The Sewerage and Water Board's continues to face delays in getting its new substation online despite promises that it would be ready by the peak of hurricane season. So when will it be ready?
"It's supposed to come online in September and fully online in November," New Orleans city councilman Joe Giarrusso told WWL's Tommy Tucker.
Giarrusso said that the biggest issues facing the new substation are the frequency changers that need to be installed. According to Giarrusso, the first frequency changer won't be installed until mid-September.
"This is tricky, though, because there are three different frequency changers on site, and the frequency changers are those machines that change the old power--the 25-hertz power that's ancient to the 60-hertz power," Giarrusso said. "We can no longer live with turbines that are ancient. Turbine 4 dates back to World War I. Turbine 5 is 65 or 66-years-old."
Giarrusso says this is not a problem money can fix, but he says the city can't afford to be patient much longer. Giarrusso adds that he understands it's a complicated process that must be handled properly.
"They've got to get everything right with the new substation from an engineering and other standpoint because it has to run correctly and at the beginning because if it doesn't, people will say it's a flim-flam job and it doesn't work," Giarrusso said. "I'm sensitive to it has to work correctly, but at the same time, the clock is ticking."