Hearing will determine coastal suit's status

By Todd C. Elliott
todd.elliott@eunicetoday.com

EUNICE – John Barry has a sinking feeling about the state of the State of Louisiana.
The former Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East member – who helped to oversee levee districts in the metropolitan New Orleans area – said that “evidence”, and not “influence”, should decide the fate of the eroding Louisiana coastline.
“It should go down to the science and the legal obligations,” said Barry. “This is really about what every parent should teach their kids: that you keep your word, you obey the law and you take responsibility for your actions. Instead of doing this, the industry is acting like it is above the law.”
The industry in question, collectively known as the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association (LOGA), is butting heads with the Flood Protection Authority that Barry sat on until removed after a suit was filed seeking damages from the industry to restore Louisiana’s disappearing coastline.
The suit claims oil, gas and pipeline companies that cut at least 10,000 miles of oil and gas canals and pipelines through Louisiana coastal lands must repair the damaged environmental buffer zone that helps protect most of the greater New Orleans region from catastrophic flooding.
The suit, filed in Orleans Parish, alleges about 100 defendants compromised the integrity of Louisiana’s coastal lands with activities tied to hundreds of wells and pipelines, heightening risks of hurricanes, storm surge and flooding in the region.
The Authority – which operates and maintains the complex system of levees, floodgates, seawalls, and jetties that protect about a million people and property in the greater New Orleans region – asserts in the lawsuit that the defendants are obligated by law to restore the coastal land areas
On Monday arguments will be heard in 19th Judicial District in Baton Rouge from LOGA – who has filed a lawsuit against Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell – claiming that the AG was incorrect in allowing the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East to file suit and hire outside legal representation in the matter. If LOGA is successful in its arguments, the unraveling of the initial lawsuit begins.
The suit and others like it have drawn Jindal’s ire. And as result, Barry, author of “Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America”, said that he fears that the Legislature could be utilized by the Governor’s office to kill the lawsuit filed last July.
Barry said that Republican State Senator Robert Adley of District 36 has filed a bill to amend the nomination process for the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East, which would allow the Governor to appoint members on the levee board. Barry said that Adley’s bill (SB 79) could give Governor Jindal control over the board.
Barry is making the rounds, explaining the issues to legislators in advance of the March session opening, which is why he was in Eunice last week.
“I have said that since the day that we filed the lawsuit that Jindal has been a good governor for the coast and has done a lot,” said Barry. “And what I want is for Jindal to be a great governor for the coast and solve the problem. And the problem is not the lawsuit, it’s the land loss. He seems to think that the problem is the lawsuit. If the governor had shown any leadership on this, we’d be sitting around a table today, talking to the industry and working out an agreement where they would make a legitimate contribution for the damage that they caused. ”
Barry said that Louisiana taxpayers are paying for items in the state’s budget for work that companies like Exxon-Mobil is legally obligated to pay for.
While the leaders of Louisiana’s oil and gas industry warn, as they have since the time of Huey P. Long, that the industry and the jobs will leave the state if the plaintiffs win, Barry contends that “coastal restoration” will create more jobs in the state.
He said that if the lawsuit against Louisiana’s oil and gas industry succeeds, dredged canals throughout the state will be closed and refilled while the process of repairing the industrial damage to Louisiana’s coast will begin.
“There’s an enormous amount of construction that’s going to be going on, building pipelines to spread sediment out and diversions and things like that,” said Barry. “The Dutch people go all over the world, selling their intellectual expertise on this kind of stuff. And Louisiana can develop that expertise and already has a lot of it. We can start exporting that. We could create like a Silicon Valley of jobs relating to water.”
Barry calls the coastal erosion a crisis that could lead to the formation of The Island of New Orleans by the year 2100. Barry said that many small coastl towns and parishes, which are riddled with pipelines, will one day be non-existent if something is not done.
Barry maintains a web site dedicated to saving the Louisiana coast: restorelouisiananow.org. Restore Louisiana Now is an organization with a mission to produce more scientific evidence rather than political influence for the betterment of the state.
“It took nature 6,000 years to create the Louisiana coast, yet only 75 years for humans to destroy one-third of it,” says Barry in the website’s mission statement. “Already, 1,900 square miles of coastal lands have melted into the Gulf of Mexico, and that damage has put New Orleans and the entire region on the verge of collapse.”