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Permalink Reply by Joe Aldridge on July 31, 2013 at 4:33

CO,

It is my understanding that there is a "Growth Fault System". It is not static on the up thrown side. The Growth Fault System as far as my understanding is active all the way from the Edwards reef North of Zachary into the Gulf. This creates a very large area of subsidence with the Southern portion subsiding much more than the Northern area. All of this land is simply flowing into the Gulf as you state with the analogy of the "mud slide and avalanche". There is no way to stop this except to bring in more over burden. That has been stopped by the very people and their system of levees that are now suing.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on August 3, 2013 at 6:01

The Times - 8/1/2013  Op Ed

HE SOAPBOX

La. coastal damage lawsuit long overdue

The coastal damage lawsuit against major oil companies by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority — East is long overdue.

For years we have seen how offshore oil exploration and production have damaged our wetlands. Yet no statewide poli­tician except Gov. Dave Treen has tried to hold the industry accountable. Our elected officials want to blame the federal government. Certainly its construction of levees to control the Mississippi River robbed the delta of land-build­ing sediment.

But the people of Kansas, Vermont and the other states did not cut oilfield canals through our marsh, drill oil wells in our wetlands and pump oil out of the ground until it sinks into the Gulf.

Why do Louisiana politicians ignore the oil companies and put the burden of coastal resto­ration on American taxpayers? Could it be that they depend on oil-industry contributions to get re-elected?

I served in the Senate for 27 years and on the Public Service Commission since 2003. In that time Gov. Treen has been virtually the only Louisiana politician to ask the oil companies to pay for the damage they caused. When Treen introduced his Coastal Wetlands Environmental Levy, the oil companies that helped elect him became his enemy in a mat­ter of days.

That same political pressure is now directed at the South­east Louisiana Flood Protection Authority — East. Instead of being praised for its courage, the board is accused of trying to “shut down” the oil and gas industry and of being “hijacked” by trial lawyers. That last comment was by Gov. Jindal. He also argued against suing the tobacco companies in the 1990s as secretary of health and hospitals. Fortunately the state didn’t listen, and we got $4 billion from Big Tobacco to help treat people in state hospitals with illnesses from smoking.

Jindal represents the special interests. First it was the to­bacco companies, now it’s the major oil companies.

As for the claim that this lawsuit will “shut down” the oil industry, consider that Louisiana and Texas have 40 percent of U.S. refining capacity and these plants are running wide open. Louisiana has the Mississippi River to transport products, 50,000 miles of pipeline and some of the world’s most produc­tive oil and gas fields off our coast. Can anyone seriously say the industry is leaving?

The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority — East has drawn a line in the dirt. Its suit against major oil compa­nies for their role in coastal erosion challenges the politicians of Louisiana to defend our state like they would defend their own property.

Foster Campbell, of Bossier City, is the north Louisiana representative on the Louisiana Public Service Commission. Email him at foster.campbell@la.gov.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on August 7, 2013 at 9:36

Flood Authority, suit against oil companies safe from political meddling — for now

By Bob Marshall, Staff writer    THE LENS

Seven years ago Louisiana gained national praise by overhauling its dysfunctional levee board system. Some 81 percent of voters said “yes” to a constitutional amendment allowing consolidation of local boards under regional authorities, and the Legislature passed a law setting professional standards for board members. To further insulate them from politics, the boards were made independent of the Legislature and governor.

Now the first test of that reform effort is about to begin. It could last through next July.

Barely three weeks after the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East shocked Louisiana’s political establishment by suing the state’s fattest cash cow — the oil and gas industry — three of the panel’s nine seats are open for nominations.

When Gov. Jindal and Garret Graves, head of the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, loudly condemned the suit and promised to sink it, Louisiana’s tradition of pervasive political meddling might have led many to assume the board would soon be stocked with oil company executives.

“I’m 99 percent sure it can stand up right now, but not 100 percent sure because everything we did was breaking new ground, so we don’t know if we missed anything.” —Sandy Rosenthal, Levees.orgThe good news for reformers: That kind of political power play looks impossible to achieve this year because of the protections against hanky-panky built into the amendment and legislation that created the flood authority.

The bad news: The Legislature could rescind that protection during its next session.

“The amendment changed the constitution to allow the establishment of regional levee authorities, and laid out certain ways how that could be done, and those things can only be changed by another amendment,” Robert Scott, president of the Public Affairs Research Council, told The Lens.

“But the enabling legislation that sets out how the nominations to the board are done, who serves on the nominating committee and the qualifications of the board members, those were all laws passed by the Legislature, and they can be changed in any session,” Scott added.

Political manipulation this year would seem to be impossible because current law was written to take direct aim at ending such attempts. That effort was a first, not just for Louisiana, a state with a tradition of political shenanigans, but for the nation.

“We were breaking totally new ground — doing something no other state had ever done,” said Sandy Rosenthal, president of Levees.org, which supported the new wave. “In fact, California later used our laws as a model for their changes.

“It’s a very complicated system, but we felt we needed that,” Rosenthal told The Lens.

Hurricane Katrina made that need painfully clear. Post-storm investigators said one reason levees and floodwalls collapsed, drowning more than 1500 citizens, was that many local levee boards had become more concerned with political patronage than public safety.

