Debris trucks roll on Monday
LIVINGSTON — Storm debris pickup in Livingston Parish will begin Monday, Parish President Layton Ricks said Friday.
Ceres Environmental Services will start by operating four trucks in the southern part of the parish, where Hurricane Isaac damage was greatest, and two in the northern part, Ricks sad.
Residents are asked to place their storm-related waste next to the road and separate it into three groups, said Mark Harrell, director of the Livingston Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness.
Demolition debris should go into one pile, white goods into another and limbs and other vegetative waste into a third, since those types of wastes will go to three different locations for disposal, Harrell said.
The proposal by Ceres, a national company, ranked best among the plans from nine firms that presented proposals scored by the parish, the emergency preparedness director said.
Under the contract signed with Ceres, the parish will pay $11.45 per cubic yard for debris disposal, Harrell said.
He said he doesn’t know how much debris the company will end up hauling, since many people haven’t brought their storm waste to the roadsides yet, particularly in the southern part of the parish where flooding occurred.
Federal officials, after touring the parish, have estimated that about 12,500 cubic yards of storm waste has made it to the roadsides so far, Harrell said.
A lot of people don’t start to stack their debris “until the trucks start to roll,” he said.
For that reason, it will be necessary for the haulers to make two trips across the parish, Ricks said.
“We know they’re going to have to make a second round, but we didn’t want to see a third or forth” because of the expense, Ricks said.
He said he hasn’t rushed to get the debris cleanup started in order to give residents sufficient time to get their debris to the roads, particularly in areas that stayed flooded for several days after the storm.
Ricks said he has moved carefully on the Isaac cleanup contract because of problems that the parish encountered with debris cleanup after Hurricane Gustav hit the parish in 2008.
IED, the contractor that handled that cleanup, still pursues a $53 million lawsuit against the parish. The company alleges it was paid only for a small portion of the work it did.
Meanwhile, the parish is still appealing the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s decision not to pay the parish for most of the cleanup work that was done.
Oral arguments in that case are scheduled for next month.
Ricks said Friday he doesn’t foresee cleaning up waterways as a result of Hurricane Isaac. The waterway cleanup from Hurricane Gustav has been the biggest source of controversy among the parish, the debris removal contractor and FEMA.
Hurricane Isaac didn’t knock down as many trees and limbs as Hurricane Gustav, but caused more flooding damage, he said.
Ceres is also handling Isaac debris cleanup for the city of Denham Springs.
The city of Walker is handling its own cleanup.