The gist: A resolution adopted unanimously by the City-Parish Council Tuesday formally urges action on dredging the Vermilion River. Council members and dredging advocates are now targeting funding and political help while the Army Corps of Engineers completes a dredging study.
Council readies to dredge the Vermilion, but waits for the Corps of Engineers
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There is immense political pressure to act. Facing repeated floods and sustained anxiety since August 2016, many residents say little has been done to protect them. Dredging advocates Harold Schoeffler and Dave Dixon have won the ears of officials, most notably U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, and have rallied flood victims and politicos alike to take comprehensive steps to manage regional waters. The tip of that spear is dredging the Vermilion River to remove years of accumulated.
“The Vermilion River is in a state of emergency,” Dixon told the council Tuesday night. An August navigation depth survey by the Corps of Engineers shows clogging throughout the river in Lafayette Parish, which Dixon believes is the culprit behind increasingly more common flood events.
LCG needs a permit from the Corps to dredge the river. Before the Corps will OK dredging, it’s studying the impact it would have locally and downriver in Vermilion Parish, where officials have asked for caution.
The Vermilion has reached flood stage five times in the last year. Indeed, over the last three decades, flood events along the Vermilion have increased dramatically, a phenomenon that correlates with population growth and accompanying development.
Climate and development appear to play key roles. Some evidence suggests that rain events are getting more intense. Researchers at LSU found that southern Louisiana is getting more so-called “convection showers” — high intensity downpours that burst over shorter intervals, often overwhelming drainage systems. Meanwhile, Lafayette Parish has added acres of rooftops and pavement that shed more water more quickly into drainage channels and, ultimately, the river.
Public Works Director Mark Dubroc attributes the increase in flood events to those rainfalls. Dubroc has questioned whether dredging will have the impact touted by advocates, arguing earlier this month that there is little evidence to support claims that dredging would have substantial benefit. More to the point, Dubroc is concerned that conclusions are getting ahead of proof. He doesn’t oppose dredging in and of itself, but he questions whether the benefit would be worth the cost.
“As public works director, I need substantive, identifiable benefit,” Dubroc tells me.
UL Lafayette researchers are modeling the effect of dredging the river. Responding to the public momentum, Emad Habib, a professor of civil engineering at UL, has used a detailed river model to calculate the efficacy of dredging.
UL’s model ran a scenario in which 20 miles of the Vermilion was dredged at varying depths and widths, including leveling the shoals at Coulee Mine and Rotary Point, identified by the Corps’ August survey. In a simulation of the August 2016 storms, the most extensive dredging modeled reduced water levels by at most half a foot and only at the Surrey Street bridge and Coulee Ile Des Cannes.
“The benefit is not universal in terms of the location. How much and where you dredge” is what really matters, Habib says. It remains an “open question,” he adds, whether more routine storms would see better results. A 1995 study by the Corps of Engineers suggests that dredging could see greater benefit in smaller storms, estimating a 2-foot reduction in peak water levels after 35 miles of excavation at a cost of around $30 million. Habib’s team will run the smaller storm scenarios through its Vermilion model, which includes more recent data and conditions.
Despite the unknowns, council members are chasing funding. Councilwoman Nanette Cook proposed a $5 million line item for dredging the river in an amendment to LCG’s upcoming budget. It’s not clear how much dredging that dollar amount would accomplish and where the money would come from. Elected officials are targeting state and federal pools, including a $1.2 billion flood control package authorized by Congress last year. Local dollars could be freed up by shifting funds from a handful of road projects and into stormwater diversion, as Mayor-President Joel Robideaux suggested in his introductory budget. An aide with Higgins’ office told the council earlier this month that the Corps estimated the cost of dredging hot spots — i.e. the shoals at Rotary Point and Coulee Mine — to be $5 million. Reached for comment Wednesday, a Corps spokesman could not identify the source of that figure by press time.
People are tired of studies, but studies are underway. LCG needs a permit from the Corps to dredge the river and will not receive one until after the Corps’ impact study is completed later this year. At issue is whether dredging upstream in Lafayette Parish could cause saltwater intrusion or loss of marshland in Vermilion Parish, among other complications.
