BATON ROUGE - The parish has been voluntarily collecting woody waste piles since September 2023, with the money available to fund the effort; now that the money is running out, the mayor addressed the issue at a press conference Wednesday. 

"We are working hard to have a clean city," Mayor-President Sid Edwards said. "We have made tremendous strides."

Edwards stressed the importance of calling 311 to notify the city of woody waste piles so workers with Republic could get to it as quickly as possible while the city entered contract negotiations with Richard's Disposal. Richard's will pick up small piles of waste but does not operate boom trucks to pick up larger collections. 

The parish is currently operating a couple of trucks with booms that run throughout the whole parish. That service will continue until the end of the year but after then will be discontinued.