Featured Photograph: Opelousas Mayor Julius Alsandor (Photograph by Freddie Herpin.)
BOBBY ARDOIN
Editor/Consulting Writer
A former Opelousas public works director said city officials have negligent in allocating enough funding to clean regularly, the array of currently-clogged municipal canals.
Ron Turner, who previously served as the director of public works for several years, said the city was originally tasked with annually funding the cleaning of canals that were dug by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but the money for their upkeep was apparently spent elsewhere, Turner told St. Landry Now.
“The agreement was the Corps of Engineers would dig the canals, but it was up to the city to maintain them. That has never adequately been done. I know I put funding in my public works budgets each year while I was the director, but the money was always taken out and used for other purposes,” said Turner, who left the position in 2009.
Turner, who has sued the city over his dismissal and rejected a subsequent settlement offer proposed by the Board of Aldermen, said the canals would be in better shape if the city had lived up to its maintenance responsibilities.
During a meeting last month, several aldermen including Floyd Ford and Marvin Richard told Mayor Julius Alsandor that the condition of the canal system which provides drainage for much of the city, needs to be cleaned.
“Drainage is bad. I’ve been speaking to (Alsandor) about the problem as well as (parish president Jessie Bellard), said Ford.
Richard also asked parish president Jessie Bellard for assistance with mitigating the canals, but Bellard promised no immediate help. Ballard said however that his work crews are busy cleaning blighted properties throughout St. Landry in addition to providing road work.
The parish is using American Rescue Act revenues to help clean drainage canals throughout the rural areas, added Bellard.
Richard said it’s obvious that neither the city nor parish government has the manpower to initiate a major canal cleaning project.
Ballard added that parish government also lacks the proper equipment to move down into the canals and do cleanup work. “We’re always glad to give some help when we can, but you also have to hire contractors as well,” Bellard said.
Alsandor said he and members of the Board have had a number of discussions about the condition of the canals, which he said are choked with debris placed in them by residents.
The city has also been in contact, Alsandor said, with several companies that perform canal cleaning.
In many cases, the cleaning efforts involve putting individual crews into the canals and doing hand-by-hand cleanups, said Alsandor.
When you perform that type of cleanup work, Alsandor noted that you also have to receive permission to enter the canals on private property.
Ballard said the problem of cleaning canals will persist until individuals stop littering them.
“People throw trash into the canals. But trust me, you can clean the canals today and you go back tomorrow and there’s the same problem. The water can’t flow. We recently helped out with a problem on Statesman and Raymond and the problem was due to garbage backing up in the canals,” said Bellard.
