In late October, thousands of music lovers spent their weekend at Voodoo Fest, inside City Park.  The three-day festival contracted SDT Waste and Debris Services to clean the grounds and supply a few hundred portable toilets.

After the festival closed, SDT pump trucks worked throughout the park to suck up the sewage from each portable toilet.

Now, an SDT employee tells Eyewitness News where the company instructed drivers to dump the raw sewage those three nights. 

“Everything’s been getting covered up for the longest... and we all know it,” the employee said.

The driver, who asked WWL to disguise his voice and image, said the situation involved SDT’s Vice President of Operations Jason McDaniel.   During the festival, the driver says McDaniel brought a group of drivers to a manhole steps away from Tad Gormley stadium and Storyland in City Park.

“The guy, Jason, came about, he was having a meeting.  He said, ‘Look, I found a manhole.  You guys come follow me.’” 

“We followed him,” the driver said, “and he says ‘This one’s gonna open up.’”

It is in that manhole that the driver says SDT dumped more than 5,000 gallons of raw sewage.  Weeks later, the 13-foot manhole is still clogged up. 

“There you have it: towels, clothing,” the employee pointed out to an Eyewitness News camera.

Overflow from that clog, and sewage that spilled from the pump truck after Voodoo Fest, is still visible in the grass.  Toilet paper and liquid from the portable toilets are visible in the same green space where many children play.

“It's nasty,” he said.  “Needles could be in the grass.”

In a statement, SDT owner Sidney Torres IV said the company has only disposed of sewage in St. Bernard Parish, at a site in Plaquemines Parish and, as of last Thursday, in Thibodaux.

When asked if SDT disposed of sewage in Orleans Parish, Torres replied that it is "SDT policy to dispose of sewage only at the approved sites," the sites he listed in the earlier statement.

WWL asked for an on-camera interview with Torres and McDaniel, to ask if the company authorized drivers to dump sewage in a City Park manhole.  Both declined the interview request.

“I am more than sure City Park don't have any idea this is in here like this,” the SDT driver told WWL.

When asked whether he or anyone in City Park administration gave permission to dump sewage there, City Park CEO Bob Becker said, “Absolutely not.  We certainly would never do that.”

“Whoever did this should be prosecuted to the fullest extent,” said Becker, after inspecting the manhole last week.

Standing just a few steps away, Becker didn't need to walk any further.  His nose told him all he needed to know.

“It's a strong odor of sewage coming out of there,” he said.  “That tells me something very unusual is going on there.  If it's somebody dumping directly into that pipe, that would cause a smell like that.”

Tuesday morning, City Park fenced off the manhole where the driver said SDT dumped sewage last month.  The park hired a company to test the soil, to see if it's contaminated.  They expect to get the results later this week.

It's a spot in the park which Becker says gets lots of traffic, from football games in Tad Gormley, to kids spending an afternoon playing in one of the park's many spacious fields.

“Look, it's never good to be putting sewage anywhere other than an approved system.  The fact that you're dumping in the middle of a park, that's pretty low.  That's not something easily forgivable,” Becker said.

According to Tulane University environmental law professor Jill Witkowski, it's also illegal, and possibly criminal.

“The law actually provides that any violation of the environmental quality law… the water quality law can be criminal if it's negligent or knowing,” Witkowski said.

Witkowski, the deputy director of Tulane’s Environmental Law Clinic, added that the penalty for such violations can be several thousand dollars per day for violations plus potential prison time.

But this story doesn't end in City Park.

Early Saturday morning, after the first night of Voodoo Fest, WWL’s photographer trailed an SDT truck.  Around 3:00 a.m., after pumping the portable toilets dry, the two trucks exited the park on Marconi Drive, turned left on City Park Avenue, then right on Carrollton Avenue.  Channel 4 didn't tell the driver featured in this story that our cameras trailed the trucks that night, but did ask him where else SDT dumped the sewage that Friday night of Voodoo Fest, besides City Park.

“We dumped in a neighborhood in New Orleans,” he said.  “It was right close around City Park.  That's where the managers told everyone to go.”

When asked to describe a specific location or landmark nearby, the driver said, “All I know is it's around... the one I do remember... is around Rock ‘n' Bowl.”

And that night, WWL cameras saw the trucks turn right at Tulane Avenue and take the street that goes behind Rock ‘n’ Bowl.  That night, WWL’s crew didn't continue following the SDT trucks to see if they dumped the sewage, but the driver says they did, dumping it into a manhole back in the neighborhood.

“I had a bad feeling,” the driver said, “but they said they had a contract with the city and they could dump anywhere in New Orleans.”

That is permission the Sewerage and Water Board says has not currently been granted to any company.

“You just don't open a manhole and place wastewater in a manhole,” said Marcia St. Martin, the board’s executive director.  “You bring wastewater to a proper treatment facility for proper treatment.”

The driver says trucks dumped in another neighborhood near City Park on Saturday after Voodoo Fest, but he wasn't sure of the exact location.

Still, it’s the site near Tad Gormley stadium that prompted him to come forward.

“I knew this one at City Park was a real bad idea.  This is a park, a place for children to play, not for them to see something like this laying all over the ground.”

Monday, SDT’s spokeswoman e-mailed Eyewitness News a statement, in anticipation of this story.  In it, owner Sidney Torres IV says, "SDT is undertaking its own investigation into WWL's news report of alleged dumping at City Park. SDT has firm policies in place that prohibit illegal and unauthorized dumping SDT will take appropriate action if its investigation concludes there is a basis to do so."

But there are still questions about where SDT has been dumping all of its sewage.

On October 31, St. Bernard Parish ordered SDT to stop dumping sewage in its Chalmette lift station.  That’s despite the fact that, in its statement, SDT told WWL the only other spots where they had dumped were in St. Bernard, Plaquemines and, beginning last Thursday, a private site in Thibodaux

The company in Plaquemines Parish said SDT only dumped there on two days: November 11 and November 12, and SDT agreed to only dump sewage from Plaquemines Parish.

SDT says it started dumping in Thibodaux on November 12.  So where did the company dump its sewage from November 1 through November 10?  Where did they dump sewage from all of the non-Plaquemines parish portable toilets?  Those are questions WWL is not able to get answers to, since SDT will not agree to do any more on-camera interviews.