What to watch for: The outcome of further study. It remains disputed among experts what effect dredging might have and what the cost-benefit would be. Come December, some unknowns will be resolved when the Corps completes its study.
Polarization is coming home to Lafayette
Our politics has historically been more personal than partisan. This election cycle will put that trend to the test.
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5 min read
Ethics Board clears Bruno, finds loan not under supervision of mayor’s office
The gist: Mayoral aide Marcus Bruno did not violate the state ethics code, the Louisiana Board of Ethics determined, when he applied for and was awarded a small business loan from a local nonprofit in late 2016. Ethics found that the loan was not under the supervision or jurisdiction of the mayor’s office.
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4 min read
It’s not your imagination; Lafayette’s real estate market is struggling
Lafayette’s real estate market is ice cold, and it may get worse before it gets better.
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6 min read
Trapped and anxious, Quail Hollow residents are tired of waiting for flood fixes
The gist: Dozens gathered at a private home in Lafayette’s Quail Hollow neighborhood to get answers from public officials on efforts to relieve flooding in what was one of the hardest hit areas in the floods of August 2016. Begging for projects that would make inches of difference, residents were told there was meaningfully little that could be done in the near term.
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Work on a coulee lateral that drains part of the neighborhood has stalled. Two gas lines were discovered by work crews in the last few weeks, according to Public Works drainage coordinator Fred Trahan, pausing cleanup on the ditch that runs behind Cornelius Street, near Comeaux High School. Most of the homes on Cornelius flooded in 2016. Some have flooded again since.
LCG’s drainage project dashboard lists the project as under budget and on schedule to have been finished at the end of June. Residents have been clamoring for the work to be done on the lateral — designated Isaac Verot Coulee Lateral 7 — since 2016. Trahan said in an email to The Current that the project was at one time ahead of schedule, but weather delays and the discovery of the two gas lines interrupted work.
Quail Hollow and its sister neighborhoods aren’t designed to handle recent flooding events. Trahan noted the 40-year-old subdivisions were built long before developers were required to add detention facilities to capture stormwater and reduce runoff. Increasingly intensifying rains are overwhelming a system built for lighter rains. Public Works is considering a diversion project for the bowl-shaped basin, an intervention expected to be costly and long in the making.
“Can we do it? Yes. But it won’t solve the problem,” Trahan said, explaining that the backflows in 25-year storms would still topple into homes.
Cost could prohibit any real solution. Meanwhile, people are trapped in their homes. What interventions have been offered, many by frustrated residents, are unlikely to shave much more than an inch off of rising water levels during a big storm. Several homes have gone on the market since 2016, with no takers. Much of the neighborhood is now part of a 100-year flood zone, meaning at elevated risk, according to FEMA flood maps adopted in 2018. That wasn’t the case when many residents bought their homes years ago.
“One day, it may be cheaper to do buyouts,” Trahan told me.
The coulee behind Cornelius can’t handle the added volume of water shedding into it from widespread development and urbanization, UL geosciences professor Gary Kinsland told me last year. Kinsland’s mother-in-law lives in the neighborhood, and he surveyed the area following the 2016 floods. He’s studied the relationship between urbanization and increased flooding in Lafayette Parish. In Kinsland’s opinion, routine maintenance wouldn’t prevent flooding related to the collision of intensifying rains and proliferating pavement.
Officials promise that efforts are underway. Councilwoman Nanette Cook and State Rep. Stuart Bishop, who represent the neighborhoods at local and state levels, respectively, reiterated steps taken in their arenas of power. Cook reminded residents of a proposition on ballots this fall to divert $8 million in library funds to drainage and other capital projects, and noted she added a $5 million line item to LCG’s budget for spot dredging in the Vermilion River, a project generally believed to have limited, if any, impact on flooding in Quail Hollow. Bishop, for his part, promised to push the state department of transportation to clear out blockage under state bridges and pressure the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to move on the Vermilion.
