Lawmakers Ask State For Help With Morganza Lawsuit

May 8, 2008
By Nikki Buskey
Source: Houma Courier

HOUMA -- Eight local lawmakers are asking the state to intervene in a lawsuit filed against the Terrebonne levee district aimed at slowing or halting work on a section of Morganza-to-the-Gulf under construction in Pointe-aux-Chenes.

The lawmakers addressed a letter to Gov. Bobby Jindal, top coastal adviser Garrett Graves and state Attorney General Buddy Caldwell asking the state to step in.

Save Our Wetlands, a group based in Metairie, alleges that work on the three-mile section of the levee project known as J-1 began without a federal Clean Water Act permit required to dredge soil and fill in areas of sensitive wetlands.

The group filed suit against the levee district for $24 million last week, the cumulative amount of the $32,500 per day fine for all days without proper permits.

"Our understanding and concern is that some of the individuals who instigated the suit in this case appear to … have filed numerous suits trying to prevent the construction of hurricane-protection projects in Louisiana, dating as far back as construction of the barrier projects after Hurricane Betsy in the mid 1960s," the letter states.

These included blockage of a barrier project for Lake Pontchartrain, resulting in the corps’ implementing alternatives for hurricane protection for the New Orleans metro area that proved to be "grossly inadequate," the letter states.

Because the state has invested substantial money in the project, said state Sen. Reggie Dupre, D-Bourg, it has an interest in the lawsuit and should intervene on behalf of Morganza.

"I am not going to stand idly by while these radical environmental groups try to repeat history," Dupre said. "I will use every resource I have to protect the people in my district."

A Save Our Wetlands representative could not be reached for comment this morning.

Applying for the permit would have given the public the opportunity to comment on the work as well as required the district to rebuild wetlands to make up for damage done by the levee, the lawsuit contends.

Morganza is a 72-mile system of levees, floodgates and a lock on the Houma Navigation Canal planned to protect Terrebonne and portions of Lafourche parish from up to a Category 3 hurricane. Years in the making, it is Terrebonne’s most ambitious effort to build a hurricane-protection system, which it now lacks.

The section of Morganza under fire will cost about $20 million dollars when complete and was built with a "substantial" amount of state money, said Jerome Zeringue, executive director of the levee district.

State and local interests have contributed over $40 million to the project in the last five years alone, added Dupre.

Levee district officials claim that they fulfilled all their obligations to the Clean Water Act by obtaining an environmental assessment and have rebuilt about 23 acres of protective marsh along the flood side of the levee to make up for any damaged wetlands.

"They are absolutely wrong in their allegation and are just trying to be an obstacle to the project," Dupre said of Save Our Wetlands.

Ultimately, Zeringue said, the state and the federal government will need to become involved in the lawsuit because they are partners in the overall Morganza project.

Lawmakers who signed off on the letter include: Dupre, Senate President Joel Chaisson, D-Destrehan, Sen. Butch Gautreaux, D-Morgan City, Rep. Damon Baldone, D-Houma, Rep. Gordon Dove, R-Houma, Rep. Joe Harrison, R-Napoleonville, Rep. Jerry Gisclair, D-Raceland and Rep. Jerome "Dee" Richard, a Thibodaux lawmaker with no party affiliation.

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Lawmakers Ask State For Help With Morganza Lawsuit