As crews try to fix a gaping hole in Claiborne Avenue following a water main burst this week, leaders of the Sewerage and Water Board say look for more pipes that are around a hundred years old to break wide open.
"The bottom line is: We have an old system," Sewerage and Water Board Director Randy Hayman told WWL TV. "And until we have a repair program that routinely replaces and repairs the system, we are going to have situations like this."
Hayman says they need to find new processes and technologies for cheaper ways to upgrade the system.
"Other cities are able to repair, on a maintenance plan, a certain amount of pipe every year. We do not have the funding to do that."
The New Orleans City Council president would like to see the Sewerage & Water Board tap federal funds, but doesn't see leaders in a hurry to do that.
"There's a disconnect with urgency," J.P. Morrell told WWL's Newell Normand.
Morrell said the Sewerage and Water Board has access to federal grants, meant for lead pipe replacement, that would also be a good way to get ahead of potential breaks in decades-old water mains.
"We have federal dollars that are coming to us through the EPA, through other agencies, to do lead-line replacement, that there's no urgency to move on that project, which directly addresses situations, like what happened at (South) Claiborne (Avenue)," said Morrell. "They don't have the sense of urgency that we need to preemptively address these problems, using resources like federal dollars, that don't impact our capital budget and don't impact our budget crisis."
The council president said the city should expedite every opportunity they get to address long-standing problems.