Bayou Vista drainage projects await parish funding decision

BAYOU VISTA — Chad Ross has his fingers crossed for a yes vote on a controversial $500,000 Bayou Vista sewage and drainage allocation.
On Jan. 14, Ross, chairman of the Bayou Vista Drainage District, asked the St. Mary Parish Council to postpone their vote until their next meeting on Jan. 28 so that he can get updated estimates on two projects that are three years old.
“I asked the council to delay their vote so that I could give them real time data. I also want the public to understand what we’re trying to do,” Ross said.
“It’s all about getting the water as fast as possible out of our community and to our pump stations. Anything we can get from the parish will help in the long run.”
Bayou Vista has two pump stations: the Lantz-Donahoe (the first built for the area) and the Bertrand-Vining, which was completed 12 years ago at a cost of nearly $2.9 million.
The state has approved and awarded two capital outlay projects to the Bayou Vista District — one for $375,000 for drainage culvert installation, which will install 72-inch culverts under U.S. 90.
The other approval is for $500,000 to install an additional pump at the Bertrand-Vining Pump Station, and also, to upgrade controls at both pump stations.
“Every bit helps. Having an extra engine helps. Having updated controls help. Having wider and a better flow with culverts under the highway has also got to help. The faster we can get water out of the community, the better. Every little stage of this is working toward that goal,” Ross said.
The chairman explained that the district is now working on sub-surface drainage under streets in neighborhoods, like catch basins, checking what size is there now, what size would improve drainage.
“And that gets to our ditches. So we’re going to get our ditches right, first, and then, once we have a place for all of this water to go, and we can move it, then we’re going to work on all the sub-surface drainage to get the water out of neighborhoods and into our ditches.”
Ross explained that if they would tackle the sub-surface drainage first and make them good, the water will still back up because the ditches will be bad. He said the water would bottle neck then, because it will have nowhere to go.
Ross is also co-chairman of the Wax Lake East Drainage District, an entity that measures storm water from the Calumet to the Atchafalaya River. He said the Bayou Vista pumps send flood waters to the Wax Lake Pumps, which then pump the water out to the Intracoastal Waterway.
He appeared at a resident-called town hall meeting two weeks ago to discuss the Bayou Vista Drainage District’s activity, saying that has four shovel ready projects to fix problems, but doesn’t have a majority of the money needed for most of them, because the costs are into the millions.
The culverts under the highway and the additional pump are the first two projects. The third project is replacing the engines at the Bertrand-Vining Pump Station, and the fourth is to correct erosion and drainage issues on Jupiter Street near Ace Hardware and Taco Bell.
Ross said recently that the district won $1.125 million in a lawsuit from the engineers who built the Bertrand-Vining station, because things there never worked properly.
Alvin Lodrigue Jr., the longtime superintendent of the station, explained that the three pumps never cooperated. He said that over the years, he tried relentlessly to circumvent the problem, but had no success.
“We basically have had to monitor the pumps and prevent them from overheating. They couldn’t handle the load. We’ve been doing this since 2013,” Lodrigue said. “When they overheated, they kicked off and we had to wait for the computers to restart them.”
Lodrigue explained the pumps are crucial to move water out of the 2,295 acres that encompass Bayou Vista. Right now, Lodrigue said, the Bertrand-Vining Station can pump a little over 13 million gallons of water an hour.
But he said that in a basic rain scenario, if 1 inch of rainwater falls on dry ground, no water travels to the pumping station. However, if 1inch of water falls on wet ground, then 3 feet of water flows to the pump station.
A previous report said the improvement plan calls for the three pumps to be upgraded significantly. The gear drives (transmissions) will be replaced as well.
As a result, the pumps’ operational capabilities will be improved, giving more of a robust capacity to deal with the worst of the inevitable future storms.
Ross said he hopes by the end of next month, engineers will put out a bid to fix the problems at the Bertrand-Vining Station, and hopefully by the end of Spring, award the contract.
He hopes to have the project done within a year. He said the public is welcome to attend either or both drainage district meetings.
The Wax Lake East Drainage Board meets at 6 p.m. the first Tuesday of the month in the Patterson Area Civic Center’s meeting room.
The Bayou Vista Drainage District meets the second Tuesday of the month at Noah’s Adventures Mini Golf in Bayou Vista.
St. Mary Parish President Sam Jones’ 2026 budget included $500,000 for Bayou Vista. However, the allocation became controversial when Bayou Vista Councilman David Hill originally rejected it because he was puzzled at how Jones could find such a large sum of money, but could not find considerably less for many other projects in the parish.
Hill said later he would move his colleagues to consider restoring the funds if they were proven necessary for his area.
Ross said he does not know how the vote will go, but felt he wanted to give the council as much hard and accurate data he could give so that they can make a sound decision.
“Just because money is allocated doesn’t mean it’s actually going to be there. This is just a projection. But also consider, what if there is an emergency? That has to come into consideration as well,” Ross said. “I want to be as transparent as possible and have everyone at the table. I don’t want anyone to be misled.”