LUS Fiber was finally squeezed in at the 11th hour to a bill creating an ambitious grant program to provide broadband service to deprived areas of the state, overcoming complaints about competition between the public and private sectors.
Acadiana Planning Commission
Watershed initiative isn’t just about the money, state officials say
The gist: While the Louisiana Watershed Initiative’s $1.2 billion federal grant may be attracting the most attention, reps with the program say its real aim is changing how Louisiana lives with water. Program lead Pat Forbes says the initiative is prepared to earn buy-in from a beleaguered public who want dirt moved immediately.
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Get caught up, quickly: The Louisiana Watershed Initiative is a statewide program, commissioned by Gov. John Bel Edwards, to redefine how Louisiana manages flood risk. Dividing the state into eight regions mapped along the state’s major watersheds, the initiative was launched to lift flood management decision-making above politics. A major catalyst for the program is a $1.2 billion grant authorized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development intended to fund transformative projects and programs that make Louisiana less prone to stormwater disaster. Lafayette Parish and the Teche-Vermilion Watershed are part of Region 5, a zone made up of 16 parishes and dozens of municipalities.
“$1.2 billion is not a tenth as much as we need to address flood risk in the state, which is why we’re using it to leverage a new approach,” Forbes tells The Current. Forbes is the executive director of the Office of Community Development, the state agency responsible for the HUD grant.
Local officials want projects funded fast. And it doesn’t look like the program is designed for speed. In many cases, projects may not be funded for several years, moving further and further away from the catastrophic flooding in March and August of 2016 that spurred the initiative. At a hearing in September, parish and municipal representatives from Region 5 peppered LWI about releasing funding for projects in their communities, frustrated with the initiative’s long time table and emphasis on further study.
“Their concerns, their fears are very well founded in the sense that until you can feel and see and touch a thing it shouldn’t really give you a great deal of comfort,” Forbes says of the initiative’s deliberative rollout. The program has stalled while waiting for federal rules to be issued on how the HUD grant will work. That guidance was delivered in August.
A draft plan for how to spend the money was released earlier this month. The document lays out basic guidelines for how the LWI will work within the funding rules attached to the HUD grant, which was authorized by Congress in 2018 but won’t be released until next year. Major themes in the plan emphasize developing science and engineering first and building regional governing structures within watersheds to promote projects and even-out land use planning practices. The Department of Transportation and Development is in charge of contracting firms to build watershed models that can test project concepts and determine impacts up and downstream. Roughly 10% of the HUD grant will go to modeling, which is projected to be completed in the next two years.
Critics have raised concerns that the money will pass small towns by. Sea level rise related to climate change and coastal erosion are identified as the most probable threat to the state in the action plan, and that hazard affects coastal parishes the most. The draft action plan points out that 39% of Louisiana’s population lives in that zone, raising the possibility those areas would see the most benefit from the initiative’s spending.
“Our process is to get funds out there to reduce risk,” Forbes says. “We won’t accomplish that if we let the money and resources go to those most populated areas.”
There’s a natural tension between the new approach and how things have historically been done. Forbes says state disaster funding has typically been allocated piece-meal, addressing specific needs as they arise. Moving away from project-specific funding is designed to make the process less political and encourage collaboration. But that approach could cause friction.
“This a break from the way we used to [allocate funding],” Forbes says. “So consequently it’s completely understandable that people at the local level, who are facing a brand new paradigm, are somewhat disconcerted over the process. I’m not concerned we won’t ultimately get folks into the fold.”
What’s next? Two immediate funding opportunities will be available in the next few months. First, the state will distribute $400,000 to each region to build staffing and capacity for project and policy development, money that will likely go to regional planning agencies like the Acadiana Planning Commission. Next, LWI will issue the first $100 million tranche out of the HUD grant for “no regrets” projects. Each region will see $5 million out of that pot, with the remaining $60 million distributed competitively. Forbes says LWI will outline the criteria in a grant notice later this year.
$1 million left to Downtown’s Main Street project
The gist: Instead of draining all $6.8 million from the Main Street revitalization project to pump into other transportation initiatives, $1 million will remain to scope the Downtown priority.
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A Metropolitan Planning Organization subcommittee approved the transfer Wednesday, leaving one more stop at the organization’s executive committee before the transfer is official.
