Can New Leadership Deliver New Stormwater and Sewer Systems in New Orleans?

Jeff Adelson reports on the agenda of the new executive director of the Sewage & Water Board of New Orleans (S&WB), Ghassan Korban.

According to the article, Korban is pursuing an aggressive agenda that stops no short of replacing entirely the city's drainage, water, and sewage systems.

"Three weeks into his job, the new S&WB executive director is laying the groundwork for a bold plan that would go beyond the short-term fixes and emergency repairs that have dominated the agency since well before last summer’s floods in New Orleans," writes Adelson. "His eye is on a multiple-decade master plan that would see brand-new systems for drainage, water and sewerage — a process that would mean at least tens of millions of dollars a year in new money from residents."

In August 2017, New Orleans was struggling to deal with stormwater and flooding from rain that fell everyday since the beginning of April.