“A Visit to the Pump Station” — special print feature available in the New Orleans Advocate/Times Picayune only on Sunday, December 22, 2019.

Day After a Storm

Photos by CFreedom

We visit DPS 1 mid-morning one day in late August. The station is busier than usual. A big afternoon rainstorm had caused street flooding in different parts of the city the previous day. In addition to the Pump Station Operator Renaldo Green and UPW D’juan Boudreaux, there is a team of electricians tackling routine maintenance on one of the station’s motor generators, and a team of supervisors working with Renaldo and D’juan to do a post-operational analysis of issues that had arisen the day before.

Electricians run a test to determine the state of the insulation for a motor generator. This is just one of a slate of tests prescribed after the flooding events of August 2017.
Utility Plant Worker D’juan Boudreaux moves hose through DPS 1. During the previous day’s rainstorm, there had been light flooding in the station caused by water seeping into the station from the discharge basin.
“Every rain event, you’re going to have some upheavals, some hiccups.”

- Drainage and Sewerage Superintendent Gerald Tilton
Why did water flow back into the station, and where? And why did one of the pumps lose its vacuum, or “lose prime,” during the storm? A supervisory team is at the station doing post-operational testing and analysis to answer these questions. This includes checking digital data collected during the storm, reviewing building plans and systems diagrams, and running actual tests on a pump to recreate conditions from the day before.
Supervisor Conard “CJ” James is at the controls (left)(top), working closely with the rest of the team to recreate conditions from the previous day. With Operator Renaldo Green up on the catwalk above the pump (right)(bottom), the team is trying to identify what may have caused the pump to lose prime as the storm was winding down.
“Everything is based on getting better and doing better.”

- Drainage Supervisor Gerald Tilton
Above, Utility Plant Worker D’juan Boudreaux and Supervisor Conard James make adjustments on a vacuum pump. This kind of work is vital for ensuring that pumps and all associated machinery are ready for the next rainfall. Below, Drainage Supervisor Gerald Tilton talks D’juan through the testing process. SWBNO employees are in a constant process of troubleshooting and refining processes and procedures, and passing knowledge from one generation to the next.
It is important to note, however, that even when everything is operating smoothly, the heavy rainfall common to this region can still be too much for the city’s pump stations, resulting in flooding in our neighborhoods. As Gerald Tilton puts it, “Mother Nature just overwhelms you sometimes. Ain’t nothing we can do about it.”

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Key Terms and Acronyms

Sewerage & Water Board New Orleans, SWBNO

The public agency that operates the city’s drainage, drinking water, and sewerage systems. SWBNO is responsible for large pipes, culverts (underground canals), canals, and drainage pump stations. (The Department of Public Works is responsible for catch basins and small pipes.) The drainage system includes 24 drainage pump stations, 120 drainage and constant-duty pumps, and an annual budget of over $50 million. Learn more here.

Pumping Plant Operator, PPO, Pump Station Operator

The person in charge of each individual pump station is a “pumping plant operator.” For this body of work, we refer to PPOs as “pump station operators.” (In our project overview and a few other instances, we refer to everyone we spoke with -- including supervisors, relief operators, PPOs, and UPWs -- collectively as pump station operators.)

Utility Plant Worker, UPW, Helper

A utility plant worker assists the pump station operator (see above) with all aspects of running a pump station. UPWs are sometimes referred to as “helpers.” By taking part in a seven-phase training program, each UPW has the opportunity to become a pump station operator.

Drainage Pump Station (DPS #)

When it rains, water flows into storm drains, and from there into the city’s network of pipes and canals, which brings water into the suction basins of the city’s pump stations. Each pump station is identified by number, e.g., DPS 1 or DPS 6 or DPS 19.

Central Control, Central

Key functions for the entire drainage network are located at the SWBNO’s Carrollton Plant. These include turbines that generate power for pump stations, frequency changers, and dispatch and supervisory functions. Each pump station communicates with “Central” on a daily basis, and continuously during each storm.

Suction, Vacuum, and Discharge

The city’s drainage pumps require operators to create a vacuum between the suction and discharge sides of the pump station, which allows atmospheric pressure to push water from both sides up into the pump. A spinning impeller then pushes that water towards the discharge side of the station. Read more about the Wood screw pump here and here.