Get caught up, quickly: The funds were originally awarded to the Downtown Development Authority in 2014 by the MPO, a regional agency responsible for funneling federal transportation dollars. Taking advantage of a new MPO policy designed to sweep out unused monies, Mayor-President Joel Robideaux targeted the funds for a transfer request, asking that they go to several new projects, including the University Avenue corridor, a campaign promise. The move rankled Downtown advocates who have fought to keep the money Downtown.
“A million is better than zero,” DDA CEO Anita Begnaud tells me. “We have a plan now.” Begnaud and DDA board members have lobbied the administration for the past six months to hang on to the money. The funds were more or less locked up by a bureaucratic dispute over how to pay for engineering. The $1 million that remains was itself technically “transferred” to a new engineering assessment project for Main Street redevelopment.
The move doesn’t necessarily represent a delay. Scoping was a step already required before any construction could begin. The city will put up a 20% match to draw down $800,000 in federal dollars through the MPO.
Long term, DDA will need a willing partner in LCG to pay for construction costs. It’s still feasible that DDA could go back through the MPO to get construction dollars once the scope is complete. MPO Transportation Director Melanie Bordelon tells me the 2014 project was approved for funding before the MPO became part of the regional Acadiana Planning Commission and changed its rules and priorities. Under the new regime, she says, it’s unlikely this kind of project would have been awarded funds.
LCG asked to move a total of $8 million to new projects, including the $6.8 for Main Street, zeroing out dormant funds for planning in the I-49 Connector corridor and other projects. Here’s a quick list of where the money went:
- Coolidge Corridor Study – $500,000
- Adaptive Signal Project – $1.5 million
- Pinhook/Kaliste Saloom Intersection Study – $400,000
- N. University Phase 1 – $4.6 million
- Main Street engineer assessment — $1 million
The list previously included a transit loop connecting Downtown and UL. The project, first conceived by the Robideaux administration in 2017, was pulled from the transfer request.
Why this matters: Like Begnaud said, it’s not nothing. The Main Street corridor is part of a key intersection in Downtown, passing right in front of the old federal courthouse. Robideaux talked broadly about the need to invest in Downtown to drive parish economic growth in remarks this week at the Plan Lafayette launch. Leaving anything for the Main Street project to go forward is a small win for Downtowners, considering how little leverage they had in negotiations.
Gov. Edwards launches a statewide watershed management council
The gist: The governor created a statewide office to spearhead watershed management called the Council on Watershed Management. He signed an executive order creating the council at a meeting of the Acadiana Planning Commission, which he touted as an example of regional coordination in water management.
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Coordination is the new black. There’s a growing recognition among policy makers that flood and stormwater management can’t be handled at the local level. Water has a tendency to go wherever it wants, flaunting city and parish boundaries. The state council will, ostensibly, follow a model of cross-jurisdictional coordination similar to that employed by APC.
APC took a regional partnership approach in administering a $25 million FEMA grant awarded to the Acadiana region in the wake of the 2016 floods.
Dredge the Vermilion. Dredge up conflict. The governor’s announcement paralleled news that Congress has authorized the dredging of the Vermilion River. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has requested emergency funding to speed along federal revenue that otherwise could take years to materialize.
Dredging the Vermilion is precisely the sort of project that could rile up division among neighboring jurisdictions. Homeowners and elected officials in Lafayette have clamored for the river to be dredged, arguing that a shallow riverbed worsened the floods of 2016. Combined with Lafayette Consolidated Government’s drainage maintenance program, dredging would tend to move more water downstream faster.
“The Vermilion River, to me, is at capacity,” Vermilion Parish President Kevin Sagrera told The Advocate. “When the water comes down, it’s got to come over the banks and go out into residential areas.”
Study first. Do no harm. That should be the more important lesson learned from APC’s approach. If anything, you could criticize the Acadiana effort for being too conservative. Most of the projects are retention and detention ponds that hold water rather than move it around.
Before further work is done, APC has moved to study watershed impact first.
“I’d like to have the science before we do anything else, so we know what we’re doing,” APC CEO Monique Boulet told me.
The commission has prioritized a plan to deploy 230 gauges across regional waterways. Just weeks ago, UL Lafayette created a flood research center. Researchers with the center helped develop APC’s gauge deployment strategy.
A new flood research center at UL aims to unify fractured flood control efforts
The Louisiana Watershed Flood Center and a proposed regional flood monitoring network are positioned to plug a huge gap in Acadiana’s ability to understand how we flood and how to effectively plan for and respond to floods.
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