DPS01 Watershed Drainage Upgrades
Flood Protection Hidden Beneath Neighborhood Parks
Across nine New Orleans neighborhoods in the Drainage Pump Station 01 watershed, heavy rain can overwhelm aging pipes, catch basins, and pumps, sending water into streets and toward nearby properties. The DPS01 Watershed Drainage Upgrades project takes a different approach to that familiar problem. It stores stormwater where the city already has public space, then releases it after the drainage network regains capacity.
RNGD is building underground retention systems beneath A.L. Davis Playground, Taylor Playground, Clay Square, and Annunciation Square, along with stormwater lots, street connections, and related drainage improvements. Nearly 5.5 million gallons of project-specific storage are planned across the underground systems. When construction is complete, the infrastructure will be largely invisible. Parks and neighborhood spaces will return at the surface, with major flood-storage capacity working below.
Creating a Detention System Without an Open Pond
The core system uses ACO StormBrixx, a modular underground structure assembled to create large open storage volumes below grade. During intense rainfall, street runoff enters the system and is held temporarily rather than moving immediately toward the pump station. As capacity returns to the city network, stored water is released in a controlled manner. The approach performs the job of a detention pond while preserving usable land above it.
The work requires far more than placing modular units. RNGD excavates each site, establishes subgrade and survey control, manages existing drainage and utilities, assembles the storage system, completes structural and hydraulic connections, backfills the installation, and restores the park. Annunciation Square alone includes more than 227,000 cubic feet of storage and more than 21,000 cubic yards of excavation, illustrating the scale concealed beneath a neighborhood field.
Environmental controls are integrated into the sequence. At Annunciation Square, approximately 900 cubic yards of contaminated soil were removed, documented, transported, and delivered to an approved facility before deeper excavation advanced. That work protected the site and cleared the way for the new drainage system while maintaining the documentation required for responsible disposal.
Adapting the Design and Learning From Every Site
StormBrixx was not the original storage design. During preconstruction and estimating, RNGD and the manufacturer developed the modular system as an alternative, supported by structural and hydraulic calculations and an extended City review. The approved solution met the intended storage and performance requirements while reducing material demand. At Annunciation, the team also shifted storage planned beneath the street into the adjacent park, improving constructability and schedule while preserving the required capacity.
Each park presents a different combination of tight streets, buried infrastructure, soil conditions, deliveries, and community access. Eighteen-wheelers carrying system components must move through narrow neighborhood routes, while residents still need access and surrounding streets must remain clean. RNGD uses early survey work and utility investigation to identify conflicts before crews reach them. In one case, survey shots exposed a sewer conflict roughly 20 pipe sections ahead of installation, giving the engineer time to respond without stopping production.
The multi-site program also creates a continuous learning loop. Methods for excavation, hauling, assembly, survey control, and restoration are refined at each location and carried into the next. At Annunciation Square, the team analyzed disposal tickets, travel times, and truck cycles to identify slow production periods, then adjusted dispatching to increase productive loads. Contingency sequences keep crews moving when a design response or unexpected condition affects the primary plan.
Resilient Infrastructure With a Community Use Above It
The project remains in progress, and systems installed to date have demonstrated the intended storage behavior during construction. As the remaining sites advance, the goal is consistent across the watershed: reduce localized flooding, relieve pressure on Pump Station 01, and return neighborhood parks in improved condition after the underground work is complete.
The benefit is both technical and visible. Below grade, millions of gallons of temporary storage help the existing drainage network function more effectively during heavy weather. Above grade, residents regain fields, green space, and improved vacant lots instead of living beside permanent open detention areas. The work also supports participation by qualified disadvantaged business enterprises and has created pathways from temporary field assignments to longer-term construction employment.
DPS01 is a story about making limited urban space perform twice. RNGD is placing major drainage capacity beneath places the community already knows and uses, applying lessons from one site to the next while navigating the realities of New Orleans streets and soils. When the work disappears beneath restored parks, its value will emerge every time rainfall is held back long enough for the city’s drainage system to catch up.
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