews to go out and inspect and then potentially clean?

I mean, is there a process like you go and inspect and then you come back and report back and then you send out a crew to clean, or does it all happen at one time?

I don't know that we have an average response time.

That is something we can look into getting and reporting out and seeing improvements.

So happy to look into that.

Okay.

Um the other thing is we noticed last night there were vehicles, obviously, when they're home in the afternoon, they're blocking potentially the catch basins.

What kind of notice do you guys give residents?

Because I would I would expect that if y'all are going out during the day and there's a car blocking that catch basin, you're potentially not able to clean it, obviously, unless you went to knock on their door and say, Hey, can you move your car so we can clean this?

What kind of notice and have you considered noticing people on that block?

Hey, we're coming to clean your catch basins this week.

Can you you know not park in front of them?

Yeah, I I do, yes, that is a that is a concern.

And so we have experienced that on a couple different occasions.

Uh we are talking internally about about that exact topic of how to do that.

And and specifically in these areas where we know we're going to have contractors focused.

We want to get that information and ask people to move if we need to.

So good feedback and we're we're working through that ourselves.

Okay, great.

Yeah, I think that would be a good a good start there.

Um, and then has a citywide assessment been completed.

I know you guys have some priority clean contractor cleaning areas.

You know, I don't see Holly Grove or Holly Grove Dixon or areas in in Council Member Hughes' district um on this slide as priority.

So how do you prioritize that and and what about the citywide assessment?

Yeah, great question.

Uh so the the present priority areas are based on the information we have in 311 to generate you know heat maps or areas of the highest concern.

But again, this is based on information that's been reported to us.

So we're again focusing on those areas, but if if and when we receive additional information, happy to put that into our planning and see what we can do.

Uh say for for district E, more specifically, uh it's newer infrastructure, larger pipes.

Uh I just don't think we're finding as much is is concentrated of a problem in that area, not to say there are not issues, just not as concentrated.

Uh but next year after uh after we're able to get this 311 down, focus on these areas that we know are persistent issues, then we will be switching more to uh a council district and and watershed drainage basin based approach so that we can make sure that we're doing a larger citywide assessment.

Okay, thank you.

Um that's all I have on this catch basins.

I just had one question about let me go back to the fire hydrants.

Um there were two things.

Number one, have you been coordinating with the fire marshal on testing and and do they come and test it right after you've installed a new fire hydrant?

Um, and then the second part of that question is we're getting I know the newer ones are installed a little bit higher up, and we're just getting questions from residents on why they look different than they used to.

Okay.

Yes, yes, so the um, sorry, I'm gonna flip back.

Oh, I have my slide.

So uh the fire marshal is responsible for testing.

And so uh they think we do some tests when we make a repair, but in terms of the formal inspection, formal testing, that is something that they do on a on a routine schedule.

I I just don't recall if that's annually or if that's every six months, but that is something that they do as part of their normal course of business and report the information to us uh and then I believe re-report back when we've made a repair.

Uh so in terms of there being a testing after repair, I will have to check in on that if that is something that they do as a as a matter of business.

It's just a question that we've gotten multiple times.

So that's why I'm asking it publicly.

Yeah.

If I mean if there's any, you know, reason, I don't think there is, but just not necessarily putting it out there.

Okay.

On the fire marshal thing, so they give you all a report that they have inspected.

Can you provide that report to us?

I mean, I think it would be helpful to understand, you know, I know there have been recent issues in the past, um, in where fires have happened and and fire hydrants are not working, so maybe it's that we also need to have the fire marshal in here to kind of give an update on on their status on checking and testing fire hydrants in OPD.

And I'm sorry, uh NOFD is the agency.

I'm sorry that yes, but we do get those reports from them, and we'll we can share that.

Okay, yeah.

Want to be correct that for the record.

Okay.

And one last question.

So uh on the catch basins.

Residents should still support, I mean, call 311 for that?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes.

