Louisiana City Kicks Off $36 Million Drinking Water Renovation
(AP) — After a winter freeze that crippled drinking water systems across the region, the city of Shreveport is launching a $36.5 million project designed to improve its drinking water infrastructure.
The city is renovating its service pump station that was built in the 1930s, the Shreveport Times reported.
“We learned in February how critical it is to have a reliable water system,” William Daniel, Water and Sewerage director, told the newspaper. “The completion of this project will guarantee a more efficient system to deliver safe drinking water to our residents.”
The money will go toward renovating deteriorated parts of the building and repurposing space so it can be more effectively used, the newspaper said. The work will also include installing new backwash and high service pumps. That will help increase the reliability and capacity of those systems. The renovations will also address updates to the electrical systems.
The water system serves about 70,000 customers, according to the newspaper. A spell of freezing temperatures in February froze water equipment, burst pipes and exposed widespread problems with drinking water systems across parts of the South, including Shreveport. Residents of the city of roughly 200,000 people went days without drinking water or having to boil their drinking water to make it safe to consume. Tanker trucks brought water to hospitals, and residents in many areas scooped up snow and melted it in their bathtubs to flush.
Many water systems have decades-old pipes that are susceptible to breaking, and many systems in the South were not built with such low temperatures in mind. During a February interview with The Associated Press Mayor Adrian Perkins pointed to “old, aging infrastructure, just like most American cities.”
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