St. John the Baptist Parish officials broke ground Monday on the Reserve Relief Homewood Pump Station Replacement and Drainage Improvement Project, a long-awaited overhaul aimed at strengthening drainage and flood protection throughout Reserve. The new facility will replace the existing Homewood pump station with a 400-cubic-feet-per-second system, a substantial jump in capacity for a neighborhood that has weathered repeated rainfall flooding.
According to St. John the Baptist Parish, the new pump station will include three primary high-capacity pumps, an additional standby pump for emergency use, a backup generator, and supporting electrical infrastructure. The project also covers drainage pathway improvements stretching from the Reserve Relief Canal area across Airline Highway toward the Homewood neighborhood, along with new drainage crossings, upgraded stormwater collection systems, and site drainage work. The parish says the broader goal is straightforward: improve stormwater conveyance and drainage across the surrounding area.
Parish President Jaclyn Hotard called the project “an important investment in the long-term protection of residents and homes,” adding that improving drainage infrastructure and increasing pumping capacity will help build a stronger, more resilient St. John Parish. Parish officials were joined by community partners at the groundbreaking, part of what Hotard described as an ongoing effort to improve drainage infrastructure, reduce flood risk, and strengthen resiliency parishwide.
How the Project Got Here
The road to Monday's groundbreaking stretched back months. Parish officials formally opened public bidding on the project in May 2026 following council approval of Resolution R26-64, which led to a mandatory pre-bid conference and site visit in LaPlace on June 9, 2026, according to the Picayune Item. That same reporting put the estimated total cost of the project at $16,336,848, financed through a combination of a Louisiana Watershed Initiative grant and the parish's local Drainage Fund.
By July 2026, the St. John the Baptist Parish Council had authorized awarding the main construction contract to RNGD Construction, LLC, per parish meeting minutes. The same meeting minutes show the council amended a professional services agreement with Meyer Engineers, LTD, the firm handling design and engineering oversight for the project. Council members also canvassed returns from a June 27, 2026 special election that authorized general obligation bonds and a special tax to support parish infrastructure, according to the same minutes.
Engineering Specs Point To Airline Highway Crossings
Technical specifications published by BidClerk describe installation of three 135-cubic-feet-per-second vertical axial flow pumps with motors, a project generator, and earthen canal section improvements. The scope also includes two railroad crossings and four culvert crossings under Airline Highway, the corridor the new drainage pathway must cross to move water from the Reserve Relief Canal area toward Homewood.
Part of a Bigger Flood Fight
The Homewood project doesn't stand alone. St. John the Baptist Parish is also within reach of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' $3.7 billion West Shore Lake Pontchartrain project, which spans 17.5 miles of levees, floodwalls, and pump stations across St. John, St. Charles, and St. James parishes, according to Engineering News-Record. While that federal effort is built to hold back coastal storm surge from the surrounding lakes, parish-level projects like Homewood are designed to move rainwater internally once it falls, ensuring stormwater can still discharge across major barriers like Airline Highway even as the outer levee system does its separate job.
Parish flood management records show that more than 87% of St. John the Baptist Parish is designated by FEMA as a Special Flood Hazard Area.
The grant funding behind the Homewood project traces back to the Louisiana Watershed Initiative, formed in 2018 after the historic 2016 floods and backed by $1.2 billion in federal Community Development Block Grant Mitigation funds from HUD, per the LSU Journal of Energy Law and Resources. That statewide initiative is what put grant dollars behind Monday's groundbreaking, layering state and federal support atop the parish's own drainage fund and newly authorized bonds.
