From staff reports
L’Observateur

LULING — Luling will gain a new pump station, and the St. Charles Parish Emergency Operations Center will gain mobile communications capabilities thanks to two new grants awarded to the parish.

A federal grant of $558,825 will partially fund the construction of a new pump station adjacent to the existing Kellogg pump station, as well as other drainage improvements in the Mimosa subdivision.

The new Kellogg B pump station will be designed with two 30-inch pumps housing 75 horsepower engines, a 12-foot by 15-foot wet well and two 30-inch discharge pipes capable of handling 16,915 gallons per minute of stormwater runoff each.

The project also includes ditch grading and installation of 1,152 linear feet of 48-inch storm drains and 12 catch basins. Eight junction boxes will be installed along River Oaks Drive between the new pump station and Fern Drive, and along Fern Drive between Oak Lane and Monsanto Avenue. The parish’s match requirement is 25 percent of the total estimated cost, or $186,275.

“This grant will allow us to improve drainage in an area that has been impacted in the past by major street flooding and some home flooding,” St. Charles Parish President V.J. St. Pierre Jr. said. “This project will also set the area up for success as we look forward to the eventual construction of the Ellington Reach of the West Bank Hurricane Protection Levee.”

Another grant will help the parish’s EOC purchase a mobile communications unit.