NEW YORK WHOLESALE

City-Parish President Joey Durel said Tuesday that he wants Lafayette to extricate itself from agreements in which Lafayette city provides services to Broussard.

Maybe the most important of those services is wholesale water. That's been the center of a recent fight between Lafayette and Broussard over a quantity of Lafayette Utilities System water -- $825,000 worth, according to Lafayette officials -- that somehow bypassed a meter. Durel also mentioned the demand for water hookups for Broussard development as well as recent annexation disputes.

"Essentially," Durel said, "the administration of the city of Broussard wants to declare itself an adversary of the city of Lafayette, all the while expecting Lafayette to ignore the fact that it provides Broussard with the very services that allow Broussard to grow and prosper."

The courts will have the last word in lawsuits between Lafayette and Broussard over the wholesale water and annexation. But Durel and Broussard Mayor Charlie Langlinais owe the parish's people one more shot at reaching a settlement on the water issue before jeopardizing one important way to cope with one of our biggest challenges providing public services as the population shifts to small towns and unincorporated areas.

The consolidation of the Lafayette city and parish governments was based on the idea that Lafayette city would have about 60 percent of the parish's population. But that percentage is down to about 55 percent of our 220,000 parish residents now. About 34,000 people live in the five smaller municipalities. More than one Lafayette Parish resident in four now lives outside any city at all.

That means they need sewage treatment, police protection, planning, roads and, of course, water service in areas where there is no municipal government to deal with the requirements of population concentrations. LUS offers one win-win solution, providing high-quality water to water districts and municipalities in return for fees that can be used to see to the utility's own operation and capital needs.

But that requires both sides to recognize the value of the resource and look for a way to reach a mutually beneficial agreement, as we hope Broussard and Lafayette can still do.

Growing pains:

Glenn Johnson pleaded guilty in 2000 to federal charges stemming from Clean Water Act violations. His Mississippi company owned dozens of small subdivision water and sewer systems in and around Lafayette but outside municipalities. Residents had complained for years about poor water quality.

The Camellia Boulevard bridge opened in 2003 after more than five decades of arguing over the cost and the rights of property-owners near the Camellia extension.

The Ambassador Caffery Parkway southern extension opened in 2010, touching off a race to annex land by Broussard, Lafayette and Youngsville.

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