Or they can do it online at the flood tracker.

So they have two options.

Okay.

And it all goes into your database.

It all goes into it, yes.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Councilmember Green is recognized.

Okay, Mr.

Chair, thank you.

Um, two issues, um, basically, but I do want to start off with a um a positive.

I want you all to thank the members of your work crews who work in the heat, who work in the rain, who work in cold, and very honestly never get recognition.

I have an opportunity to go by many repairs that are being made because there are old pipes in different areas and they break from time to time.

Sometimes people have done things that um involve construction that create some of the problems that we have.

But um, your work crews will never totally get the recognition that they need.

They do so many um jobs, but I've seen them at work in the summer, I've seen them at work for emergency jobs, and I just want to tell you that.

But their work is appreciated.

I certainly wish that more people were able to take advantage of the opportunity to be included into the system of retirement and the system of um, you know, helping health benefits by participating officially in work crews, but the work that is being done that I see I appreciate.

Um I also want to say that um for the sewage and the leak of the waste line in um the industrial canal.

Have we come to the determination yet of what happened there, why the particular barge may have dropped something at that particular spot?

That is an investigation that is ongoing, and um that's all we can really speak to at this point.

Investigations take a long time, but it shouldn't be so long.

There was one boat involved, it happened at a specific time, someone who was in the um area of the I mean who worked for the State Department of Transportation Development, saw the boat.

I don't know why it takes so long.

But I don't know, it's not on you all.

That's kind of on the Army Corps of Engineers.

Right.

It goes hard on the Army Corps of Engineers.

But as a lawyer, I I it's best that I wait until the final report.

Sure, I understand, I understand.

It's kind of something that I'm saying that's rhetorical, but of course that happened so long ago, and you want to prevent it from happening again.

Sometimes the way to prevent it from happening again is to determine what happened that made it a problem in the first place, but nobody really knows.

So at the end of the day, I do want to um say that certainly there will be litigation involved with this matter, but I went to the site every day because the site was staged in my district.

So I was pleased to be able to speak to people there.

I know that the media camped out there, nobody did any special press conferences, they stood there, they were there 24 hours a day, sometimes waiting for a story.

But at the end of the day, there's nothing much that you can do when a boat drops an anchor or runs a ground and causes that sort of leak.

However, I will say this: are there alternatives to the way that we get sewer through that pipe?

Now that it's been diverted, is that a good permanent solution?

Or is there something we're gonna go back to the way it was?

Well, at this point, we're proceeding to fix the pipe as it is.

It does need to go under the industrial canal, the the wastewater treatment inside plant, I'm sorry, is on the other side of the canal, and so it does have to go there, and uh, I think in general, under the canal at this point still appears to be the best option, but your point is taken in terms of looking at other alternatives.

Because right now we're actually using an alternative, it's been diverted, right?

Yes.

Where is it going?

So that the public knows it's diverted, but where is the where are the millions of gallons of sewer going now?

Yeah.

So that line uh we were estimating carrying about four million gallons, which is uh again a very relatively small percentage of the total that we treat every day.

And so that is uh a combination of of two locations.

There is uh a larger pipe that is parallel to the one that broke at that same area, and then uh there is also a sewer force main that goes up through uh New Orleans East and comes back around um to the water treatment plant from the north.

So it's a combination of those two uh those two pipes.

Is that not a good permanent solution?

We we do like to have redundancy.

That is that is important to us, right?

I think that was the intent of having those two there to begin with, and so having redundancy and options is, you know, it was very important to us now, uh, in this instance, and we'd like to have that again for the future.

Okay, catch basins, there are 72,000 in the city, right?

Yes.

Um you right now are working on uh every four-year cycle to be able to get to each catch basin?

The goal would be to touch them every five years, so 20% a year uh for five years would get us there.

I like you to analyze and um every council member can have it.

What would it take in terms of dollar volume to be able to address those catch basins every two years instead of five years?

