ST. GABRIEL - A wastewater treatment company with a facility in Iberville Parish responds to 2 On Your Side after a resident reached out for help.

Quinton Picard purchased a home in the Meadow Oaks subdivision in St. Gabriel in 2018. The house backs up to the wastewater treatment facility across the pond. Then, there were far fewer homes, and he enjoyed the sounds of nature in his backyard. Those sounds vanished when more homes were built and came online to the neighborhood's wastewater treatment plant. 

"The plant would run maybe 10 minutes every hour, which was noticeable but bearable, and didn't interfere with my sleep or usage of the backyard much," said Picard.

Originally owned by Ascension Wastewater, Picard says that when he called to lodge a complaint, he never got past the administrator answering the phone. He was told adjustments would be made, but they remained to be seen. 

A few years ago, the plant was acquired by National Water Infrastructure and has undergone expansions as the neighborhood continued to grow. It now runs non-stop, 24/7. Picard reached out to 2 On Your Side after his pleas to the city, and NWI went unaddressed. 

He had been living with the noise and mitigating it with a white noise machine. 

"There's really nowhere in the house where you can't hear it," he said.

In his backyard, he uses a RadioShack decibel reader and captures a reading of approximately 60 decibels. 

"It's just a low-frequency noise that really travels well," said Picard.

The noise makes Picard unhappy and prevents him from hearing the sounds of nature or sleeping in silence. He reached out to 2 On Your Side, and last week, NWI visited the site to investigate Picard's readings. 

CEO Myron Lambert, who joined NWI earlier this year, says NWI is committed to the safety and well-being of the communities it serves and appreciates the opportunity to address Picard's concerns.

"We are here to serve the customers and make them happy, and I'm going to do the best I can to make these people happy," said Lambert.

NWI performed acoustic noise level testing at the site during a four-day period and says the maximum recorded noise level attributable to the facility measured 50-53 decibels at the property line and compares it to ambient sounds such as a "typical conversation or a running refrigerator."

NWI has plans to build a six-foot cinder block wall around the second blower to enclose the sound. The work should begin after Thanksgiving. 

"There's definitely more that they can do, and I'm glad that they're taking action now," Picard said. 

While NWI is not in violation of the St. Gabriel city ordinance, Picard is holding them to a higher standard. The city's industrial standards say the weighted sound level shall not exceed 45 dBA during the hours of 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Picard gets a reading of about 51 dBA inside his home.

"And to me that's not an acceptable amount of noise," said Picard.

He's hoping NWI's plan will be effective and reduce the noise level. NWI says it's dedicated to being a responsible community partner and continues to monitor its facilities to make sure they stay in compliance.