NEW ORLEANS — It's a question New Orleanians are often heard asking before expected heavy rain, "Are my catch basins clean?" According to the city's most recent numbers, thousands upon thousands of them haven't been cleaned this year.
New Orleanians have repeatedly voiced their concerns about the city's ongoing failure to clean catch basins. WWL Louisiana reporter Eleanor Tabone found one at the corner of North Dorgenois and St. Peter streets, and it's barely recognizable. Grass has taken over, the lid is off and shoved in it and there's even a tire in there.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Treme, Arkesha Baquet from Li'l Dizzy's Cafe is one of those New Orleanians. Earlier this year flood water on Esplanade Avenue came close to the restaurant's front door.
There are a whopping 72,000 catch basins across the city. According to the city's Department of Public Works, As of July crews have cleaned 5,055 catch basins and flushed more than 7,000 linear feet of drain lines.
Councilman Joe Giarrusso says he understands that no amount of money will fix a problem overnight, but he's asking what's being done to keep them clean before the duty is handed over to the Sewerage and Water Board by 2025.
The councilman said, "It's frustration, we've said this many times before, the council allocated $10 million for catch basin cleaning back in January of 2022 that contract didn't become finalized till February this year."
He went on to say, "The last time I looked at the report, there was something like 2-3 million pounds of material they have sucked out of those linear lines, so it's a tremendous amount of waste... How much is left in the rest of the system?"
WWL Louisiana's coverage of the issues plaguing Li'l Dizzy's Cafe helped get Baquet relief, she said, "There were trucks out here, two trucks all the catch basins were opened up and cleaned out."
She says it was a drainage issue, and just like that, now when it rains, she says there's no longer a lake out of the front of her restaurant. "What we noticed was it did have weather that came but immediately when the rain stopped the water went down."
The Department of Public Works full statement:
The Department of Public Works (DPW) is responsible for maintaining roughly 72,000 catch basins throughout New Orleans. As of July 2024, DPW's in-house crews have cleaned 5,055 catch basins and flushed 7,250 linear feet of drain lines, with an additional 149 catch basins cleaned in July alone. We anticipate maintaining a pace of approximately 320 catch basin cleanings per month for the remainder of 2024. A status report is provided to the city council monthly, with updated numbers for August to be submitted next week.
Projects funded by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) are expected to cover about 750,000 linear feet of drain lines and their connected catch basins. This estimate, based on engineering projections, may vary upon project completion. Currently, ten active crews are operating across all five council districts. To date, ARPA-funded efforts have cleaned approximately 550 linear feet of drain lines, 4,600 catch basins, and 5,700 linear feet of drain laterals, removing around 2,947,080 pounds of waste from the drainage system, significantly improving the city's drainage infrastructure.
Staffing remains an ongoing challenge; however, we are actively working with our partners at the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans (SWBNO) on a successful consolidation of drainage system management. A transition plan is underway to streamline operations and improve efficiency.
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