Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans Task Force releases full report for Gov. Jeff Landry
NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans Task Force‘s report began by listing some serious problems addressed by the public during the three task force meetings this month.
Some of the most critical issues include the botched billing system, clogged catch basins and overall low confidence in the sewerage and water board by customers.
“Operationally, the catch basins and the pipes, you know the task force members feel like that should have been solved a long time ago, right? The billing issue should have been solved back in 2013. There was no conversation back then,” Task Force Chair Paul Rainwater said.
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The report then offers solutions on how to resolve these problems.
The task force recommends that the department of public work’s no longer be involved in drainage issues like cleaning catch basins.
Instead, the SWBNO would handle it.
The report also recommends appointing an independent arbitration panel of retired judges to hear billing disputes.
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Rainwater said, “It’s time to come to bring that to fruition, and the way to do that is to have in legislation that there is an arbitrator, a person who can listen to these disputes and make a decision and just move on and give people a final answer on their billing issue.
In a potentially extreme case, the task force suggests a complete reform, bringing in an 11-member state board to oversee sewerage and water board operations for two years, suspending the existing board of directors for that period.
However, Rainwater said that early discussions have shown that this is currently very unlikely to happen.
“Senator Jimmy Harris told me today that he would not support it because he doesn’t feel like it’s at that level of reform in the sense that they feel like that the sewerage and water board is making good progress; we just need to focus on the real problems,” Rainwater said.
In response to the report, the SWBNO released its own statement, saying that it acknowledges its challenges, saying, “we must continue to confront these issues head-on with a commitment to transparency, accountability, and meaningful change.”
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