We know the obvious of five years.

You're gonna be coming back and they're gonna get clogged.

But it's such an important part of the drainage um and sewer the drainage system of our city that obviously we need to get to them more than every five years.

I will tell you that I understand how difficult it is.

I have seen catch basins opened where people have filled them with beads and they filled them with all kinds of foolishness for some reason.

Um, but I can understand how it would be difficult to get to them on a more regular basis without the money, but I think it's worth the analysis.

It may not necessarily come from us.

Maybe we can go to the state of Louisiana to support us as they're supporting other surrounding areas.

So maybe that is something that can be done.

But I think that we should have a cost for maybe what would it take to do it every two years.

And could you speak to people who allow their um the persons who cut their grass and to trim their trees to blow things into the drains?

Can you publicly express to the public that that that that debris doesn't dissolve and go away?

I'll just stress very strongly, unequivocally, that everybody has to do their part.

We're one community, and when it comes to tree limbs, leaves, weeds that you pull from your garden and all, don't put them into the catch basins, don't put them in the gutter, bag them for proper disposal, because otherwise it will clog our system.

It will make up for a problem, not just in your neighborhood, it could affect others involved.

And so it's just uh we need to be more courteous with each other and make sure that we're doing the right thing.

But it just doesn't dissolve and go away.

I've talked to some of these guys who are using blowers and said don't do that because it doesn't dissolve.

But they actually think that it's just gone one day.

But unfortunately, for years, it accumulates, doesn't go away, and it causes some of the problems that we see right now.

Right.

So I agree with you a hundred percent that they shouldn't blow it into the into the catch basins.

They need to dispose of bag it and dispose of it properly.

It will make a problem, especially uh when we have a lot of rain.

And so we need to avoid that.

We need to work together together, we need to think about our neighbors who are taking care of our lawns and leaves and and limbs that we need to dispose of.

I wouldn't mind seeing you during this season do a little bit more in terms of a public relations side to let people know that.

Some people really think that it just goes away after a while, that it somehow dissolves and goes into the to Lake Puncher train, but it doesn't, it accumulates.

And the final thing I'll ask you is people have commented on and asked, Well, why don't we put after we've cleaned the drain screens in front of it so that debris can't get inside?

You might as well address that issue right now.

I have an idea, even though I'm torn, because I think that it would stop other debris from going into other debris from going, other water from being able to go in.

But why don't you comment on that so that the public knows the reason that we don't have screens is blank.

Sure.

So the entrances of the catch basin do have bars on them.

They're, you know, so they they do prevent um in some cases the you know the larger debris from from going through uh not all of them do, but but some do.

Uh so they will prevent the the larger debris.

I think the the challenge with a different screen would would be additional maintenance on that.

And so um we do not want to create any more barriers than there already are to for water to enter.

So uh, you know, we're already uh having this large effort to clean them and and inspect them.

I think the the installing of screens and maintaining that would would add some additional additional work.

Um but you know it's a it's a fair question uh and I think that we can uh continue the public messaging around you know not blowing um not blowing leaves, please keep please clean out in front of your catch basin if you can uh and that will make a difference.

I want to thank the members of the edge um edge water community and also the puncher train park community because they enjoy their trees, but they recognize that when the leaves fall, somebody has to take care of them.

Even though we'd like the sewage and water board to take care of every drain, especially every year after the trees shed and after um other matters happen like that.

But there are some communities such as Puncher Train Park, which is on Saturday, June the 6th.

If anybody wants to meet, it's 8 a.m.

Saturday, June the 6th, meeting at Bethany United Methodist Church, and they want sewage and water board to do it, but they pride themselves in the beautiful trees.

They're gonna clean the sketch basins themselves, at least the outside of it, obviously.

So I want to thank them and just encourage everyone to recognize that no one is deciding that we are not gonna clean catch basins, but do the math to 72,000 of them and recognize that what you see on the surface is many times only a part of what the problem is.

