BATON ROUGE – The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony on Tuesday, June 1, for the new I-10 Pump Station in New Orleans . Gordon Nelson, DOTD Assistant Secretary for the Office of Operations, served as Master of Ceremonies for the event, which was held on June 1 to coincide with the first day of Hurricane Season. The ceremony took place at Praise Church , located on Academy Drive , directly across from the Pump Station.

The project consisted of construction of the new pump station, which is capable of pumping 390,000 gallons per minute, the widening of I-10 from the Southern Railroad Underpass to Tulane Avenue, the installation of new drainage at the Underpass and Metairie Road , and the addition of soundwalls. The roadway work was completed in April of 2004. The pump station is functionally operational as of June 1; it will be completed in August of 2004.

In addition to Nelson, remarks were given by Mayor C. Ray Nagin, City of New Orleans; Chief Terry Tullier, Director of the New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness; Councilman John A. Batt, Jr.; and Marcia St. Martin, Interim Executive Director of the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board. Pastor Garland Bilbo, of Praise Church , provided the Invocation and the Benediction.

James Construction Group, of Kenner, was the contractor for the project. The DOTD Project Engineer was Larry Langenstein.