So the FBI was at the NOLA Sewerage and Water Board offices this morning

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David Hammer
@davidhammerWWL
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16m
FBI is at Sewerage and Water Board offices now.
@WWLTV

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David Hammer
@davidhammerWWL
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7m
FBI agents leaving Sewerage and Water Board moments ago. ?
@WWLTV

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NEW ORLEANS — Justin Schmidt smelled trouble last year when he had a new gas line installed at a rental property he owns.

But the stench didn’t come from the leaky gas line plumbers had just replaced. It was the city’s construction permitting system that had Schmidt sensing trouble.

Days after the work on his gas line was done, Schmidt learned that his plumber had not filed the required city permit to do the work. It was filed after he complained, in the name of Jay Arnold, a public official who oversees all plumbing permits and inspections in the city for the Sewerage and Water Board.


“How can a full-time employee of the Sewerage and Water Board like Jay Arnold have the time in the day to adequately tend to his responsibilities at S&WB while at the same time conducting the inspections and work reflected in these 1,095 (city gas permits),” Schmidt wrote in an email to top officials at City Hall and the Sewerage and Water Board on Nov. 19, 2020.

When Schmidt asked the plumber he hired, Paul Toups of Paul D. Plumber, who Arnold was and why he was involved in a job he had hired Toups to do, the plumber said Arnold had “a side business where he did plumbing and mechanical inspections."

But that wasn’t true. Arnold isn’t certified by the International Code Council and isn’t registered with the Louisiana State Unified Construction Code Council, so he can’t perform any inspections in Louisiana, according to the state Fire Marshal’s Office.

That means the Sewerage and Water Board official in charge of all plumbing inspectors and permitting in the city is not properly licensed to do inspections himself.

Arnold is, however, properly licensed to do private work as a gasfitter, and Sewerage and Water Board policies at the time allowed him to have side jobs as long as they didn’t conflict with his duties for the S&WB.

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