So I appreciate communities and in individuals such as myself who cleans the one in front of his house.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let me um go back to the industrial canal for just a second.

So that incident was caused by a barge or ship, right?

What?

Yes?

Yes.

Okay.

So who pays for those repairs?

Currently, we have to make the repair.

But our lawyers will pursue the insurance of whoever is the wrongdoer in that situation.

Gotcha.

So hopefully, sewage and water board will be able to recoup.

Yes, that is our goal.

Those costs.

Okay.

Um, thank you for that.

I do want to go back um and and piggyback off of council vice president Willard uh on Duara Canal.

So just so we can be clear uh to the public, when when do we expect the leak to be fully stopped?

Right.

So there are multiple streets that we believe uh, sorry, multiple storm drains on about six streets at this point that we believe that we see persistent issues.

And so each of those streets has to be inspected, uh, identify the locations of those brakes and make repairs.

We've completed three of those uh assessments.

We've completed repairs on one street.

We have the locations of repairs that need to be made on the other two, and we are continuing to do the assessments on the remaining three.

So when that work is done, and if that is not uh solved the problem that we're seeing, we will go do more streets.

These are the the six uh the storm drains underneath those streets are the six that we've identified as being the the challenges at this time.

Okay, and I want to go back uh no in previous meetings I've asked about testing.

So will sewage and water board publish raw test results, sampling locations, standards used, and public health guidance.

I'm sorry, can you repeat the question?

Sure.

Will sewage and water board publish raw test results, sampling locations, standards used, and public health guidance.

Yes, we we do provide um so the testing results are uh uploaded to uh to DEQ.

We're providing those to DEQ, but they are not on our website, which is what I believe what you're asking for.

So we will work towards that.

Yeah, if we can um work to get in them on sewage and water board's website, and moving forward, if you can, you know, share those with us and we'll we'll work in partnership to make sure we're being transparent with the public.

Yep.

Uh, let me also, um, as we close, uh, I just want to publicly acknowledge Justin McCorko in my office who is my point person on uh sewage and water board and infrastructure matters.

I know Madam General Superintendent, uh, he communicates with you on a regular basis.

Thank you for being uh responsive to my office as always and the entire sewage and waterboard team.

Um, but Justin has been doing a lot of great work behind the scenes on this Dwyer Canal issue.

Uh I know he doesn't do it for credit, but uh I just wanted to publicly applaud him and thank him for his phenomenal work.

Um with that, uh thank you all for being here today.

Uh, Mr.

Executive Director, keep us posted as you continue your road show.

Want to get the word out to our residents.

Um, you know, we get a lot of calls about sewage and water boards so this is their opportunity to interact uh directly with you all.

And um Director Labot, thank you for your great work, um, and and the entire sewage and waterboard team.

Um, and to those employees that uh are often working long hours in the sun, the rain, late at night, uh thank them.

We do have one public comment, uh Sage Michael.

Yeah, thank you.

Um, yeah, uh I want to publicly recognize myself for the work I've been doing um on this on this work since December 11, 2025.

Um thank you, Mr.

Chair and Committee members.

I'm actually on vacation right now, but um I'm gonna try to use my two minutes wise as I find some notes.

I adjut it down hastily.

Um thank for Swiss and Waterboard for the stakeholders meeting we had in District E Councilman's office representing that with Justin McCorco in the District E Switch and Waterboard, Liaison also represented in also communication.

I want to thank you all for that.

I invite City Council, all city council members to take a tour with me on Dwyer Canal to so to see firsthand the issues I've been doing with, and also the repairs and inspections that sewage and waterboard making.

Um we talk about water quality standards.

I would like to switch and waterboard to respond publicly.

What are the water quality standards for FICO, E.

coli, e.

coli and seasonal summer and winter by season, by types and by types of waterways?

We talk about standards and they're reporting to you all, water quality standards.

