PLAQUEMINES PARISH, La. — Saltwater from the Gulf is getting further upriver, and both the Parish and the Army Corps of Engineers are taking more extreme measures to mitigate it. Water is still safe to drink throughout all of Plaquemines Parish, though, according to Parish officials.
Trailers carrying reverse-osmosis filters were dropped off at the Pointe a la Hache and the Port Sulphur water treatment plants Thursday, and have already been installed at the Boothville plant, which is the southernmost in the parish. The water coming from the river into Boothville is now higher than the 250 ppm concentration the federal government considers safe to drink.
The plant has been diluting the water, however, with water from further upriver. The water being released to customers is only at about 80 ppm.
Parish officials said the filter should help keep the salt concentration at a safe level. “Water samples were collected and will be sent to the state lab in Amite today, and if they pass, we could start operating our unit as early as tomorrow,” said Patrick Harvey, Plaquemines Parish’s Director of Emergency Operations.
He added that the filters at the Port Sulphur and Pointe a la Hache plants could be running as soon as the middle of next week.
Thursday, the Army Corps of Engineers also announced it would start building an underwater sill to slow down the salt water.
“Based on lessons learned from last year, we started monitoring saltwater intrusion once the river fell below 400,000 cubic feet per second,” said Matt Roe, Public Relations Specialist for the Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans Division, “before that, it was when it fell below 300,000 cubic feet per second.”
The sill will be built near Myrtle Grove, with the intention of protecting Belle Chasse’s water system.
“We're hoping to make a selection of the contractor in the next few days, give them time to mobilize, get a dredge, get all their equipment in place. We're hoping to begin construction in mid-September,” said Roe.
The saltwater wedge is expected to impact Belle Chasse in about three weeks, said Harvey, around the time the sill is expected to be finished. In the meantime, Plaquemines Parish is testing its ability to pump water from further upriver to dilute Belle Chasse’s.
That is a system put in place during last year’s saltwater emergency. “A lot of things have gone on since last year's event, even though last year's event ended for us in February or March of this year, so you know, here we are, six months later, and we battle in it again,” said Harvey.
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