Update from Fred Raiford, Director of City of Baton Rouge Department of Transportation and Drainage
Thank you for your e-mail on the status of the drainage concerns in the Garden District. While most of the concerns has been around Cherokee Street we have looked at the other streets in the area to see what problems we have on some other streets in the area. Also we are looking at the drainage outfall areas to see what infrastructure is in place and what condition it is in. Currently we have HNTB looking at all the drainage issues in most of the Garden District. They are currently doing a complete infrastructure evaluation of the City’s drainage systems for the Parish and I have asked them to check into the drainage system and outfalls for the Garden District. This is important to look into for it will advise us as to what condition our system is in. This includes the outfall locations that drain to Government Street and Broussard Street. I have asked for the video of the cleaning of the box culverts under Government Street which drains to the Dawson Creek lined section canal by the old Westmoreland Shopping center. For your information DOTD will be doing some additional street work on Government Street between the railroad track and South 22nd Street. I have asked for a video of the drainage pipe when the work is complete. We have two locations where the Garden District drains to Government Street. The west part of Garden District{ South 18th Street) drains to Government Street but drains west to an outfall pipe that runs through South Baton Rouge area.
Once I have enough engineering data on this area and to be sure we have adequately checked the system by maintenance then I will look at hiring an engineering firm to look into the issues .I probably will look at HNTB since they are doing most of the work. I also have them looking at improvements on Dawson Creek which includes improvements at Broussard Street and Hundred Oaks to allow water to run more freely through new infrastructure for these two projects. These two projects are federally funded under the HMGP which will pay for these two project 100%. I am sorry that I have no gottent back to the association but we will start making more process soon. With the numerous hurricanes we had to deal with has created some delay. I hope to have HNTB on contract by the first of the year. It is important to look at the information and then see what we may be able to do to improve the drainage for this area. I will mentioned like I have before that some of the rainfall events that we have had happen in the past few years were pretty significant and the system was over whelmed. We will get a better picture on this and advise the Garden District of our findings and recommendations.
