FRENCH SETTLEMENT – As residents of French Settlement continue to be dissatisfied with their water supply, plans are being developed to resolve these long-standing problems.

For many in the village in lower Livingston Parish and surrounding areas, solutions can’t come fast enough.

A resident of the French settlement, Ferris Granade Jr., spoke with UWK about the concerns he and his wife Kristy have had about their water over the past two decades.

Kristy had health problems that she believed were caused by poor water quality. Her symptoms began shortly after moving into her home in French Settlement and lasted for years.

“I had a lot of stomach problems,” she recalled. “At one point they did an endoscopy and I was covered in ulcers from head to toe, but they couldn’t figure out where they were coming from.”

Although Kristy changed her diet in hopes of relieving the pain, she suspected that the water was the cause of her ulcers. She decided to stop drinking tap water. When she did that, her pain subsided and the ulcers disappeared.

However, Kristy continued to bathe with tap water, even though it had a slight yellow tint. She soon noticed that other health problems were emerging.

“For the past year and a half, I’ve been getting bladder infections on and off. I’ve never had a bladder infection before,” she said.

She noticed that the symptoms appeared shortly after bathing and that she developed a bladder infection within a few days.

“At one point it got so bad that I ended up in the hospital bleeding,” Kristy recalls. “And after that I said to myself, ‘I’m not bathing in that water anymore.'”

The Granades installed a filter in their bathtub and Kristy stopped bathing. The infections disappeared.

A long-standing problem

When Corix and Southwest Water Company, the previous owner of French Settlement Water Company, merged on April 1, 2024, Aaron Accardo and his team at Nexus Water Group began assessing the situation in French Settlement.

Accardo explained UWK that numerous problems in the water system contribute to residents’ dissatisfaction. One of the main problems is insufficient water capacity, which is due to several factors. There are many leaks in the pipes, which are due to poor quality original installation and the age of the pipes, said Accardo. Many of the pipes that supply the French settlement area were installed 50 to 70 years ago.

The Nexus operators are constantly busy repairing the leaky pipes, he added.

The capacity of the system’s two current wells is only enough to serve customers in the area, according to Accardo, but the leaks mean there is not enough capacity, resulting in low pressure.

The reddish-brown water that many customers have complained about is caused by oxidized iron and manganese. Accardo said this discolored water is common in Louisiana and other states.

“If we didn’t have to chlorinate the water, you would never know that the water contains iron and manganese because it wouldn’t oxidize,” he said.

A game plan with solutions

To address the iron and manganese problems, Accardo said the utility is considering installing green sand filters to purify the water that goes to customers. These filters will be installed at the drilling site and will be “rechargeable,” meaning they can be washed and cleaned as often as needed.

But the filters alone are not enough to remove all the buildup in the pipes, so another plan of action is to use a process called “ice pigging,” which is set to begin in September. The process involves pushing “snowball-fine” ice through the pipes at a controlled speed and distance to scrub away iron and manganese buildup, he explained. The utility will start with the most encrusted areas and clean the system section by section.

“For this particular problem, ice treatment seems to be the most effective,” he said.

Accardo pointed out that during the process, some of the scrubbed ice could escape through the pipe, causing temporary discoloration of the water.

Customers will be notified before work is done on their area of ​​the system, and these notifications will be posted on French Settlement Water Company’s Facebook and social media pages.

Currently, Accardo is informing its customers that ongoing water quality and capacity issues should be resolved by 2027 through Nexus’ efforts to repair and replace pipes and drill a new 3,000-foot-deep well.

“If we can drill the well deep enough, the water will not have the iron and manganese problems that occur today,” he said UWK.

The challenge of drilling the wells expeditiously is due to the high demand for drilling services as many cities and territories take advantage of funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. The drillers who can dig the deep well that French Settlement needs have long waiting lists, which could delay the start of drilling by about a year and a half. Nexus continues to look for other licensed drillers who may be available sooner.

“Drilling the new wells will be a great success – a major milestone in solving both water capacity problems because we will drill them large enough to deliver more gallons per minute than the wells that exist today,” Accardo said.

The company also wants to buy land for another well. These deeper wells will provide better water pressure and sufficient capacity for an area that continues to grow. However, it will take some time to resolve all the issues.

“I would say we will probably be working very intensively on this for ten years – seven to ten years,” he said.

Asbestos cement pipe

Some of the pipes in the system are made of asbestos cement (AC), but Accardo explained that depending on when they were installed, not all pipes are made of this mix of materials. He noted that AC pipes generally have a lifespan of 60 to 100 years. However, because the pipes are narrower than modern pipes, additional problems arise when making repairs.

Working with air conditioning pipes is difficult and during repair work the company explores the best ways to overcome these challenges.

The Louisiana Department of Health monitors asbestos by taking samples when the agency has knowledge that the material is present in the system and by conducting monitoring at points of entry into the distribution system, said Kevin Litten, LDH spokesman. UWK.

According to LDH records, there are no detectable levels of asbestos in the French Settlement water supply or the Maurepas water main.

For more information on asbestos data, citizens can visit the LDH’s Drinking Water Watch website.

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