WASHINGTON, D. C. – The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) recently received the 2004 Partnership Award from Keep American Beautiful, Inc., in recognition of its support for the Keep Louisiana Beautiful Program. The award was presented at the Keep America Beautiful 51st National Conference in Washington, D. C., on December 3.
The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has partnered with DOTD for many years through the Keep Louisiana Beautiful Program. Through this program, DEQ sponsors a litter hotline in which citizens can call and report litterers, littered highways, and areas where tall grass needs mowing. DOTD is responsible for cleaning the littered highways and making sure that the highways are mowed. In addition, DOTD has furnished signage on state highways telling citizens that littering is against the law and quoting the fines for littering.
Another way DOTD helps keep Louisiana beautiful is the Adopt-A-Road Program. This program is a volunteer based, state road litter management program which allows civic organizations and businesses to adopt an area of state highway to remove litter. The state has 678 groups covering approximately 1,205 miles of roadway. DOTD supervises, picks up litter bags collected by the groups and disposes of the unwanted debris from various state routes.
For the last nine years, the department has also had a cooperative agreement with the Department of Corrections (DOC) under the auspices of Project Clean-Up, whereby inmate labor is used to collect litter through all nine DOTD districts in the state. As part of this program, DOTD provides transport vehicles, trailers for litter, litterbags, communication devices, safety vests, and safety signing.
Other state DOT’s receiving the 2004 Keep America Beautiful Partnership Award include, Mississippi DOT, Pennsylvania DOT, South Carolina DOT, Tennessee DOT, and Texas DOT.