By Nancy Correro
The Times of SWLA
When it rains excessively in Lake Charles, we experience some flooding on roads and sometimes we may see sewer refuse coming up into the streets.
When the city of Lake Charles works on low drainage problems, they evaluate and grade the projects and use several factors to determine where they will replace drainage systems and sewer lines.
John Cardone, City Administrator
“One is roadway conditions—the condition of the road, traffic congestion, and the need for drainage water and sewer improvements. So, throughout the year we monitor those different variables and when it comes time to do our calendar budget we grade it and the road projects that need the most improvements those are the ones that we recommend to the city council,” said John Cardone, City Administrator of Lake Charles.In addition to road and drainage projects, the city puts a certain amount of money each year just into drainage improvements.
“The year before last we put a million dollars into it and this past year we put $900,000 in it and so we continue to build a plan and put improvements into maintaining the drainage system,” said Cardone.
In the more mature areas of town, the system is older and it may be undersized for the development in the area. The streets are the drainage and there are no catch basins—that is the way it was done 40 or 50 years ago.
Development can also alter drainage in an area.
“I’ll give you an example. As McNeese develops, and it continues to build buildings and pour concrete, you have less surface area on the ground for water to go to so it goes into the street quicker. As areas develop, the drainage system may not be sized large enough to handle all of the development or anticipate all of the development,” said Cardone.
Some streets in the City of Lake Charles are state roads.
“Ryan St. is a state roadway. It doesn’t mean there is failure it just means those are older areas,” said Cardone.
Because Lake Charles is surrounded by an abundance of water, if the waterways get full or reach flood stages, there is nowhere else for the water to go accept for our streets.
“What I do try to remind people of is that all of our drainage systems drain into drain laterals or navigable waterways and when we have heavy rains and these waterways and drainage laterals fill-up—like Contraband Bayou, English Bayou, Calcasieu River— those areas back-up, our drainage system and even areas outside the city drain into these areas,” Cardone said.
Low lying areas and low streets will experience flooding. It happens all of the time because the system drains into Contraband Bayou and other laterals. These areas that crest and reach their maximum and all the other drainage systems draining into it will then back-up in the low areas.
“If you happen to be in that low area your street is going to flood more. Ideally you want the water to go down quick enough so you can move traffic along that roadway, but there are streets within the city limits that the drainage system continues to be re-done—Lake Street for example—was a major drainage lateral from Sale Road to I-210.
That project, we 4-laned Lake Street, we put new water lines in, sewer lines in, and a major drainage system to help drain the entire area. So, as we go through and do these projects we continue to upgrade the sewer and drainage systems,” Cardone said.
With the bond issue, the city put $21 million aside for water and sewer improvements and they’ve spent about $16 million up to this date on water and sewer improvements. They’ve spent $5.3 million on water and $11.4 million on sewer under the bond issue for making improvements.
“Under the road projects under bond issues from Sale Road to Country Club Road, we made drainage improvements on that roadway. We made improvements to the intersection of Lake Street and Sallier Street and when we did the intersection improvements, drainage systems were put in. So, we try to identify those areas that are major drainage laterals and try to make those improvements because the other areas drain to it,” said Cardone.
It would seem that the heavy hurricane activity the city has experienced would erode or undermine the infrastructure.
“I don’t think the infrastructure gets eroded because of the hurricanes. What happens is you have debris that not only gets into our drainage system, but also you have debris—downed trees, limbs, and branches—in those navigable waterways and drainage laterals,” said Cardone.
Those areas are stopped-up and they do not drain as well and then the systems that drain into it won’t drain as well. The goal after a hurricane is to clean those major waterways and also to clean out the drainage system.
“We brought a company in and we cleaned out all of the debris out of our catch basins and drainage systems,” said Cardone.
Every-so-often the City will put a notice out in the paper or advise people not to blow their leaves, grass, and debris into the drainage system. When people blow debris into the street it then gets into the catch basin system. If those areas fill-up, it’s going to slow down the drainage system.
“We want to remind people that when they do that it’s having an impact on the drainage of areas that are not even next to them. We try to advise [the community] of that quite often. Our crew spends a lot of time cleaning out the street gutters and the catch basins to try and remove this debris from there.
During heavy rains or when the rains are coming the crews are out in the field and these areas that are starting to block-up because of debris, they try to get out there and take it out of the drainage system. It’s an ongoing process,” said Cardone.
Outside the city limits there are open ditches and all of those drainage systems connect together. A lot of the areas in the parish drain into Lake Charles and the debris in those open ditches make its way into the drainage system.
“Anything, including trash that gets into our drainage system affects the area when there is heavy rain. You may not see it as much with a small rain, but when you have a heavy rain that comes, like 2 or 3 inches in several hours, you want your drainage system to be draining the best it can be and be clear of all of that debris,” Cardone said.
The Tank Farm Road Sewerage Plant is running at partial capacity right now.
“It should be complete I think in the next 15 to 30 days,” said Cardone.
“We do put money aside each year to make these improvements with our road projects, but also with our drainage, water and sewer. Since 2005, under our capital and bond projects, the City of Lake Charles has spent around $35.2 million in street and drainage projects, $48.4 million in sewer line and plant improvements, and $13.3 million in waterline extensions. So, you can see it is serious and we do put a lot of money aside and we do have an ongoing maintenance and improvement program for all three.”
One of the complaints in some areas of Lake Charles would be that of sewage coming up out of the drainage systems into the streets. Cardone explains how this can happen.
“If you have some older sewer lines, and that goes back to infiltration, it can be a city line or on private property, and if you experience flooding, it gets into our system and when it gets into our system, it overloads the system. So, we continue to put money aside for sewer rehab, we identify those areas that are older and either replace those lines or line an existing sewer line to keep the water from getting into the system.”
Residents are encouraged to correct any leaks they may have on their property because it can leak into the system.
“We encourage residents that know they have leaks in their lines to fix it because if not when the rain water gets into our sewer system it still gets into our system and causes issues,” said Cardone.
The city has a continuous maintenance program for our drainage system.
“It will be ongoing probably forever. That is just the way it is. Now, if we continue to grow, we’ll need to put more money aside to maintain the systems.”
