Bayou-side property owner fights trash

• By STEVEN WARD
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Oct 21, 2009 - Page: 1B

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LSU biochemistry Professor Roger Laine said he’s embarrassed to take guests behind his home in University Hills to walk along Bayou Duplantier.

“It looks terrible, like a Third World country,” Laine said Tuesday morning while standing on a bridge over Bayou Duplantier.

Laine is upset about the amount of garbage amassed in the bayou behind his Delgado Avenue home.

A large pile of Styrofoam cups, plastic bottles, fast food paper products, cans and other debris clogged the water behind Laine’s home Tuesday morning.

He also pointed out a pair of pants and a city-parish recycling bin sticking half way out of the bayou Tuesday.

In the past, Laine said, he has found a dead dog and chairs and other pieces of furniture in the debris that piles up in the bayou.

Laine, whose house is near the Stanford bridge, said the garbage flows into the bayou from the nearby Corporation Canal and University Lake.

The garbage problem has been a constant one since he moved into his home more than six years ago, Laine said.

He said he has called the city-parish Department of Public Works many times but officials never find a way to fix the problem or clean the area enough.

Pete Newkirk, the public works director, said he is familiar with the area Laine has complained about, but said his crews are still trying to play catch up since Hurricane Gustav hit Baton Rouge last fall.

“Manpower is a problem, but I know we have put booms out there in the past and they have worked,” Newkirk said.

Laine said those booms have never worked. “They just get broken in the rain or caught up with the rest of the garbage.”

When hard rains make the bayou rise, the trash falls on Laine’s land.