Louisiana Water Crisis Update: It's Worse Than You Think!

"Water, Water, Everywhere, Nor Any a Drop to Drink!" - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

When Coleridge penned the quote above he was referring to a stranded sea captain who was surrounded by literal ocean of undrinkable water. Unfortunately the residents of Louisiana are facing a eerily similar dilemma. There is water everywhere but none of it is safe for consumption.  

If I can give you one bit of advice it would be to never drink the water that comes out of the tap here in Louisiana. 

DON'T DO IT!

Last April I wrote an article about the terrible condition of the local wastewater and drinking water systems here in the Pelican State. It was my conjecture that the state was on the verge of a water crisis. A recent article in the Louisiana Illuminator, however, points out that things are even worse than I had speculated. The hard truth of the matter is that the drinking water infrastructure around the state is in such a bad state that 20 years and $7 billion couldn't fix all the problems.

In 2017, the Louisiana Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers rated the state’s drinking water a D-, and a Louisiana infrastructure report found that 58% of drinking water systems were built before 1960. Around 20% out of the 1,287 water systems that the Louisiana Department of Health oversees are not up to code, the Illuminator reported in May, with close to 2,000 boil water notices issued in the state every year. 

  This does not come as a surprise– the $300 million the Legislature set aside for water system problems is just around 4% of the amount the White House says Louisiana requires to fix its water and sewer systems. President Joe Biden’s administration calculated that Louisiana would need $7 billion over the next 20 years to fix the longstanding problem of substandard water systems.

“People sometimes ask me what keeps you awake at night and I will tell you, it is our state’s water and sewer systems that keeps me awake at night because I do think that we have aging systems that have been neglected all around the state,” said Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell.

If all of that doesn't scare you this final statement should:

Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne stated, “I don’t know that we’ll ever have enough money to satisfy every water demand that exists in Louisiana.”

This may be a hard pill to swallow, but it appears that the water systems here in Louisiana are in such bad condition that the may never be brought up to code. In my dealings with the State on these issues I have to say that this unfortunately doesn't surprise me one bit. Many local municipalities have the desire to provide their residents safe drinking water but there just isn't the time or money available to make it happen.

This paints a very dark picture for the future of Louisiana.


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