Historic Louisiana

✧
Above: SCADA is a state-of-the-art system
that constantly monitors the complex
sewerage operations.
Below: The S&WB’s sophisticated water
treatment process and quality testing
procedures help produce water that meets or
exceeds all EPA standards.
HISTORIC LOUISIANA
104
Generators that provide much of the power
for pumps throughout the city are located at
the S&WB power plant.
Operations and Drainage Department
crews watch the canal water level, monitor
weather forecasts through a direct tie to the
National Weather Service Radar System,
communicate with other stations and senior
management, and keep informed on weather
activity around the city. They are accustomed
to handling unexpected deluges.
If a hurricane should head towards the
city, the S&WB would activate its emergency
plan that calls for increased manpower,
additional equipment and frequent strategy
and update sessions.
The purpose of the Southeast Louisiana
Urban Flood Control Project (SELA), a
cooperative program between the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers and the Sewerage and Water
Board of New Orleans, is to reduce flood
damages in the City of New Orleans and
surrounding parishes. This will be
accomplished by constructing new pumping
stations and new drainage canals throughout
the city. The program was authorized in 1996
by the United States Congress and administered
under a project cooperative agreement between
the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans
and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Phase
One Projects include:
• New Hollygrove Pump Station and
Canals, Pump Station No. 1 Upgrade,
• Two New Napoleon Canals,
• New South Claiborne Manifold Canal
(Nashville to Louisiana),
• New Dwyer Road Pump Station and Canals.
The cost for these projects is $140 million,
seventy-five percent of which will be federally
funded. The Sewerage and Water Board must
pay the remaining twenty-five percent, or
40 million.
The sanitary sewerage system in New
Orleans is a gravity collection system,
consisting of 1,500 miles of lateral and trunk
sewers, ranging in size from eight inches to
seven feet in diameter and a force main
system to transport the sewage to the
treatment plants. Lifting and conveying the
sewage (also called wastewater or effluent) by
trunk sewers and force mains requires 82
electrically operated pumping and lift
stations. Seventy-nine of those stations are
automatically operated.
The S&WB system has two sewage
treatment plants, one on the East Bank and
one in Algiers. The combined treatment
capacity of the two plants is 132 million
gallons per day.
Both plants were built in the 1970s and
have been upgraded to increase capacity and
are in full compliance with EPA rules and
regulations, discharging thoroughly treated
wastewater into the Mississippi River.
The Sewer System Evaluation and
Rehabilitation Program (SSERP) is a ten-year
effort to study and repair the sewerage
collection system throughout the city. The preliminary
cost estimate for the improvements is
between $500 and $600 million. Projects
include rehabilitation of existing sewers,
construction of new sewers and upgrading
pumping stations.
To date, the S&WB has inspected 4.2
million feet of sanitary sewer lines,