Six ordinances were introduced during last week’s Ascension Parish Council to prepare the way for infrastructure improvements. Among them is an ordinance enabling acquisition of acreage by East Ascension Drainage Commission in furtherance, we suspect, of ongoing efforts to establish regional stormwater detention. Five others are aimed at transportation improvements.
Introduction of Ordinance – to acquire a parcel of immovable property being one hundred twenty-seven and 961/1000 acres located in Section 22, T9S, R2E, Ascension Parish designated as Tract 12-A for the price of $2,559,220.00 plus closing cost for East Ascension Consolidated Gravity Drainage District No. 1
In February 2025 a contiguous parcel, 89 acres, was purchased for $1.6 million for the New River/Lower Branch Goudine Detention project.
There are two things we can do with stormwater to help reduce the risk of flooding in a given area. We can move stormwater more quickly by channel modifications or we can store it in stormwater detention basins.
Stormwater can fill a detention basin in several ways. The illustration above shows water overflowing into a detention basin, from a bayou, by way of a weir structure. All of our structures are passive designs that utilize gravity to operate.
Stormwater detention basins are built to store excess stormwater until it can make its way safely back into the channel.
As the water levels in the bayou recede, the stormwater from the basin flows by gravity through the outfall pipe back into the channel.
In February 2025 a contiguous parcel, 89 acres, was purchased for $1.6 million for the New River/Lower Branch Goudine Detention project.
Five more ordinances will, upon adoption, authorize the parish to acquire “certain parcels, rights of way, and/or servitude for the Move Ascension Program:
- Roddy Road at LA 931 Roundabout Project
- LA 933 at Joe Sevario Road Roundabout Project
- LA 73 Roundabout at Bluff Road Connector – 4 Lane to I-10
- LA 73 at Cornerview Road Roundabout
- Parker Road Corridor Improvements
It all comes as Ascension has recently undertaken widening of Roddy Road.
Ascension’s most traffic-choked roadways, the ones that commuters complain of most, tend to be state highways under the jurisdiction and control of Louisiana DOTD. Of the parish-owned arteries, not many carry more daily traffic than Roddy Road (which becomes Purpera Road south of the Airline, transitioning to Joe Sevario Road north of Hwy 931). Crumbling at its edges, barely wide enough for two mid-sized vehicles, Roddy Road has needed attention for years…and it is finally on the list for widening.
With a budget of $5,529,099 to work with, a unanimous Ascension Parish Council accepted “the lowest responsive bid in the amount of $5,101,614.13 submitted by Barriere Construction Co, LLC for labor and materials for the roadway widening, bridge removal and new bridge construction on Roddy Road from Preston Landry to LA 935.”
NOTE: Preston Landry Road runs parallel to, and just north of, Weber City Road. LA 935, according to Google Maps, is Bayou Narcisse Road.
Parish road improvements
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