OPELOUSAS — Monday afternoon, Opelousas city council and the Mayor held a special meeting to discuss and hear details from what the city calls a system improvement plan for the city's water system. The city engineer, William Jarrell, prepared and presented the plan to the public and city council. The document discussed numerous issues with the water system and recommendations for fixing them.
"If you do nothing, your system will fail, and you will not be able to provide water to your customers," said city engineer William Jarrell.
According to the city engineer, the Opelousas water system needs upgrades and repairs. They include several treatment plants with water wells in fair or poor condition and a water treatment plant that has yet to be serviced in 30 years.
Another issue is costing the city; the improvement plan revealed that some people living in the city are not being charged for water.
"Some of these meters are in the ground, and we are having issues finding them, but we are putting processes and protocols in place to fix this," said Mayor Julius Alsandor.
More issues are personnel issues and old water lines contributing to leaks in the city, like the one located on Montreal Street.
"You have a critical staffing shortage across your entire department, and you lack technical personnel that knows what it takes to work the system," said Jarrell.
"I think what most people gather from our city engineer is that the unknown can be shocking," said Alsandor.
The mayor says the city is well aware of the problems and is ready to fix them despite having yet to have the workforce to operate the water system.
The mayor says, the city plans on working with civil service to get the right people hired.
In that Monday afternoon meeting, Jarrell said the city is looking at a price tag of 29 million dollars to fix all the issues, and it could take up to 4 years to address them; however, the city has applied for a 25 million dollar loan from the state.
"We know that there are many, many needs with our infrastructure system, but it is obvious that we are fixing, repairing, and finding solutions to improve our water system," said Alsandor.
