By T. Scott Boatright
Grambling’s City Council held a special meeting Tuesday afternoon to address a water crisis the city has been facing since last week.
The city has been in the midst of that crisis since last week when lighting struck a tree, knocking it down. The combination of the lightning strike and the tree falling into a water main located in a ravine near Mockingbird Lane caused a massive leak.
“Around 400 feet of that pipe has to be replaced,” Jones said. “Thank God we got a call from Baton Rouge and were able to apply for the Community Water Enrichment Fund Grant with which we were able to get $69,300. That money will be used to replace around 400 linear feet of pipe that is in a ravine off of Mockingbird. The city of Grambling is very appreciative for the grant and it did get support letters from our state legislators, Sen. Jay Luneau and Rep. Patrick Jefferson.”
The mayor said the process is “ready to go” but that even though it involves a grant, that grant application still had to be approved by the City Council.
Jones said $60,000 of the grant was to cover construction costs and the other $9,300 was for miscellaneous funding reasons.
Grambling City’s Council passed a motion to approve the grant application 5-0. Council member Toby Bryan listened in to the meeting and voted by phone.
Jones said a boil effect remained in place for Grambling as of this morning.
“Testing was completed (Tuesday),” Jones said. “On Monday we didn’t have enough chlorine in the water and we still need to bring it up to standard. It was measured again (Tuesday), so (today) we’ll get those results and hopefully everything will be OK.”
