NOLA.com27%
New Orleans residents, sick of slow service, clear clogged catch basins themselves: 'Fed up’ 31%
By Violet Bucaro23%
8/2/2026, 2:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 29 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Optimism Bias, and Appeal to Authority, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 23.7% saturation with 234 hits. Analysis detected 1,536 faulty-reasoning hits from 986 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 35.8% and a BS Rank of 31% (17,494 of 25,289 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 69.20% of the article peer group.
Frustrated by years of street flooding and delayed Sewerage and Water Board maintenance, a New Orleans restaurant owner unclogged a catch basin herself.
Frustrated by repeated street flooding, Vassiliki Ellwood Yiagazis picked up a shovel.
The owner of Smoke and Honey in Mid-City pulled 5 feet of compacted soil and garbage from a catch basin on North Rendon Street, clearing a stop-up that had kept away customers on rainy days.
Ellwood Yiagazis did so after she spent two years begging the Sewerage and Water Board and city officials to do the work themselves.
Six separate service requests went nowhere.
“I was fed up with waiting, because I called after I put in that service request and I just couldn’t get an answer,” she said.
“This is an emergency and it just wasn’t prioritized.”
The city's volunteer catch-basin cleaners have stepped up their efforts as the city's embattled Sewerage and Water Board lacks funding to finish the job on its own.
Though the City Council will be empowered to seize more control over the utility on Aug. 1, and an ordinance soon to be finalized would give the council and the mayor more say over the agency's leadership and finances,
Catch basins are one area the city intends to prioritize going forward, says District A Councilmember Aimee McCarron said.
“We do not yet have a plan, as we'll need to see their budgets and current spending, but once we have a better understanding, we can assess the situation and determine the best path,” McCarron said in an email.
S&WB officials said the basins remain stuffed due to a lack of money.
Mayor Helena Moreno's administration has demanded that the S&WB settle its debts to City Hall for work performed on other projects, and the S&WB has been awaiting funding from the city for catch basin maintenance, agency officials said at a July 8 board meeting.
That is 18.4% of the lower estimated cost for 2026.
“We remain committed to improving drainage infrastructure and continue to utilize both in-house and contractor crews to clean and maintain the minor drainage system as available funding allows,” Labat said.
Cleanups fall short of goal
The S&WB oversees 76,000 catch basins citywide and said its goal is to clean a fifth, or 15,000, of them each year, in line with industry standards.
Doing so each year would cost anywhere between $25 million and $40 million for staffing, equipment and repair costs, said Ceara Labat, the S&WB's communications chief.
But the S&WB received just $9.3 million in city funding for drainage maintenance last year and only $4.6 million this year, agency officials said at a July 8 board meeting.
That is 18.4% of the lower estimated cost for 2026.
As a result, crews have cleaned just 2,800 catch basins as of July 31, nearly half of what they cleaned this time last year, data shows.
S&WB officials say they have been working through a backlog of 311 service requests and a longer-term maintenance program since January 2025.
A new state law took effect Saturday, granting the city more power over S&WB’s finances, guidelines and responsibilities.
The law gives the city the ability to exercise stricter oversight on S&WB’s operating budget and empowers the mayor to remove board members.
City leaders say the new law could lead to S&WB folding into city government.
The quasi-independent agency has upset residents for years, over everything from boil advisories, billing scandals, unanswered emergencies and preventable flood damage.
Other residents pitch in
The video sparked 38,000 views and several comments from New Orleans residents who expressed similar frustrations.
“The Lower Garden District homeowners also get together like 3x a year, and we just do it ourselves too.
Hasn’t flooded on our street since,” Instagram commenter Sevetri Wilson Taylor wrote.
Resident Lily Cummings commented she unclogs catch basins every summer, but after she sent a service report about an overgrown oak tree blocking water flow, S&WB and 311 responded that the issue was a “Parks and Parkways problem.”
“Still not resolved.
But we do what we can as neighbors,” Cummings posted.
One commenter asked if Ellwood Yiagazis could clean out the basin on her block, too.
Ellwood Yiagazis responded that she is organizing a group of volunteers to help with the grunt work for other neighbors, and asked the commenter for the address.
“We are clearly seeing great mismanagement of these city services that we are paying for, and we deserve better,” Ellwood Yiagazis said.
Ellwood Yiagazis said she was inspired by District B Councilmember Lesli Harris’ catch basin challenge, announced on social media June 3.
Harris said the challenge encourages residents to clean debris around catch basins, which S&WB officials say is residents’ responsibility.
“We just put a challenge out there to get people in the neighborhoods to catch these things, and so we’ve seen that really work,” Harris said.
“Neighbors are getting together.”
Around 78 catch basins were cleaned by neighborhood groups in a month, but Harris warned residents not to open catch basin lids to avoid potential hazards.
Using trowels, wheelbarrows, pry bars, garden hoses, wagons and shovels, a group of six people in the Broadmoor area removed debris and overgrowth around 16 catch basins in three hours.
“Just looking at the before and after of the drain, it really does make a difference,” said volunteer Natori Green, the executive director of Broadmoor Arts & Wellness Center, who leads catch basin cleanups before heavy rainstorms.
“If there’s a high chance of rain, we will do it no matter what time of year it is.”
Green said that during cleanups, many neighbors ask for their catch basins to be cleaned when they spot the group.
A resident from the 4400 block of Eden Street asked Green to visit the one on her block because she was concerned about repeated flooding and older residents.
Analysis
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