They should readily be available, provide the information to you like right now, not come back to you.

Um identified this discharge in Ceres Canal in a meeting we had, it was reported as concrete dumping.

After that meeting, I identified it as not concrete dumping.

It was another source of pollution, which is very egregious.

Um we also the implementation of system-wide air quality and safety and temporary bypasses, violates air quality.

That gaps in priorization.

I did a huge advocacy on Paris Boulevard.

My name wasn't mentioned on that side, and Councilman Green's district.

Uh I advocated for that.

LC Fortune, Dwight has water leaks.

Danzinger Bridge and Domin has water leaks, St.

Charles and Canada and Dwight have water leaks.

My independent research and documentation has exposed a lot.

With my advocacy, if I start my advocacy, will you protect my communities?

If I start my advocacy, will you all protect my communities?

Thank you.

Hang on, Sage, one second.

Um I was gonna wait till you got to the podium to publicly thank and recognize you.

Uh you have been sounding the alarm uh dating back to my days in the state legislature.

Uh, you've been a fierce and authentic advocate for our residents, often doing this on your own dime, own time.

Um, and and it's just been so pure and authentic.

And um, you know, I recognize the great work that Justin is doing, but you have been a critical partner in the great work that Justin is doing, and we owe you a debt of gratitude, and I just want to publicly thank you for not only your advocacy but for your partnership.

Um, and and we just are grateful for you and look forward to our continued partnership as we continue to improve the quality of life of our residents.

We owe you a debt of gratitude.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We just demand clean air and clean water.

Everyone is building today.

We're now welcome to sewage in their backyards as I will.

Yes, sir.

No one in the wheel, walk around to polluted air as Ms.

Chassity Blackstone and Tana family is.

It's been going off since December 25.

At what point is this egregious?

Which one is this negligent?

Listen, Sudden Waterbowl.

When they came on, they have high tally in their top staff.

How many people did they fire when it came in?

They have they have people that doing a job did not qualify and hired to do originally.

Or they're doing more or less, but less qualified.

Something management is going wrong going on, Mr.

Chairman.

I I urge you looking to that.

When was the last time these operator, Mr.

Green say that are in the summer heat?

When I led on the people had a raise.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sage.

Really appreciate you.

All right.

With that, board is clear.

So Jamal Board, thank you all so much.

I really appreciate you.

As DPW makes its way to the table.

Council Vice President, can you come back one second?

We need to approve some minutes.

I will move to approve the April 21st minute.

Second by Councilmember McCarron.

Five years, no names.

I will move to approve the April 14th minute.

Council Vice President move, second by me.

Please vote your machines.

Five years, no nays.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice President.

Are you sure that works?

If not, here is it.

Awesome.

Director Nelson, good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you for having us.

All right.

We ready?

Yes, sir.

Excellent.

So I wanted to give an update today on the joint infrastructure recovery roads program or J A R R, and really appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning.

Got a lot to go through, and we will go through in a fairly short period of time.

Of course, if you have any questions, feel free to raise your hand, of course, ask at any point that you would like.

What we're gonna do if you don't mind, we'll let you get through your entire presentation and then council members of child.

Sounds good.

This is just a graphical pictorial representation of the JIRR program.

There's over 91 projects that have been uh completed prior to 2025, so a lot of work has been done.

I think we're all familiar with the impact that this road work has had.

Uh it's been very challenging for a lot of neighborhoods, but when you look at those blocks in dark blue, what you'll see is that there has been an immense uh amount of effort put forward uh and over 6,000 blocks of the city.

Almost a quarter of the blocks in the city of New Orleans will be touched by this program by the time it's finished.

Uh those streets that are in gold uh were substantially complete in 2025, and those in light blue are in active construction here in 2026, and I'll mention it a couple of different times.

All of the projects that remain have been bid, are awarded, and are now in construction.

So we are on the glide path to completion for the Hurricane Katrina recovery program.

