Regional meet seeks drainage cooperation

St. Martinville – A special meeting was held on Sept. 6 to discuss the worsening problems caused by poor drainage planning.
The first-of-its-kind meeting was held as remnants of the mid-August flood waters still persist in the worst-hit areas. Representatives from the Army Corps of Engineers and various area levee boards and water districts joined attendees from six Acadiana parishes governments to begin a needed dialog. Representatives from St. Martin, Lafayette, Iberia, Vermilion, St. Lanry and St. Mary parishes were present.
A lack of integrated drainage planning and inter-parish coordination has allowed development, mainly in Lafayette, to overtax water conduits like the Vermilion River. St. Martin Parish President Guy Cormier said that, well before August’s record rainfall, the Vermilion has been challenged. Over the years, he said, it has taken progressively less and less severe rainfall events to cause a back-up in the river.
Cormier told the Teche News he wanted to make inroads into the problem while drainage issues are still fresh on official’s minds. “You can tell people are already moving on now that the water has gone down,” he said. But he thinks the importance of it is clear and the faster developing cities and parishes are aware that planning changes are needed.
One concrete solution would be to require enhanced rain water retainage structures when development increases run-off. In some areas lakes, ponds or tanks are used to contain water and slow entry to ditches and creeks to give the vital conduits more time to deal with high rainfalls. But another change would just involve a better system for informing neighboring parishes of changes that could effect drainage.
“A generational change is what we need to look for now. When the federal and state governments stopped taking on parish-level drainage projects in the 80’s, nothing really took their place.” He said the future of development in Acadiana is at stake. “We have done well with things like school improvements in recent years, but they don’t do much good when the school busses can’t get through.”
Another meeting is planned for October and Cormier said he would like to hold more after that. He has floated the possibility of establishing a regional drainage commission. Something is needed, he said, to build floodwater planning and regional cooperation into the development process.
Efforts to improve run-off drainage on the parish level will continue as well, Cormier said. The extent of those actions will largely depend on voters, who will be asked to approve a new bond issue in a Dec. 10 special election. “I will be doing every thing I can to see that voters are informed about the issue is and understand that it will not raise their taxes,” he said.