Consent Decree Work in Shreveport Expected to Top $1B Pricetag

The cost of making infrastructure improvements in Shreveport keeps climbing. The city is under a consent decree and major upgrades have been going on to improve our water system.

But we are now learning the projected costs will far exceed the initial estimates of $350 million. City Engineer Patrick Furlong outlines where we are on making the improvements.

He answers several of our questions about the status. He tells us $424 million has been spent so far but he says much more work needs to be done, "the high end estimage is around $700 million." That would bring the consent decree work to more than $1 billion dollars.

So how are we funding this work? Furlong says "the city aquires the money as needed through low interest loans from the state, revenue bonds, etc." You can see a list of the entire scope of the project by clicking here.

Furlong says there are 5 phases to this work. He says phase one is essentially complete and phase 2 projects will begin this spring. Design work is now being done on phase 3 and will get up to full speed this summer.

He says the remedial measures plan for phase 4 should be delivered in a couple of months and design phase will start shortly after that. Phase 5 will kick in at that stage.

The reason for the consent decree is the high number of violations. There were more than 1,000 violations because of breaks in the sewer systems. As a result, the federal government stepped in.

You can click here to see the work currently being done.

The work is part of a 12-year plan that began in 2014. See the timetable on that schedule.

Filed Under: Consent decree work