[StBernard] Trucks haul sewage from St. Bernard

[Westley Annis]

Trucks haul sewage from St. Bernard
Operations limited at treatment plants 
Sunday, March 18, 2007
By Karen Turni Bazile

More than 18 months after Hurricane Katrina reduced sewage pipes and pump
stations to rubble, St. Bernard Parish is paying an average of $1 million a
week to truck sewage to treatment plants. 

And the treatment plants, which also were crippled after soaking in
floodwaters, have sharply limited capacity. Without trucks to pump the
wastewater and haul it away, raw sewage could back up in street manholes and
into houses, officials fear. 

Parish Chief Administrative Officer Dave Peralta said dependence on the
trucks is dwindling as repairs are made and that the $1 million weekly
figure varies depending on whether there is a lot of rain, which sends more
water into the system that must be pumped. 

"We are repairing the areas where people are moving back," Peralta said.
"And we are repairing the least damaged systems first, because some of those
we can do ourselves since we don't have to bring in contractors." 

Public Works Manager Chris Merkl said St. Bernard has put 19 of its lift
stations back on line, though only through temporary repairs and with
limited pumping capacity. About 70 remaining lift stations require the
trucks to pump and haul waste away around the clock. 

Although the parish's estimated population of 25,000 is little more than a
third what it was before Katrina, treating sewage is still a monumental
task, Peralta said. The crumbling pipes allow massive amounts of rainwater
to infiltrate the system. That means the parish is paying a lot of money to
treat rainwater that mixes with sewage. 

The price tag for sewer repairs has yet to be determined. The Federal
Emergency Management Agency has obligated $387 million for an array of
infrastructure improvements in St. Bernard, including the wastewater
treatment system, but local officials say the money has been slow to reach
the parish. 

In protest, the parish's sewage hauler, Unified Recovery Group, recently
threatened to stop working until it was paid. FEMA has since given the
parish $5.2 million for Unified, but the company says it's still owed at
least $24 million. 

Slow payments are delaying system repairs as well. "There are multimillion
dollars of repairs needed," Peralta said. "It is an unknown dollar amount
because we can't do the engineering for the repairs because the engineering
firms want some guarantee they will be paid, and we can't assure them timely
payment with the slow payment system that FEMA has created." 

Before the storm, there were about a half-dozen treatment facilities
throughout the parish. Four are running, including the Munster plant in
Meraux and the Dravo plant in Chalmette, but none are working near their
pre-storm capacity. 

Peralta said the sheer magnitude of the problem makes it hard for officials
to deal with. 

. . . . . . . 

Karen Turni Bazile can be reached at kturni at timespicayune.com or (504)
826-3321.