BATON ROUGE - On Wednesday evening, the East Baton Rouge Metro Council approved a $20 million budget for drainage projects.

The initiative will begin Thursday with storm drain cleaning at the intersection of Jefferson Highway and Chelsea Drive. Other projects include channel clearing and grubbing, roadside drainage cave-ins, roadside ditch cleaning, lined canal panel repairs, and engineering/project management.

The plan is just part of ongoing discussions about drainage issues in East Baton Rouge Parish. Wednesday, the Metro Council discussed what a moratorium would look like for the parish in light of surrounding areas proposing and passing their own.