“Obviously, we don’t want to leave, because we’re here fighting for our homes,” said Melanie Roy, a Cornelius Drive resident. Roy demanded that nearby retention ponds, which she says maintain a high water level for aesthetic purposes, be lowered ahead of named storms. Trahan conceded it was feasible but cautioned that it may not do much good.
“Can we try it?” Roy replied, exasperated and drawing applause from her fellow residents.
Why this matters: Stormwater management is a quagmire in the parish and a political lightning rod. Simply put, no two drainage problems are alike, and in a time of limited resources, competing concerns are inevitable. In some cases, authorities are throwing pennies at $10 problems. Meanwhile, residents are emotionally drained by years of flood anxiety and what they see as inaction.
Republic Services put on notice
The gist: Councilwoman Liz Hebert gave trash contractor Republic Services three weeks to provide documentation about fleet size and routes, age and maintenance history on each of its vehicles and records of street damage and clean-ups from hydraulic fluid and “leaking trash juice.”
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More than 13,000 complaints have been logged since 2016 about the company’s service, Hebert said at Tuesday’s City-Parish Council meeting. So far this year, records from LCG show, Republic has been fined $24,200 for missed collections. Fines, which LCG pockets by deducting what it pays Republic monthly, are $25 a day and start on the second day a collection is missed. The 2019 tally is down significantly from last year. For the first six months of 2018, Republic was fined $65,800, ending that year with a total fine of $73,475. Hebert told The Current last week that she gets complaints from residents about poor service every single day.
Hebert asked to restart monthly reporting to the Public Works Department on various metrics, a past practice that for unknown reasons ceased some time ago. Republic officials attended Tuesday’s meeting to address a host of problems, at her request. Republic General Manager Steve Sytsma appeared before the council along with Randy Dixon, who manages municipal relationships for the Arizona-based company’s Southeast market. Dixon flew in from out of state.
The extraordinary number of missed collections in the first quarter 2018 triggered a steeper penalty provision in the contract. According to LCG Environmental Codes Supervisor Russell Bourg, Republic was cited for falling below its average monthly service effectiveness rate of 99.75 percent, which is calculated quarterly per terms spelled out in the contract. Bourg says he prepared the paperwork for a $75,000 fine at that time.
LCG has not yet responded to a public records request about whether the fine was paid.
The contract may be renegotiated. Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux took Hebert’s proposal a step further, calling for contract renegotiation or an agreement with concessions, similar to what Baton Rouge got in recent months after experiencing its own problems with Republic. In response to dissatisfaction in the capital city, the company laid out a plan in May to hire more workers, update its fleet and continue twice-a-week trash collection, The Advocate reported.
“Right now the marriage is just not happy,” Boudreaux said of the contract with LCG, which is the company’s second-largest in the state and runs till 2023. “This second-largest contract needs some love,” the councilman added. Dixon assured Boudreaux the company was open to discussions.
High turnover at the company has left a void for council members and residents, who are often forced to use an out-of-state call center for answers. A number of council members repeated old requests for a local call center to field complaints, citing numerous instances in which information from the call center conflicted with what Republic officials were telling them Tuesday night.
One of the night’s more testy exchanges involved Hebert challenging the company on new cart delivery and replacements for damaged receptacles. Residents who have gone a month or more without a cart were told by Republic employees to use a neighbor’s trash container while they waited, Hebert said. Sytsma, however, insisted that Republic has purchased two truckloads of new carts per month (each with 550 carts) for the past several months at a cost of $60,000 a month.
“So you have carts in stock?” Hebert persisted.
“Ma’am, we run three cart routes every day,” Sytsma said. “I think last month we ran an additional three cart routes.”
When the Republic reps advised Hebert that the call center had given her bad information about cart availability, she shot back: “That information was given from your team to my Public Works team locally, not from a call center,” she said. Councilman Pat Lewis also contradicted Sytsma’s claims, saying he personally visited the company’s office Friday and was told it did not have replacement lids and carts in stock.
