By ROBIN SHANNON

Staff Reporter

HAHNVILLE – The St. Charles Council unanimously approved a $26.45 million contract Monday for wholesale upgrades and improvements to an East Bank water treatment plant.

The bid, from M.R. Pittman Group, LLC of Harahan, is more than double the original parish budget of $12 million set up before Hurricane Katrina, but the onset of the storm ballooned construction costs.

“This is a project that has been a long time coming,” said St. Charles Waterworks Director Robert Brou. “But it is very much needed by our department. The costs are not going to get any cheaper.”

In addition to a portion of revenue collected from the sale of $25 million in parish bonds, Brou said funding for the 6 million-gallon-per-day plant will come from cash on hand in the waterworks department and a $1 million grant from the Louisiana Recovery Authority.

Parish President V.J. St. Pierre said the remaining shortcomings, which will fall between $7 million and $8 million, would come from the parish general fund, which normally does not fund waterworks projects.

Brou said current capacity at the East Bank Plant is about 7 million-gallons-per-day, which is where capacity stood when the plant was built in the 1950s. The expansion and improvements will bring regular capacity up to 13 million-gallons-per-day.

“This will take us into the foreseeable future,” Brou said. “There is a limited amount of developable land on the East Bank. The upgrades will cover any new construction.

Before the vote, District 4 Councilman Paul Hogan expressed his full support of the project and said it is a much needed infrastructure improvement for the East Bank.

“We need to get this project off the ground now,” said Hogan.

Brou said the new plant is part of a plan to link water plants on the East Bank and West Bank of the parish through a system of pipelines under the Mississippi River. One crossing is already complete, and a second is underway.

In other action at the meeting, St. Pierre told the council that in a meeting with representatives from the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, the department agreed to use surplus funds to contribute to a laundry list of projects in St. Charles Parish. Those projects include a replacement of cables on the Luling Bridge, concrete overlay along US 90, and the installation of guardrails along US Hwy. 61 in St. Charles.