The power supply that operates the city’s water-related infrastructure, including pumps and pump stations, is obsolete, unreliable and expensive to maintain. Without a dependable power supply, New Orleans is at serious and constant risk for flooding and boil water advisories that bad weather events can cause.
A well-developed plan exists to reduce the future risks and disruptive impacts of the failure of the city’s vulnerable water-related power system: a dedicated substation, which will provide power to the city’s pumps. Development of the substation is well underway, with projected completion in 2023 if we act now. Unfortunately, the project is in danger of stalling or even unraveling if the city does not quickly secure $30 million in funding.
Fortunately, there is an easy solution readily available. Federal funds provided through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) can be utilized for the substation. ARPA funds are intended to allow cities to complete transformative infrastructure projects with the greatest lasting effects on a city’s ability to deliver services to its citizens; the substation certainly qualifies as one. It is the single most important infrastructure project in the city, and our future depends on its completion.
New Orleans’ elected officials must act now to keep the substation on its timeline.
The Business Council of New Orleans and the River Region urges Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the City Council to appropriate ARPA funds to fill the current funding gap and move the project forward without delay.
Business Council of New Orleans & the River Region
650 Poydras Street Ste 2825
New Orleans, LA 70130