When Hebert told the company representative that several residents have sent her videos showing trash and recycling going into the same trucks, Dixon insisted mixing waste streams are not allowed and would result in repercussions for the employees. “If you see that this is happening, we definitely want the video,” Dixon said. A source with knowledge of the company’s operations tells me that multiple cameras on Republic’s trucks would be able to confirm whether this is a persistent or ongoing problem.
LCG Public Works Director Mark Dubroc was the lone LCG voice defending the company, saying it has been responsive to his department and believes it is well-intentioned. He says the company is not in default of the contract, is paying its fines and responding to complaints. “Every business endeavor has its ebbs and flows,” Dubroc said.
“The contract is the contract that we have,” Dubroc added. “If I wrote the contract again today, I might do it a little differently, but then they might not sign it.”
Sno-Ball. Sno-Cone. What’s in a name?
The inaugural Downtown Sno-Ball Festival — not, pointedly, sno-cone festival — takes over Parc Sans Souci. Get the details.
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4 min read
Latest job numbers show Lafayette’s oil economy is still shrinking
The gist: Recent employment numbers from the state workforce commission show an increase in jobs in the Lafayette area. But those same numbers show continued job losses in Lafayette’s oil and gas industry. It doesn’t appear to have bottomed out yet.
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2 min read
2,400 is the number of jobs added in June 2019. The biggest gainer was Leisure and Hospitality jobs — the service industry, essentially — which added 1,100 jobs. Education and Health Services added 500, the next biggest growth sector.
200 is the number of jobs lost in Mining and Logging, the segment that accounts for the oil industry. Construction took the most losses with a reduction of 300.
Roughly 12,000 mining jobs have been lost since 2014 — a 50% decline. That means Lafayette has lost more than 10,000 oil and gas jobs in the last five years. The oil and gas industry used to directly account for 10.6% of all jobs in Lafayette, but now that total is down to 6.6%.
The national oil and gas industry is growing while Lafayette’s is shrinking. While nationally the industry still hasn’t recovered all the jobs lost during the crash, oil and gas employment nationally has increased every year since 2016. Even though the losses have slowed, Lafayette’s oil and gas industry has shrunk every year since 2014.
Jobs are growing in Lafayette, but employees are making less money. High paying oil and gas jobs are often replaced by lower paying jobs in restaurants, hotels and schools — exactly where recent growth sectors are. Per capita personal income in Lafayette Parish has fallen from approximately $51,000 in 2014 to under $46,000 in 2017. During that same period, per capita personal income in the state rose from $41,811 to $43,660.
Why this matters: Clearly, Lafayette’s oil and gas industry hasn’t hit bottom. Just because the crash has slowed doesn’t mean it’s over. What we’re seeing is further evidence of the establishment of a new normal, not just a downturn based on temporary market conditions.
To dredge or not to dredge: Officials, engineers and advocates debate it while Lafayette residents demand it
The gist: Dredging the Vermilion is becoming a political movement in Lafayette, driven by the trauma of repeat flooding events since the catastrophic no-name floods of August 2016. Studies continue as engineers and public officials debate the efficacy of digging out the bayou.
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4 min read
“Unclogging the Vermilion River is the first step to solving this problem,” said Paul Baker, headmaster of Episcopal School of Acadiana in remarks to the City-Parish Council Tuesday night. Baker’s home along the St. John coulee flooded in 2016 and again during the June 2019 “rain bomb.” He exhorted the council to take action, worrying that officials may shrug off solutions given the magnitude of the problem. “My wife and I live in fear of the rain,” he said, “and that’s not a healthy way to live in South Louisiana.”
Many now credit Dredge the Vermilion activists Harold Schoeffler and Dave Dixon for driving the conversation. Dixon and Schoefller were behind the push to stop pumps north of Lafayette Parish ahead of Tropical Storm Barry, which in part lowered the base level of the bayou when joined by a favorable and powerful north wind. It’s not clear which intervention — man’s or nature’s — did most of the work lowering the river’s level. Regardless, the episode has given the pair a lot of credibility among residents.
