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VIDALIA — Those who reside in Concordia Parish and are not tied to a public sewage system could be fined for improper sewage disposal after the police jury unanimously revised their sanitation code on Monday.

The Concordia Parish Police Jury on Monday adopted a revision to regulate individual parish residents’ sewage systems.

The revision comes after some complained of individuals letting raw sewage be drained into ditches and contaminating lakes, Jury Secretary-Treasurer Sandi Burley said.

The parish’s previous code addresses the sewage systems for subdivisions but didn’t allow the jury to enforce any restrictions on how individuals who are not tied to a larger system handle their sewage, she said.

A new chapter was added to the law and adopted Monday that prohibits them from directly or indirectly discharging the contents of “any plumbing fixtures, vault, privy portable toilet or septic tank into any road, street, gutter, ditch, watercourse, body of water or onto the surface of the ground.”

As long as the violators are not tied to any public sewage system, the police jury can enforce a code violation and fine them $100 per day per instance.

The law outlined in the parish Code of Ordinances Chapter 22, Article III includes descriptions and diagrams of how systems should be constructed to meet the requirements.

Click here to view.

In other matters during Monday’s meeting, the police jury granted a request from the Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office for $3,000 for replacing the flooring inside of the jail, which is approximately 2,000 square feet of flooring according to a letter to the jury from Concordia Parish Sheriff David Hedrick.

The jail recently underwent a renovation and took out walls and counters that had been in place for the past 20 years to maximize the available space in the jail’s processing and holding area. This left parts of the floor untiled and the concrete foundation exposed underneath while the existing tile is aged and discolored, making it impossible to patch the holes and match them perfectly to the rest of the floor, the letter states.