Why 2025 will be "transformational" for New Orleans water
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New Orleans' water utility is about to undergo a "transformational" year, says Sewerage and Water Board executive director Ghassan Korban.
Why it matters: The SWBNO performs what is likely the city's most important and most difficult task — keeping it dry — and it stands to end 2025 with checkmarks next to "game-changer" projects that should go a long way toward making its work more functional and more reliable, Korban says.
Zoom in: The utility has long suffered a reputation for service failures that lead to street flooding, too-high and unexpected billing and a complicated patchwork of infrastructure that makes it challenging to even explain why errors happen.
- But since arriving in 2018, Korban has been sowing seeds to improve the much-maligned SWBNO, and he says the city will soon start reaping the benefits.
- "2025 will be the year of the power complex and the smart meter program," Korban says.
The power complex
SWBNO relies on infrastructure that is in many cases over a century old, including some of the pumps that move water through its system.
How it works: Because those pumps are so old, they rely on power produced at a lower frequency than the power that Entergy produces.
- In other words, SWBNO isn't able to just plug into the main power grid to keep the pumps running. It has had to make its own electricity.
That changes this year. Entergy finished a dedicated substation in 2023, and now SWBNO is building its own power complex at the Carrollton water plant.
- Once it's online, SWBNO will be able to convert Entergy's electricity into the lower frequency it needs to keep pumps running.
- It "removes the complexity from gearing up for a storm or just being ready for any event, versus what we have today, which is many different sources of antiquated equipment that we have to cobble together," Korban tells Axios New Orleans. "It will be a total, total game changer and it will bring … peace of mind."
Expected due date: August, Korban says.
Smart meter program
Historically, SWBNO bills have relied on staffers manually checking customer water meters for usage, but as staffing levels dropped, the accuracy of those readings plummeted.
Catch up quick: In 2023, SWBNO started installing smart meters, which remotely monitor water usage and transmit the information back to headquarters.
- It means customers get reliable numbers on their bills, and SWBNO and customers can monitor for unexpected water usage that may indicate a leak.
By the numbers: The utility was on track to have more than half of its customers transitioned to smart meters by the end of 2024, and Korban expects the rest to finish up "by or before" the end of 2025.
What we're watching
SWBNO has several other major projects on its list, like the lead replacement program and a water quality master plan, but one of Korban's other big goals is to cut down the amount of time it takes between when SWBNO cuts into a street to make a repair and when it circles back to patch it back up.
- It's a headache for everyone, he acknowledges. In 2023, he says, the utility had around 3,000 "surface cuts" it needed to fill in. Now, he says, that number is around 300.