Meanwhile, studies and stakeholder meetings continue. The Army Corps of Engineers is studying the Vermilion River before it will commit to dredging the entire bayou through Vermilion Parish. A hydrology and hydraulic study is expected to be completed by December 2019, according to Greg Ellison, an aide to U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins who presented to the council Tuesday.
There is dispute about what impact dredging would have. Some engineers push back against the narrative that lowering the Vermilion would have the impact clamored for by repeated flood victims. Not all flooding in the parish is related to river back flow. Youngsville City Engineer Pam Granger pointed out at a GOP town hall Tuesday night that flooding in the bedroom community is not connected to the Vermilion. Other neighborhoods in Lafayette itself, like Quail Hollow, reportedly would not benefit from river dredging. LCG Public Works Director Mark Dubroc, exasperated, openly questioned whether digging out decades of muddy bottom would do any good.
“All of this conversation is devoid of technical support,” Dubroc said, drawing derisive cackles from the audience. He noted the Corps of Engineers last dredged the river in the mid-90s to restore navigability, not address stormwater management. However, residents along the bayou, including Councilwoman Nanette Cook, claim that dredging effort stopped water from reaching their homes.
Let’s talk detention. Some use of detention/retention — mechanisms of holding stormwater and slowly releasing it into coulees and the river — is expected to be part of whatever strategy is implemented long term. Dubroc said older developments, built before retention was required by local government, are in part responsible for the extra runoff. He said 4,000 to 7,000 acres of retention could be needed to do any good. That’s roughly the size of a square bound by Johnston and Ambassador Caffery, Kaliste Saloom and Pinhook.
Right now, spot dredging is on the table. Pushback from Vermilion Parish and continued studying will delay full dredging. Vermilion Parish officials, also represented in Congress by Higgins’ office, say the move could worsen flooding in the area and cause saltwater to invade the low-lying parish, imperilling seafood commerce. That leaves dredging “hot spots” to be the remaining option within Lafayette Parish. Again, there’s some question whether that approach would deliver the solution desperately wanted by many who live along the bayou.
Ellison said the council could spot dredge now. He relayed conversations with the corps in which officials offered to help LCG get a permit to spot dredge the river. Council members committed to finding the money in the upcoming budget process. Ellison guesstimated that spot dredging could cost $5 million and that LCG could draw the money down out of $1.2 billion in HUD dollars Congressman Higgins helped secure.
Congress has authorized dredging the Vermilion. We reported that last year. That essentially means the money has been allocated but not delivered.
What to watch for: Whether LCG moves forward with an intermediate dredging plan. It’s election season, and political pressure from flooded-over constituents could prevail on local officials to take the step. To be sure, it’s not a sure thing that even spot dredging would make an impact. That would take study. Many residents are tired of studies.
How Sara Crochet accidentally won an international film contest
On a whim, Lafayette filmmaker Sara Crochet won an international film contest. This fall, she’ll jet to Japan to pickup a free camera and show the short film. Not bad for a first try.
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6 min read
Councilwoman wants city trash contract canceled
The gist: Councilwoman Liz Hebert wants representatives from Republic Services to answer publicly for what she views as widespread problems plaguing garbage collection throughout the city and unincorporated parts of the parish. She’s requested an update from the garbage contractor at Tuesday’s council meeting and is looking into whether the contract can be canceled.
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“They are not delivering what they promised,” Hebert tells me, noting that some of her District 8 constituents have gone two to three weeks without garbage pickups. The councilwoman says she gets complaints from residents “every single day. I can’t tell you the last day I didn’t get a call or email.”
Hebert says a bigger issue for her district is that roughly half of the 26,000 residents she represents are scheduled for Friday pickups, and delays often mean they wait an entire weekend with garbage sitting outside. “It’s ridiculous,” she says.
District 6 Councilman Bruce Conque suggests missed Monday routes in his district could create problems throughout the week when Republic has to double up. “We have had nothing but complaints,” says Conque, who estimates he fields an average of one to two complaints a week but says LCG’s staff sometimes handles issues without involving him, noting that the pace of grumblings did accelerate after Tropical Storm Barry due to late storm debris collections.
