City council OKs citizen flood monitoring committee

People attending a special Ville Platte City Council meeting Tuesday, October 15, said they have experienced flooding they never have seen before. They also said the cause may be decades old canals in the city and weirs -- or dams -- on nearby bayous that are no longer functioning properly because of overgrowth or deterioration.
During the council’s regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, October 8, Dr. Greg Ardoin, who has been playing a leading role in organizing more than a dozen area residents, asked the council to hold the special meeting.
Ardoin said, during the special meeting last Tuesday, the citizen committee would have no power to make decisions on what action to take, but would present its findings to the city council. He said the committee would meet quarterly and any resident who lives inside or outside of Ville Platte could volunteer to serve on the committee.
He said members of the committee would not need to have any particular expertise, but instead would monitor flooding and drainage in various locations in and around the city. The committee is expected to grow over time, Ardoin said.
He said the committee would report back to the council who the officers and members of the committee are.
Another person involved in forming the committee, Toby Landreneau, said there are groups of people in other areas of the parish who will work with the Ville Platte-based committee to develop an overall idea on how drainage occurs in the parish.
He said there are a “ridiculous amount” of weirs -- perhaps 15 -- around Ville Platte. He has observed weirs covered with debris and overgrowth when he has been duck hunting, he said, and that could be holding back water that should be draining from the city.
Ronnie Landreneau, who is the city and parish consulting engineer, said the federal agency responsible for designing and installing the weirs failed to inspect them. He said the police jury has looked into the problem and has dedicated crews and equipment to work on drainage, but is considering bidding out the work to a private company.
Another person involved in forming the committee, Thomas McFarlain, who lives about a mile southeast of Ville Platte, has lived in the area 65 years. He said he has seen water levels “this year I’ve never seen before.”
He said he saw crawfish on his porch that had two inches of standing water earlier this year. Backed up standing water is “something not seen before,” in some areas, he said.
The discussion during the special meeting also involved the condition of canals that were not built -- in the 1930s -- to drain as much water as they need to drain now. Mayor Jennifer Vidrine said city crews have cleared the canals of debris, including large appliances. She said the city is in the process of installing tall fences where streets pass over the canals, and signs that warn of monetary fines that will be imposed for dumping into canals.
Councilman Taranza Arvie said an example of how “smaller problems can create larger problems” is collapsing culverts installed many years ago. He said erosion is also causing problems, including build-up of silt in city canals.
After discussing the problem and how the citizen committee will monitor drainage and report to the council, council members took an informal vote to approve of the citizens’ plan to form the committee.