re: Ascension parish president proposes year-long moratorium on new developments

Many parishes in Louisiana have ignored drainage issues for decades. They've rubber stamped stormwater plans for developments without ever checking that:

A) The calculations even correct (basically if it has an engineer's stamp on it from someone they know, then it gets approved)
B) The stormwater facilities are built according to plans, and
C) The stormwater facilities are maintained.

I've seen numerous developments where it can easily be seen that the stormwater facilities do not have enough capacity. They're not designed properly to begin with, then they were silted in during construction, and then filled with cattails and ragweed because no one bothered to maintain them. You end up with a detention basin that has 30% of it's already intended capacity.

The parishes have also been extremely territorial and refused to work with one another to solve the issues. Water doesn't give a crap about an imaginary parish line. The only place I ever saw cooperation was between Orleans, Jefferson, and Plaquemines, and that was only because the feds were involved.

I worked for almost a decade in stormwater design in southern Louisiana. We worked very hard to try and move the region in to the 21st century as it relates to stormwater design. It continually fell on deaf ears. Now the chickens are coming home to roost and the politicians who rubber-stamped the developments are now trying to deflect. frick 'em.