VIDALIA — Rachea Bailey can still smell the water that flooded her house more than two months ago.

“I can’t get the smell out,” she said. “I have tried everything.”

Sweeping water out of her house after heavy August rains was nothing new for the Concordia Park resident though. Her parish house has flooded twice in recent years.

“It is very discouraging,” she said. “I hope to move eventually.”

Bailey said she has visited many Concordia Parish Police Jury meetings to see about some assistance, but she never received any. Bailey isn’t the only concerned citizen though.

In early December 2009, the Concordia Economic and Industrial Development District sent a letter to the police jury regarding drainage in the parish.

In the letter, CEIDD Chairman Richard Young asked the police jury to make drainage a top priority for 2010.

Nine months later, those heavy rains hit the parish and flooded many homes.

For 20 years, drainage has been an issue to residents of Concordia Parish, and with a problem that is only getting worse, Young said something needs to be done sooner rather than later.

“During our economic meetings, we put on a display of Bayou Cocodrie on Google Earth,” he said. “You can tell there are definitely some problems there.”

Young said the tour of Google Earth shows images of silt build ups in the bayou from the early 2000s, and that the problem has only gotten worse since then, he said.

Young said the CEIDD has been working on fixing the drainage in the parish since Hurricane Gustav hit in 2008.

“Since then we have met with our senators, our representatives, Wildlife and Fisheries and the police jury, all about drainage,” he said. “We have also had several meetings at the economic board just to discuss this topic.”

Police Jury President Melvin Ferrington said the problems lie solely in Bayou Cocodrie.

“Vidalia Canal is not the problem; water is getting through it to the bayou,” he said. “Cocodrie drains all the water in the parish. All the water winds up in there, and that is a lot of water to go through just one place.”

CEIDD Executive Director Heather Malone said the district has identified five major problems with the drainage that need to be fixed.

“If we would have started on this 20 years ago, maybe it would be done,” she said. “But since we didn’t, you have to start somewhere.”

Malone said the first problem involves a weir in Wild Cow Bayou in the southwest part of the parish.

“There is an operational gate there that is supposed to raise and let water out to avoid flooding,” she said. “The crank is missing on the gate and it cannot be raised or lowered.”

While fixing the gate is an option, Malone said no one knows who is responsible for the repairs.

“What we have to do to fix the gate is figure out who is responsible for the repairs,” she said.

Malone said she spoke with the Louisiana Department of Transportation about the weir and they sent her a letter back from the Department of Public Works dated from 1974.

In the letter, it clearly states that in 1963, the police jury passed a resolution that requested the construction of the weir, made the right of way for the weir available and held the jury responsible for maintaining and operating the structure.

“We sent the letter to the police jury and they are still saying they do not know who is responsible for it,” Malone said.

Ferrington said he also has paperwork stating that Wildlife and Fisheries is responsible for the weir.

“If it turns out we are responsible for the weir, we will own up and accept responsibility,” he said. “I think it is going to require an effort on everyone’s part to be responsible for the weir.”

Malone said she helped the jury apply for money to fix the weir, but all appropriations were denied this year.

“We can apply for those again,” she said. “We know what is going on and what we need to fix, it is just a slow process.”

Ferrington said the jury, along with the CEIDD, applied for capital outlay grants from the state to receive funding.

“I don’t know the exact figure, but it should cost around $300,000 or somewhere in that range to fix the weir,” he said.

Another problem Malone said needed to be fixed to help the drainage was removing silt from Bayou Cocodrie.

“Silt bars have settled and formed all throughout the bayou,” she said. “We need to be able to go in and clean this out.”

Malone said previous claims that no one could get into Cocodrie Bayou to clean it up because it was a part of the Scenic Waterway Act are untrue.

“We had an official with the Wildlife and Fisheries come in and talk on different occasions about getting a permit to clean up the silt,” she said. “He said we could get one very easily.”

Malone said the official, Keith Cascio, even offered to take her out and search the bayou for problems without a permit.

Ferrington said while he does know the jury can get a permit to clean the bayou, the parish doesn’t have enough money to pay for it.