So very pleased and proud of, and I I was remiss.

I did not introduce Ryan Donegan to my left.

Uh, he is the city's point running point on this program and has done an exceptional job.

So all of the positives that you'll hear today are a direct result of Ryan's input.

So I can't thank him and his team enough.

Also want to recognize CDM Smith.

They've done a very good job of supporting us in the scheduling and execution of this work as well.

So looking at the next slide, uh, this is just a pick uh a depiction of the completion of the projects.

Uh each of these is uh we have the projects laid out by RR, and as I'll mention later, the RR4 series, R R 401 through 407, are the last seven projects that we have.

They are grouped projects.

So when we refer to No Fog, that's the New Orleans FEMA Optimized Group.

Did I get that right?

Thank you.

That is a bundling of projects that was put out in seven different groups last year.

And that has resulted in some really good bid results for us that we'll look at here in a couple of slides.

On the next slide, what we see again is another depiction of the progress that we've made thus far.

There are a series of legacy projects.

These are going back to those projects wave one and two.

If that raises any any bells for you, those will all be completed this year, and the bulk of those completed by the middle of this year.

And then going forward, those no fog projects, as we'll see on a schedule in a bit, are all laid out by task order.

So again, as I mentioned, all seven projects, all seven of those no fogs are now in construction.

91 projects completed prior to 2025, and we had one project complete in 26.

The legacies, if you go to the next slide, the legacies will be done this year.

27, we will not have a whole lot of substantial completions in 27.

27 is going to be a heavy construction year for us, but 2028 is going to be the year where we see everything coming to a close and an end.

On the next slide, you can see this is a depiction of projects going to bid, when they went to bid and what their current status is.

And what you can see there is that a lot of projects went to bid in 2025.

So this was really a ramp up year for design completion bidding.

And what you see is the dark blue lines, those dark blues are quite a bit higher than the gold lines.

The dark blue lines are the engineers' estimates and the gold are the actual bid results.

So what we saw coming out of the pandemic and out of 2024 is that the bidding of these groups in larger bulk quantities got us much better results.

And the aggregate of those results on the next slide is that we were able to save approximately 100 million dollars, which translates into 100 additional blocks of fully full street replacement that will not come at additional cost to the taxpayers of New Orleans.

So that grouping of the projects resulted in a lot better economies of scale.

We're seeing a much better, a much better bidder market, and that is leading us to the next slide, which is our cash flow projections.

There's a lot of information both in this chart and in the background, but the bottom line here is that you can see we have a lot of construction dollars being spent in 2026, 2027, and then as we get into 2028, we can see things begin to tail off, and we will be complete by December of 2028 with the entirety of the program.

And that includes the additional 100 blocks that are added in.

If there are any questions about the colors, you can see the orange are those legacy projects.

Those will be done this year.

The blue are the projects that we have in the no fog program, and then the green are those, that's the savings that we are going to realize that will be completed in 27 and 28.

And if we go to the next slide, this is a high level look at the overall schedule.

And we have a lot better granularity.

I think the scheduling and execution on the program this year is probably the best that it has ever been.

We have schedules down to the block laid out from now through the end of 2028.

And I fully expect that we will have challenges.

We won't meet the block by block schedule, but by having granularity, we will be able to address delays as they arise.

We'll be able to address challenges because those will happen, and that is going to allow us to manage much more effectively the overall completion of this program.

So what you see here is just a very high-level schedule.

If you are having questions from your constituents, we can provide a high level of detail on a block-by-block basis.

And I know that Ryan and his team have been sending out two-week look-aheads on a regular basis, making sure that folks understand where the FEMA program is at in their neighborhood.

And this, I don't have a slide on this, but when you couple this with the infrastructure coordination council, the ICC, and that dashboard tool that we have, we're starting to really see some benefit from having all of this in one single location.

