Jennings mayor joins Mermentau Watershed coalition

The mayor of Jennings has agreed to be part of a coalition of parish leaders that will join forces to bring federal dollars to the area for flood control.

Parish Civil Engineer Alex Guillory and Dist. 2 Police Juror John Marceaux requested that a representative from the city serve on a committee that would pursue federal funding for flood control for parishes in the Mermentau Watershed. Mayor Henry Guinn volunteered to serve in that role.

In April, Gov. John Bel Edwards announced Louisiana would receive $1.2 billion in grant money from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for flood control efforts. The money is part of an approximate $90 billion disaster-recovery package approved by Congress in February. Louisiana was eligible for funding due to the many parishes impacted by 2016 floods.

Marceaux said the money can only be used for projects that would benefit the entire watershed.

“Right now the drainage districts are doing a good job of cleaning their ditches, so we are getting water a lot quicker because drainage has improved,” Marceaux said.

All of the rainfall that lands in the Mermentau Watershed area which includes Jeff Davis and nine other parishes, drains into the Mermentau Basin, according to Guillory.

“A watershed is a physical topography characteristic of the land we live on,” he said. “It is becoming more apparent that dredging and keeping drainage clear causes localized flooding in areas like Lake Arthur.”

Guillory said he thinks controlling flooding must be done as a region and not just by individual drainage districts.

“People in Lake Arthur have never been able to make decisions on flood control in Lafayette or other areas which could cause flooding in Lake Arthur,” he said. “The tides at the Catfish Point Locks in Grand Lake are the reason why Lake Arthur floods.”

In addition to cleaning ditches, the next step in flood control will be upstream capacity, Guillory said.

“This is a totally new way of thinking, but I believe this is how we will control flooding in the future,” he said.

In the future, we could see regional retention ponds that could be managed by the coalition.

Guinn said that while there may be no direct impact on the City of Jennings, which has no major flooding issues, the flood control initiative could mean new tax revenues and jobs coming into the city in the form of new construction and drainage projects.

While the federal dollars have yet to be made available, Marceaux said forming the coalition now will help the parish get ahead of the game.

“If we do nothing, we will get nothing,” Marceaux said. “These dollars will be heavily pursued across the state we need to be prepared.”

Mayor Carolyn Louviere also agreed this week to serve on the committee as a representative for the Town of Welsh. Marceaux said they would asking representatives from other municipalities to serve on the committee so that all areas of the parish are represented on the coalition.