Location: Arnaudville, LA
This project was completed as part of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality’s (LDEQs) Targeted Brownfields Assessment (TBA) program.
Background: The site served as a rural community hospital from the 1960s-2000s that was part of the Hill Burton federal grant program and the First Hospital District of St. Martin and St. Landry Parishes. The facility is also located in the legislative approved Deux Bayous Cultural District.
Future Use: As a non-profit entity with a Board of Directors and a dynamic group of community partners and volunteers, the St. Luc French Immersion and Cultural Campus in Ar
naudville, Louisiana, will repurposed the former community hospital (closed in 2009) for use as an adult French immersion school and cultural campus, the first in the U.S. It will provide business-specific language workforce development and comparative language study programming to visiting universities. It will serve as a venue for cultural events and nurture new cultural business initiatives that promote and strengthen culture event venues of universities servicing immediate and surrounding communities, visiting universities and partner groups in the realms of culture, economy, education, and the environment all the while, encouraging charitable actions and providing a nurturing environment for new initiatives.
Assessments: Leaaf was contracted by the LDEQ to prepare a Cleanup Plan, Analysis of Brownfields Alternatives (ABCA), and Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP). The Cleanup Plan and ABCA outlined abatement options, provided a costs analysis of each option, and presented the recommended option to address the management and removal of asbestos-containing material (ACMs), lead-based paint (LBP), hazardous materials, and window caulk containing polycyclic biphenyls (PCBs). The QAPP documented the type and quality of data required to make environmental decisions and described the methodology for the collection and assessment of data as it pertains to the Cleanup Plan. All plans have been submitted and approved by LDEQ and/or the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Prior Assessments: In 2019, the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) contracted JESCO and Leaaf to complete a Phase II ESA funded by EPA’s Region 6 TBA program. The assessment consisted of soil and groundwater sampling for a suspected underground storage tank (UST), asbestos and LBP inspections, a hazardous materials inventory, a naturally-occurring radioactive material (NORM) survey, and PCB sampling for window caulking. The results of the assessment and recommendations were presented in a Phase II ESA report.
