ST. MARTINVILLE – Two emerging water districts are making progress toward actually delivering treated water to customers, Parish President Guy Cormier says.

In the Butte la Rose area, where would-be customers plucked down deposits six years ago, the district is negotiating with a landowner for the purchase of a site for a well and treatment plant.

In the Anse la Butte area, talks are ongoing with the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service for financing of a distribution system and the City of Breaux Bridge and the Cecilia water system to supply the water.

The Butte la Rose district, or District No. 5, has actually been in the works for nearly a decade. The holdup has been finding a site for a well and plant somewhere near the center of the farflung distribution area, which stretches northward along Atchafalaya River Highway to I-10 and westward along Herman Dupuis Road to the Atchafalaya Basin protection levee.

The area sits in the Atchafalaya Basin floodway, which accounts for the relative scarcity of land that stays dry year round. Five to eight acres are needed, Cormier said.

He said a treatment plant should not be necessary to serve the Anse la Butte area, which lies west of Cecilia and north of Breaux Bridge.

“Both Breaux Bridge and Cecilia say they have the capacity to provide the water, so now we just have to sit back and see which one will make the best deal,” Cormier said.

The Anse la Butte Water District No. 6 has engaged an engineering firm to help put together an application to RUS.