Jefferson Parish experienced a major water outage last week.
The water was deemed unsafe for nearly 250 thousand residents following a burst pipe.
Parish leadership is looking forward to a permanent fix to the water infrastructure problems.
“We have resources going into a new treatment plant and lab, the lab is being built now. Parish leaders were determined to not just fix the problem for the next four years we are in office.”
Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng says that with an aging system, there will have to be several undertakings to permanently fix its ongoing issues. However, she says that one hurdle has already been crossed.
“The council has already approved, since August of 2021, an increase on the bills of residents that started in January of 2022.”
So, that means there's already money that can be put towards those much-needed projects putting the parish one step ahead in having a solution.
One of those projects is the pipe replacement program and it is already taking shape.
“We have seventy projects that are already underway as we identify engineers and finalize designs.”
The program will span the next twenty years with an estimated $790 million dollars in water pipe replacements in that time.