“It takes a lot of money to go in and clean that up,” he said. “We have tried unsuccessfully for a number of years to clean it up.”

Ferrington also said the jury could not work on the bayou until a study is done.

“That just brings in additional costs, and this is money we don’t have,” he said.

Malone said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requested that a study be done before the Corps can recommend ideas for helping solve the drainage problem.

“The study will cost around $500,000,” she said. “The Corps will pay for the first $100,000, and the rest of the costs are split 50-50 between the state and local governments.”

Malone said the board applied for money to pay the $200,000 for the parish’s part for the approximately 18-month study, but did not get the grant.

“This is an expensive cost that we need to find money for,” she said.

Ferrington said even if the jury could get the money for the study, money will still be an issue in the long run.

“After you pay $200,000 for a study, you still have to have funds to do the project,” he said. “You are out $200,000 and are in the same place you were in to begin with.”

One way in which drainage can be improved is the installation of a gravity flow structure on Black River Lake in Monterey, Ferrington said.

“They have the funding to put a structure out there,” he said. “It will let the water flow into Black River instead of in Cocodrie.”

While some work is being done, Young said completing the work in the bayou is the only way to stop these problems for good.

“We need to isolate these points and get with Wildlife and Fisheries, and they seem willing to get involved,” Young said. “The Corps has also come down to see if they can help, and our federal representatives have also expressed interest. It’s monetary issues that have to be addressed to solve the problem.”

The police jury used to have a drainage committee of approximately 15 members, but currently there is not one active, Ferrington said.

Ferrington said the committee dissolved because not enough of the members were showing up to the meetings on a regular basis.

“We never could get them organized and all together,” he said.

Ferrington said he hopes the new committee will be formed before the end of November.

“At the next economic district meeting, we will discuss the committee,” he said. “We have discussed appointing two people from the parish and one from each town.”

Malone said once the committee is formed, she hopes it will work quickly to fix the problems in the bayou.

“We are going to take them through Google Earth tour of the bayou,” she said. “We are going to see if we can work through the new committee to get help.”

Residents of the parish pay a drainage tax every year, and Young said people should be able to see this money going to work.

“The (people in the) towns are paying a lot of money on drainage tax,” he said. “And there are still homes flooding due to drainage issues.”

Malone simply asked where the drainage tax money is going.

“Drainage has been an issue for over 20 years,” she said. “Surely we can come up with $200,000 in tax over 20 years for a study.”

Police jury secretary Hazel Dickson said drainage tax is taken from the ad valorem tax parish residents pay every year.

“There is not one that comes from sales tax,” she said. “This year we brought in $911,700 from the ad valorem that is used solely for drainage purposes.”

Dickson said the ad valorem tax of eight and a half mills for parish residents is split with one-fourth of the tax going toward public buildings, and the other three-fourths going toward drainage.

Dickson said the jury has used $816,000 of the money this year on drainage issues.

“It has been used for cleaning the canal, ditches and the culverts, paying drainage employees,” she said. “Anything that has to do with drainage.”

Ferrington said the parish has a large mileage of drainage ditches in the parish.

“There are around 250 to 260 miles of drainage ditch in the parish,” he said. “This hasn’t been updated in several years, and there are probably even more now.”

Ferrington said if the jury could use the money to fix problems with drainage rather than to fund a study, progress could be seen.

“We would be foolish to have a study done with our limited funds,” he said. “After we completed the study we would have even less funds to try and work on the problems.”

Malone said in order for the problem to be fixed, people are going to have to start getting involved.

“We are going to have to start helping ourselves at some point,” she said. “We don’t need to sit back another 10 years to wait for this to get fixed.”

We need to not get accustomed to seeing homes flood, Malone said.

“We all talk about it and it dries up and we forget about it like it never happened,” she said. “I would much rather have a new tax than to have to pay and fix my house every year.”

Rachea Bailey said she would support that tax if it would mean she didn’t spend another day trying to make her house smell fresh again.

“It will help the quality of life,” she said.