BATON ROUGE -- Paul Sawyer, formerly Chief of Staff for Congressman Garret Graves, is the new executive director of the Amite River Basin Commission.

Sawyer says he's excited to use all the expertise and relationships he's built serving the district over the last 10 years to focus on what he says is the most important unaddressed issue in the greater Baton Rouge area—flooding.

"The Capitol region has experienced record flood events. 1983, 2016. We even had isolated events that were very severe like what we call the rain bomb in May of 2021," Sawyer said.

Two of the Amite River Basin Commission's goals are focusing on delivering flood control solutions and diminishing flood damage.

Sawyer said over the years, two of the more common complaints he's heard from citizens in the Greater Baton Rouge area when it comes to flooding are frustration with nothing getting done about it and the rising costs of flood insurance premiums.

"Right now the commission is working on a master plan. We're charting a course in the future so that we can identify projects that will reduce flood risk and ultimately, what's also exciting about this, is that by reducing flood risk, you also reduce flood insurance premiums," Sawyer said.

During his years working with Graves, Sawyer says they were able to secure over a billion dollars for various flood control projects that had been around for decades. Those include the Comite River Diversion.

Sawyer says one problem, however, is that the areas the projects are in aren't the same as they were in the '60s and '70s. That was why they were able to get more money.

"We got another tranche of money, $1.2 billion, and that's to address future flood protection. That money is federal money that was given to the state of Louisiana through what's called the Louisiana Watershed Initiative," Sawyer said.

The commission also has four projects that they're currently working on.

"We estimate that we will spend a hundred million dollars in the next couple of years on flood control projects in the lower Amite River Basin and Bayou Manchac, in the Southern part of Ascension parish," Sawyer said.

Sawyer added the commission has been meeting with the state on a variety of projects already underway through the Louisiana Watershed Initiative.

"We've had parish presidents, and I'll point out that the parish presidents in the Amite River Basin, that's you know East Baton Rouge Parish, Livingston, Ascension, St. James, and East Feliciana and St. Helena, They're working together like they've never done before. They're actually cohesive as a unit which has never been done in the Greater Baton Rouge area ever. All in alignment on flood control projects."