Deteriorating infrastructure taking toll on city resources

On Monday, at the first of two Town Hall meetings tied to the Louisiana Development Ready Communities program, the question was asked, "What do you mean by infrastructure?"

The smaller of two trucks belonging to Compliance Enviro
Systems, LLC is caught in a sinkhole that opened under it
on Military Road. (Photo by John H. Walker)

The answer, of course, is streets and water mains and service lines, drains and sewers — and before that first meeting was over Bogalusa Public Works Director James Hall had gotten a call about a location where workers thought there would be a problem.

Tuesday afternoon, in the 1400 block of Military Road, that problem became evident, as a sewer line collapsed under a truck belonging to a company Hall had brought in to check the conditions of the lines.

"We had a problem on another street and then yesterday, as they were working over here, they called me and told me it looked like we were going to have a problem ... and here it is," Hall said, gesturing to the left rear dual wheel set of the truck that was in the collapsed hole.

The opening is about four-to-vive feet across and 14 feet deep and about six feet away from a manhole cover the crews were getting ready to check.

In fact, had it not been for the trucks bumper hitting the ground several feet away, Hall said the problem might have been bigger still.

Looking down into the hole.

"These are 100-year old pipes and lines," Hall said. "These lines are only 50 years old, so they're the new ones we have to work with."

Hall said he brought Compliance Enviro Systems, LLC of Baton Rouge in because of a problem last Saturday, when water was bubbling out of a manhole on Jefferson Davis after a heavy rain.

"We put sandbags on it and did everything we could do," he said. "Then, as we were checking it, we saw sand in the water."

Hall said Compliance Enviro utilizes two units, sending a camera down into the line to record what it sees and to look for trouble spots and potential trouble spots.

"The problem is you can't budget for things like this," Hall said. "(Personnel director) Sandy (Bloom) found us an emergency loan program, but it takes three weeks to get approval and you can't get reimbursed for any of the money you have to spend. That doesn't seem like much of an emergency loan program to me."