RIVER RIDGE, La. -- The past week has not been kind to homeowners near Midway Drive in River Ridge. Water covered streets and entered homes several times. Officials say the area is the lowest elevation in River Ridge and the drainage pipes there are small.
"[The drainage pipes] are smaller than our new standards and then also they are far away from pump stations," said Kazem Alikhani, Jefferson Parish's director of drainage. "The water takes two hours to get from River Ridge to our pump station."
The Elmwood pump station located at Lake Pontchartrain handles the area's rainwater. It is more than six miles from River Ridge. Now, though, a new pump station is about to come online, just down the block from the flooded homes.
"My mother in law lives at the house that they're doing it, in her yard, but it's a long process," said Denise DeJean, whose home off Midway Drive had several inches of water in it on Tuesday. "It hasn't happened yet."
"We've been getting letters as far as regarding that, but it seems they are dragging their feet with it, you know," said homeowner Bret Vorenkamp.
Officials said by the end January, the construction site at Midway Drive and the Soniat Canal will have a new $1.5 million pump station and generator, designed to bring relief to nearby homeowners during heavy rain. Jefferson Parish is paying for the work, which began this past spring. But corps officials say that the completion date is closer to 2016, and the funding is shared, with federal funds contributing 65 percent and Jefferson Parish taking up 35 percent of the costs.
"Money was never available, so we had to just beg and borrow to bring the money to award the bids," Alikhani said.
However, another long-term project, which could bring relief to many more homeowners, is already in the works. Eventually, excess rainwater in the River Ridge and Harahan areas will be pumped to the Mississippi River. It is part of a $180 million project that has already been approved. Once it is finished, the rainwater will travel about a half-mile to the Mississippi, instead of the six miles it now travels to get to the lake.
This particular "Pump to the River" project has nothing to do with the Army Corps of Engineers proposal of the same name, also known as "Option 2A." The Corps' decision to not push for Option 2A, has been a source of controversy.
The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority is funding the River Ridge "Pump to the River" project.
"That is the biggest project for that area because it is going to lower the water elevation of Soniat Canal, so that way we have a more manageable and efficient drainage," Alikhani said.
While the River Ridge "Pump to the River" project is in a design phase right now, it is not scheduled to be finished for another three years.
