Council approves $175,000 emergency transfer as treatment plant nears breaking point

PORT ALLEN – The city's wastewater treatment plant is running on two of five blowers, and engineer Tony Arikol told the city council January 7 that if another one fails, the plant goes septic.

That means raw wastewater discharges without treatment. Arikol pointed to plants along I-12 near Hammond where that has happened. The smell carries for miles.

The equipment dates to around 2009-2010. The blowers run 24 hours a day. Arikol said getting them repaired costs more than buying new ones.

"It's like your plane has four engines and three of them are out," Arikol told the committee. The next one goes, and the city has a public health problem.

The digester tank uses two of the blowers. The regular aeration tanks are supposed to have two running at all times. Right now, the city doesn't have enough available to properly aerate the tanks — the bare minimum to keep the treatment process working.

$175,000 Budget Transfer

At the January 14 regular meeting, the council approved a $175,000 transfer within the sewer fund to start replacing the most critical equipment. The money covers new blowers and a diverter sludge box that has deteriorated to the point where operators can't route sludge to the correct tank.

The transfer pulls $25,000 from the machinery and equipment line and $150,000 from the sewer system line in the collection department. Finance Director Adrian Daigle said the city had budgeted $400,000 for lift station pumps, but the wastewater superintendent confirmed they won't spend the full amount this year. That freed up the money without dipping into savings.

The city already had $200,000 budgeted for some blower work. The additional transfer gets the rest funded.

Procurement Timeline

New blowers take 10 to 16 weeks to arrive. Occasionally a manufacturer has one on the shelf that can ship faster for a premium, but that's not something the city can count on.

Arikol said the equipment isn't available through state contract, which means the normal bid process applies. He suggested the city may need to declare an emergency to speed things up. One option: the city buys the blowers directly instead of waiting for a contractor to include them in a bid package, which wouldn't get them installed any faster than eight weeks regardless.

The plan is to bid three blowers as a base with two more as additive alternates. If the money is there, the city awards all five. If not, they get what they can afford.

A Year of Warnings

This didn't come out of nowhere. Council members toured the treatment plant in March 2025 and saw the conditions firsthand. Arikol put together cost estimates for minimum repairs at that time.

Almost a year later, the situation is worse. Back then, more blowers were still running. Now the city is down to two — and those are the same age as the ones that already failed.

Arikol told the council he couldn't give them an exact timeline on when the remaining blowers would go. But the equipment runs around the clock, can't be rebuilt, and was all installed at roughly the same time. The math isn't complicated.

Even if the city finds a new plant site — something Arikol acknowledged is difficult because no one wants a treatment plant next to their property — construction would take years. This plant has to hold until then.

The Port Allen City Council's next committee meeting has been rescheduled from Wednesday, February 4 to Thursday, February 5 at 5:30 p.m. in City Council Chambers, 375 Court Street, Third Floor.