LAFAYETTE PARISH (BROUSSARD) — Broussard officials are moving forward with a yearslong plan to strengthen the city’s water system, with projects aimed at increasing water production, expanding storage capacity and improving water quality as the city continues to grow.
Mayor Ray Bourque presented an updated water system master plan during Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, outlining completed projects, work currently underway and future improvements.
“You’re looking at a plan that’s been in place for four or five years now,” Bourque said. “It’s all about water making, water storage, and advanced filtration and treatment.”
Like many communities across Louisiana, Broussard’s water system faces seasonal challenges that can strain infrastructure.
“The city has stressors on the system during the summer with lawn watering, if we go through a drought,” City Engineer Walter Comeaux said. “And we’ll also have stressors during a heavy freeze like we did this past year.”
Comeaux said aging infrastructure and increasing demand prompted city leaders to develop a long-term strategy to improve the system’s reliability while preparing for future growth.
“We want to improve the quality of the water we have in Broussard, but we also want it to be viable in times of heavy stress,” Comeaux said. “We’re a growing city, and we need to be planning for these things and set ourselves up for success for years to come.”
According to Bourque, the updated master plan includes adding three new wells, more than doubling the city’s water production capacity and expanding water storage to help meet demand during emergencies and periods of peak usage.
“Adding three more wells to the city of Broussard, being able to multiply the water that we’re already making more than double over the course of these projects, and storing that water for times of stress is going to be very important for us,” Bourque said. “At the same time, it gives us the opportunity and funding to look at advanced filtration, new treatment methods and to make sure the quality of our water is at a high standard.”
City officials said state capital outlay funding, grants and other funding programs have helped move the projects forward without slowing Broussard’s continued growth and development.
“They’ll ask us, ‘What do you want to focus on?’” Bourque said. “Probably for the last three or four years, we’ve been saying water because we saw these ice storms and different things, and we said we need to get ahead of this.”
Officials said the projects are designed to improve both the reliability and quality of Broussard’s water system while preparing the city to meet future demand.
