THE ZACHA Y
ADVOCATE& T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M
|
W e d n e s d ay, au g u s t 28, 2024
$1.00n
10TH YEAR, NO. 46
Park visitor numbers up in Zachary BY OLIVIA MCCLURE
Wilson said more than 1 million visitors have already made use of BREC’s 175 parks and other facilities in 2024, an increase of More people are visiting BREC parks and about 20% since 2023. “We’re going to be close to 2 million this facilities, which provide a wide range of economic, social and environmental benefits, year,” he said. “We continue to do a good job Zachary City Council members heard at their of serving the community.” BREC facilities in the Zachary area conAug. 13 meeting. BREC superintendent Corey Wilson gave sistently see good numbers, he said. These city officials an update on the parishwide include the Zachary Community Park; the parks and recreation system. Avenue F, Church Street, Doyle Bayou, FlaContributing writer
nacher Road, Hunters Point Drive, Little Farms, Plank Road, Rita Street, Rollins Road and 39th Street neighborhood parks; and the Beaver Creek Park and Golf Course. Nearly 25,000 people have visited these facilities since the beginning of 2024. Summer camping programs that recently ended served 770 children in Zachary. And Zachary residents are a top user of the newly
ä See PARK, page 3G
FILE PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK
Zachary head coach Cheri Perry coaches in a match during the St. Michael’s 2023 volleyball jamboree.
ZHS volleyball locks in for 2024 season Coach Cheri Perry welcomes a roster of 24 volleyballers for the 2024 volleyball season that includes 11 sophomores that will be heavily relied upon to improve on an 11-16 season in 2023. She welcomes four returning starters Audrey Mitchem, Amelia Mitchem, Asia Sterling and Avie Mason, three of whom played as underclassmen last year, to provide leadership. Warren “The sophomore group is special, Brady and they are getting ZACHARY better and stronger SPORTS while the whole team committed over the summer with more girls competing in club ball than in previous years,” Perry said. Perry singled out Mason and noted that “Avie became a libero last year and picked up a lot of playing time,” which will be critical. The team will also rely on senior leadership from Savannah Franklin, who missed last year with an injury, and Audrey Mitchem. The team started things off last week with the Referees Scrimmage where they competed against St. Michaels, West Feliciana and Prairieville. The Referees Scrimmage is a preseason set of games utilized to train volleyball officials. Though there are multiple stoppages and teaching moments for the officials throughout it is first-time action for many girls and an opportunity to get out on the court. “We played well and in the West Feliciana game we saw a lot of things we have been working on this summer running the quicker offense,” Perry relayed. Summer training included a two-day camp at the end of July led by Southeastern Louisiana University coach Jeremy White and his assistant Lee McBride at ZHS. The ZHS varsity also attends
STAFF PHOTO BY MICHAEL JOHNSON
Rock lines the Comite River Diversion Canal just east of La. 964 on Aug. 19 in Zachary. The new bridge, background, had to be built to span the 300-foot-wide, 50-foot deep canal dug from what was once solid ground.
Area’s biggest flood control project Why has it been delayed so long?
BY DAVID J. MITCHELL
Staff writer
When construction on Baton Rouge’s biggest-ever flood control project started in 2019, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projected the then-roughly $500 million plan would be finished by the end of 2021. Nearly five years later, work on the Comite River Diversion Canal has missed deadlines and the cost has nearly doubled. But officials now say they have finally cleared a roadblock that has hung up important sections of the channel for years. P.J. Varnado, the branch chief for the U.S. Army Corps of Talked about since the 1960s Engineers Baton Rouge Integrated Projects Office, gives a tour and taking full shape after of the finished control structure near Lilly Bayou that is part Baton Rouge’s 1983 flood, the of the Comite Diversion Canal on Aug. 19 in Zachary,. The 8-mile, rock-lined canal is being carved across East Baton structure was finished in 2011. The manmade channel that will Rouge Parish and, with 4 miles feed the structure and other pieces of the 12-mile diversion are of more natural diversion, will under construction or awaiting construction awards. become essentially a manmade river able to handle, at full blast, floodwater equivaThe 12-mile diversion will people in the Baton Rouge relent to the Arkansas River. reduce flood risk for 700,000 gion by funneling floodwater
from the Comite River into the Mississippi River upriver of Southern University, Corps of Engineers officials say. One piece of the project, the Lilly Bayou control structure just west of U.S. 61, was finished in 2011 but has had no canal to serve for more than a decade. Since 2019, several sections of the canal east of Bayou Lilly, new bridges and other structures have been finished or are nearly done on the now $908 million project. Work continued this week on other sections of the canal. But state Department of Transportation and Development Secretary Joe Donahue told members of a legislative task force on the project last week that he insisted officials not provide a completion date at this point due to uncertainties and past missed deadlines. “Because we’ve had definitive answers previously, and they were all definitively wrong. Those dates came and went, and it is that that is the most frustrating to me — to
ä See CONTROL, page 2G
ä See BRADY, page 3G
Library closed for holiday Leila Pitchford AROUND ZACHARY
All locations of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library will be closed Monday, Sept. 2, in observance of Labor Day.
Pink Out Zachary The Zachary Chamber of Commerce Leadership North Group is holding a Bust Out Cancer campaign. Among the awareness campaigns are two Pink Out days.
The schools will use Oct. 18 as their day. Mayor David McDavid has designated Oct. 24 at the date for the entire city. T-shirts for the day are on sale at https://shorturl. at/3BE2r. Deadline to order is Sept. 6. Proceeds will go to Woman’s Hospital.
Prayer luncheon set Mayor David McDavid invites
all community members to join the Mayor’s Community Prayer Luncheon on Oct. 25, at the Family Life Center of First Baptist Church Zachary, 4200 Main St. This year, the event will be held as a luncheon, making it more convenient for everyone to attend. A complimentary fried fish
Col. Paul Pride, retired from the Ohio State Highway Patrol, will be the speaker at the Zachary Mayor’s ä See AROUND, page 3G Community Prayer Luncheon.