So when there's a question about who's doing work on my block, being able to see that graphically on a map and then come back to a schedule with a lot of detail, I think is really starting to pay some dividends for us.

So again, demonstrating a high high degree of schedule control and completion by the end of 2028.

And that brings us to the last slide that I have in my presentation.

And just wanted to start with a couple of notes.

So the settlement that is funding all of this was reached in 2016.

So it wasn't reached until a decade after uh Hurricane Katrina rolled through New Orleans.

Uh and then from there, the original period of performance ran through December of 2025.

So actually, I believe it was September of last year.

And then again in March of this year, we made a request to extend the program through the end of 2028.

So 2016 settlement, five named storms between that period of time and now, and a global pandemic.

And this is the first extension we've asked to ask for.

Uh we received a short extension through July 1st.

Uh, that was received on New Year's Eve.

Uh, and again, as I mentioned, we've put in the request through December 1st of 2028.

That ex that short extension that we got uh had two deadlines in it March 1st progress update and then again May 1st.

Both of those have been met.

And I am very pleased to report that Friday uh and again this morning, we had some really productive phone calls with FEMA.

They have really taken this to heart.

I know the government shutdown had a major impact on Department of Homeland Security and FEMA's operations.

That has now been lifted.

Uh, they're back in the wheels are churning quickly, and they have been uh very, very positive in uh in what they have asked for because of our high level of detail in our schedules.

We've been able to answer all of their questions with a high degree of confidence.

Uh and I am cautiously optimistic that we will have some good news here in the next two to three weeks.

Uh, but we have to be able to deliver that program going forward.

So uh looks like good news.

Our partners at FEMA and GOSEP have been very, very helpful.

Uh, and so again, I sit here optimistic today and ready to answer any questions that you or anyone else may have.

Thank you very much, Director.

Council Member Harris is working on us.

Thank you, uh Chair, and thank you, Director Nelson.

I was gonna ask about uh whether how you feel about whether or not we're gonna get this extension.

Yeah, we've had some very positive conversations.

We had a meeting on Friday uh with headquarters, the director of public assistance was on the call as well as uh the director of region six and the local team, as we've all probably seen, there's a new director of homeland security, a new appointee for the for the head of FEMA.

They have all been engaged, and uh yeah, we're we're feeling good today, and we'll continue to provide information as requested.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

I do want to talk about Larry Garden District, which is a mess.

I know you were at the neighborhood association meeting yesterday.

Can you just tell us what the status is?

And are we proceeding as your predecessor Joe Threat did, which was a block-by-block?

We are air-up fix, tear up fix.

Yeah, so that was a great director threat put together a really solid program.

Previously, as I'm sure we're all aware, there was a large amount of demolition that would occur, and then it would take months, if not years uh to complete that.

Joe Threat and the team did a really good thing by putting together the task order uh framework, and that that continues today, and that allowed that's what you see in that schedule is by task order.

So that project specifically RR068, that's the 1100 block of UTERP, that will be completed within the next four to six weeks.

And I know the DPS 01 project, which is managed managed out of the Office of Sustainability, Megan, Megan Williams and Lauren Mews.

They're gonna be out there this morning.

They're heavily engaged.

Uh, and I know all of those things together make for a challenging situation, but the JR program is going to be out of there within the next month.

Yeah, it's very challenging when we have JRR resilience projects, entergy, all descending upon one single neighborhood, and everybody's just really angry and just waiting for this pain to be over.

I hope you can assure them that they will have complete streets by the time it is over.

That is absolutely the plan.

That's what's going to happen.

And again, that's that's a discussion that we are glad to continue at the infrastructure coordination council and having that dashboard.

We do intend to have that publicly available so that our residents, when somebody's digging in the street, they can go to one location and find out whether it's entergy, Delta, sewerage and water board, DPW, and who the project manager management team should be.

And you're including in that the signage that is mandated, the Matthew Schomberger birthday signage ordinance that we passed that there has to be signage posted with contact information, correct?