It’s not just missed collections. Both council members say hydraulic fluid from Republic trucks and “leaking trash juice” are also ongoing issues (the contract allows LCG to inspect the trucks, but it’s not clear whether that’s happening), and Hebert says she’s been sent videos showing the company mixing recycling with regular trash.
The chemicals the trucks deposit on streets can damage the asphalt, and Hebert notes at least one recent instance where Republic was forced to pay for a private street it damaged. While it’s LCG itself that collects money when the company is delinquent, charging Republic $25 a day for missed pickups (fines start on the second day), the trash contractor has even begun reimbursing residents, according to Hebert. “I have been making such a big deal about it, and the neighbors have been making such a big deal that they have gotten reimbursement,” she says.
Lafayette isn’t alone in its ongoing complaints about Republic, as Baton Rouge is also struggling with spotty service. In response to that dissatisfaction, the company last month laid out a plan to hire more workers, update its fleet and continue twice-a-week trash collection, The Advocate reported.
Buyer’s remorse. Councilwoman Hebert has it. As a new councilwoman in 2016, she supported an amendment to the no-bid contract with Republic, a five-year extension to 2023 that at the time was worth $73.5 million. As part of those negotiations on a contract originally signed in 2008, Republic offered to take over curbside recycling for the current price the Recycling Foundation was charging — $2.40 per resident — on a different contract that was about to expire. The lowest bid for curbside recycling collected under the Durel administration was $5.17 a month. It was a big selling point, both council members recall.
“Yes, I supported it back then,” Hebert says, “but knowing what I know now, that’s why I’m fighting to get the contract canceled.”
It still isn’t crystal clear the extension was legal. After the AG’s office opined in March 2018 that the extension violated state law, citing a 10-year limit on such non-exclusive franchise contracts, LCG’s attorneys in May 2018 filed a petition for declaratory judgment, asking the 15th Judicial Court to weigh in on the legality of the extension. In January, without ever scheduling a hearing, District Judge Ed Broussard signed off on a joint motion for consent judgment filed by LCG and Republic — in essence agreeing with the two parties’ own assertion that the contract was not subject to the time limitations the AG cited, court records show.
Hebert tells me she plans to ask LCG’s legal department to research whether Republic is in violation of the terms of its contract. According to LCG Environmental Codes Supervisor Russell Bourg, the Arizona-based company has only once been cited for falling below its average monthly service effectiveness rate of 99.75 percent, which is calculated quarterly per terms spelled out in the contract. Republic was fined $75,000 during last year’s first quarter, in addition to other fines it racked up — blaming problems in part on employees calling in with the “Super Bowl flu.”
“I prepared the paperwork for [the $75,000 fine]; I don’t know if it’s been collected,” Bourg tells me, noting he turned the paperwork over to the city-parish attorney’s office. Bourg referred questions about daily fines assessed to Republic in 2018 and 2019 to Ariel Fischer in the mayor’s office. Fischer did not immediately respond to a request for those tallies.
It’s not hard to make the case that Lafayette is paying too much and getting too little. Should Hebert get her way, there are some indications LCG could get a better price by putting the contract out for bid.
Residents in the city and unincorporated areas are paying $30.94 a month, a price that includes once-a-week trash and yard pickup ($24.37), curbside recycling ($2.63) and environmental services ($3.94). The cost of track pickup has doubled since 2000, when the city had a twice-a-week pickups and the parish once a week.
Residents in the city of Carencro, which put its curbside garbage and recycling contract out for bid last year, pay Houma-based Pelican Waste & Debris $19.30, almost $7 less than they were paying before.
Sources with knowledge of Republic’s Lafayette office say the company has been plagued by an extraordinary number of turnovers in recent months, and they believe that is at least partially to blame for the inconsistent service.
Republic Services General Manager Steve Sytsma, who runs the local operations, did not respond to an email and text message seeking comment for this story.
LETTER: The Current swings and misses
I do my best to be realistic and confront the brutal facts, but I fail to see how The Current’s bad news cheerleading, particularly when the facts are incorrect, serves our community.