Already besieged by the governor's opposition, the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East and its sweeping lawsuit against about 100 oil, gas and pipeline companies drew another opponent on Friday. During a closed-door executive committee meeting of the Association of Levee Boards of Louisiana, which represents the state's 27 levee districts and coastal agency designees, its executive committee came out...
Already besieged by the governor's opposition, the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East and its sweeping lawsuit against about 100 oil, gas and pipeline companies drew another opponent on Friday.
During a closed-door executive committee meeting of the Association of Levee Boards of Louisiana, which represents the state's 27 levee districts and coastal agency designees, its executive committee came out against the suit, according to Steve Wilson, the association's president. The full association is expected to vote on the committee's resolution opposing the lawsuit at its next meeting, in December.
"We feel the CPRA is best equipped to handle coastal matters," Wilson said, referring to the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, which oversees coastal levee authorities and districts as well as development and implementation of the state's coastal restoration and protection master plan.
Wilson, who also is the president of the Pontchartrain Levee District, had sent an email to the association's members on July 31, announcing the executive committee meeting.
"Based on the recent action by one of our members, SLFPA-East, it has been requested by more than a few of our other members that ALBL issue a response," that email said. "As you may or may not know, this suit has attracted the attention of media and legislators as well as a direct opposition by the governor both through Chairman Graves and personally!"
Garret Graves, who is Gov. Bobby Jindal's adviser on offshore energy policy and other coastal issues, is the chairman of the state CPRA.
Wilson is the commissioner on the Pontchartrain Levee District appointed by Jindal; Wilson also represents his levee district on the CPRA. He is employed by the Motiva refinery in Norco as its environmental assurance coordinator.
While Motiva is not named directly in the SLFPA-East suit, the company is a joint venture between Shell and Saudi Aramco, and Shell is a defendant in the suit. Motiva already is under a long-term remediation agreement with the state to deal with historic chemical contamination of and along Bayou Trepagnier in the wetlands in the southwest corner of Lake Pontchartrain, just east of the Bonnet Carré Spillway, in the Labranche Wetlands.
"There are different considerations for each of the association's members," said Bob Lacour, SLFPA-East's attorney, who attended the executive committee meeting. Lacour said some of those considerations often include the levee district's relationship to oil and gas companies in their areas. "In some of their districts, for example, oil companies own a lot of the land and when the district needs a right of way, the oil companies give it to them for free," Lacour said.
If victorious, the suit that was filed on July 24 would require oil, gas and pipeline companies to repair wetland damage that increases the risk of hurricane storm surges overtopping local levees, and it would require the companies to compensate the authority for damage that can't be repaired.
Several meetings scheduled next week will continue the debate over the lawsuit.
On Wednesday, there's a joint meeting of House and Senate transportation committees to specifically discuss the suit, with state Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, one of the key players because he chairs the Senate Transportation Committee.
Then, on Thursday, at the SLFPA-East's regular meeting, the suit once again is expected to be front and center. While John Barry, vice chairman of the SLFPA-East and the man who came up with the idea to file the lawsuit, invited Graves to the meeting, Graves said recently that he was not going to attend but that some of his staff would be there.
Graves, in a letter, and Jindal, in a statement released to the media after the suit was filed, have contended that the levee authority's lawsuit was filed in violation of state law because it wasn't approved by the governor.
They also contend that the action against the energy industry conflicts with the state's broader coastal restoration and hurricane protection strategies outlined in the state's $50 billion, 50-year coastal master plan. And they objected to the authority hiring trial lawyers under a lucrative contingency contract to press the suit.
"We understood that this was a controversial suit when we went into it," Barry said after being informed about the Association of Levee Boards' executive committee's stance on Friday afternoon. "We thought very hard about it from every angle that we could come up with and we believed it was the right thing to do, and from everything that I have heard since, that it still is the right thing to do."