There should be, yes.

We should have points of contact that you so when a resident looks at a location, they find that it's whatever utility is, they should be able to reach out directly to that utility.

We should have contact information included.

Yeah, I just want to make sure that everybody knows because as you sat through uh this webinar presentation, they're blocking a street, there's no signage, there's nothing in that project that they haven't started yet, so they need to be compliant with their signage.

I didn't mention that to them.

So the schedule and the two-week look ahead you hope to have public at some point.

Yes, the two-week look-aheads, I think, are posted, are they not?

Yes, they're being sent to all of your offices, I believe.

Not to our offices, but for the public because not every person in New Orleans knows to call their council member or whatever.

Is it on your social media?

It's being posted on the website every two weeks.

Okay, all right, great.

Um and then finally, GERT Town looks like Beirut.

I know that's part of the JIRR project.

It looks like it might be completed in 2028 if we get an extension.

If not, we do have those bonds that bond money that we've identified streets in Gerttown has been a big area.

The question is, are we coordinating the bond projects with the JIRR work?

Absolutely, yes.

And our internal staff have been meeting um with staff from each of the council offices to make sure that we're we are leveraging that appropriately.

Yes, okay.

Thank you.

Councilmember McCarron is recognized.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, thank you, uh Steve, for being here as well.

Um, just a few things on the two-week look ahead and look back.

I I really do appreciate that.

We push it out to our neighborhood associations as well, and they have have come to us and said that they appreciate getting that message out because um it's not something that they've had before.

So I do appreciate that, and I hope that continues.

Um, just two other things.

Will you?

I don't see on the map um that 100 million reinvestment phase.

Are we gonna be updating that soon or?

Yes, yes.

So as of right now, we have to change order that work into the existing contracts.

We're waiting on the FEMA extension to happen prior to doing that.

So once the change orders are executed, that'll be added to the map.

Okay, great.

We do have an updated map already.

We just haven't um you know put it into the presentation yet.

Okay, perfect.

Yeah, I just want to don't you don't see Bel Air on there.

I have to say that publicly.

Uh, absolutely.

From Hammond Highway to Veterans or it is definitely in the program.

It will be added to the map.

Okay, perfect.

Um, and on the extension, um, I have already notified neighbors to call their congressmen and senators to ask for this.

Is that something that you uh would advise that residents?

This is a major win for the city of New Orleans, and to see this uh to see this through to completion will be it'll be the the closing, it'll be putting a bow on a program that will have invested, as I mentioned before, 25% of the blocks will be touched by this program.

Um, and when done in concert with the Department of Public Works, standing up its own internal forces, this is gonna be the perfect segue for us to be able to handle our own internal maintenance and maintain that investment that the federal government is making.

So I don't think there is any challenge with folks reaching out to their elected officials in DC and talking about how important it is to bring this home so that we can all celebrate a win together.

Um to reach out as well.

And you know that many of us have called our our um congressional offices too.

And they've been great partners as well.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh the board is clear.

Thank you for all the great work that you and your department are doing and for all of the hard work and women and men, please extend our thing, thanks for just the great and hard work that they're doing.

You you couldn't have said it better.

I would be remiss to not mention and thank all of those men and women who are out there, especially when it's hot, they're doing the hard work.

They're the ones that need the thanks, and going forward, they're gonna be the ones that carry us into the the next chapter maintaining this work.

So we owe a lot to them.

So thank you for pointing that out.

We do, and you know, uh in this building, we we we're quick to talk about the people that don't work hard, but we gotta do a much better job at acknowledging the many, many, many, many people who work really hard.

And they're there are a lot of people in this building who work really, really hard.

Absolutely.

Thank you, sir.

Appreciate your leadership.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh with that, Councilmember McCarron moves that we adjourn.

Second by Councilmember Harris, we stand adjourned.

Thank you, everyone.

Um, the same.