To ensure that would not happen with the new, nine-member regional authority, reformers insisted that the professional qualifications supplant political connections.*

That effort starts with the law spelling out membership of the nominating committee. In the case of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority East, one member must come from each of the following organizations:

• National Academy of Engineering,
• National Society of Professional Engineers
• American Institute of Hydrology
• American Society of Civil Engineers
• National Society of Black Engineers
• Association of State Floodplain Managers
• UNO College of Engineering
• Southern University College of Engineering
• Tulane School of Science and Engineering
• LSU College of Engineering
• Louisiana Geological Survey
• Public Affairs Research Council (PAR)
• Council for a Better Louisiana (CABL)

Board members, who are unpaid, serve single four-year terms but can be re-nominated and re-seated. Their terms are staggered so not more than three seats come open each year.

The nominating committee usually sends out a call for applications in August, publishing the list online in official state and parish journals. Applicants must meet a narrowly defined list of criteria, also designed to ensure professionalism and limit politics while making sure each parish is represented. These include:

• Only one member from each of the four parishes in the authority’s jurisdiction: St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany and Tangipahoa.*
• Four at-large members.*
• Five members, each of whom is either be an engineer or a professional in a related field such as geotechnical, hydrological, or environmental science.
• Three members, each of whom is a professional in a discipline other than those mentioned above with at least 10 years of professional experience in their field.

The committee’s greatest challenge, members said, has not been political interference, but finding enough applicants who meet the requirements.

“I’ve certainly not had any political interference, nor have I heard from other members that has been an issue,” said PAR’s Scott, who is a member of the nominating committee. “Our biggest problem really, is getting enough applicants — finding people who fit into those slots where, say, they have to be an engineer who lives in a certain parish.”

Jay Lapeyre, the New Orleans businessman who is chairman of the committee, said he has followed tradition and scheduled three meetings this year: Sept. 13, Oct. 4 and Oct. 18. Each starts at 11 a.m., but the locations have yet to be decided.

“The first meeting really is for distributing copies of the application so people can take them and begin referencing them,” said Lapeyre. In the past, nominees had been selected in the second meeting, making the third unnecessary, he said.

One nominee is selected for each of the professional categories, and two for each of the others, all of which are forwarded to Jindal. Those the governor accepts go to the state Senate for final approval.

Lapeyre said he could remember only one nominee ever being turned down, and that was because the committee had failed to realize he didn’t fit the requirements for his spot.

That could change this time around.

John Barry, the vice president of the Flood Protection Authority who has led the drive to make the oil industry accountable for its share of wetlands loss, said he would apply for re-nomination. He currently holds the spot designated for a resident of Orleans Parish.

Certified public accountant and law firm manager Tim Doody, president of the authority which voted unanimously to proceed with the suit, did not return a phone call seeking confirmation, but a friend said he was expected to seek re-nomination as well. He holds the St. Bernard Parish seat.

Meteorologist Dave Barnes, the third member whose term has expired, is not expected to seek another.

Jindal, unhappy with their adversarial approach to the oil industry, could turn down a re-nomination of Barry and Doody. But the law says that for safety reasons board members whose terms have expired must continue to serve until a replacement is approved.

Or Jindal could simply play a waiting game — marshal his allies in the Legislature and get them to revamp the nominating process, including the qualification for membership on the nominating committee and the flood protection authority itself.

At the very least many observers expect those opposed to the suit to change current law, which allows a levee board to hire outside attorneys without the approval of the governor.

Even those who helped push the new amendment and law through the Legislature are not certain it can withstand the political attacks that have been promised.

“I’m 99 percent sure it can stand up right now, but not 100 percent sure because everything we did was breaking new ground, so we don’t know if we missed anything,” said Levees.org’s Rosenthal.

“But we’ll be watching closely,” she said. “We support this lawsuit, and we want the boards to remain independent of the politicians. Now I guess we’ll see how good a job we did.”

Correction: An earlier headline incorrectly referred to concerns by the Flood Authority about political meddling. The authority has not publicly expressed such concerns. It also incorrectly stated that St. John the Baptist Parish is included in the Flood Authority’s jurisdiction, and it misstated the current size of the board members and how many have at-large positions. (Aug. 7, 2013)

Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on August 9, 2013 at 2:30

Louisiana coastal damages lawsuit provokes wrath of Big Oil's political friends - Facing South

After the Hurricane Katrina disaster drew scrutiny to Louisiana's flood-control efforts, voters overwhelmingly approved an amendment to the state constitution in 2006 to allow the creation of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority to ensure the region's levees would be overseen by engineering experts and not politicians' friends.

But now the authority's eastern division (SLFPA-E), which oversees flood control on the Mississippi's east bank including New Orleans, is feeling pressure from the highest levels of Louisiana politics over a historic lawsuit it filed last month to force 97 oil, gas and pipeline companies pay for damage they've caused by cutting canals through the state's coastal wetlands. Named in the suit are industry giants including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries and Shell.

SLFPA-E Vice President John M. Barry has responded to the political criticism with a letter noting that the authority -- which is overseen by nine unpaid members who are nominated by a blue-ribbon committee of engineering professionals, then selected by the governor and approved by the state Senate -- was formed to resist heat from high places. Its decision to file the action was unanimous.

"We are an independent board, expressly designed to be insulated from political pressure -- exactly the kind of pressure now being exerted upon us," Barry wrote. "Our purpose is protecting people's lives and property. We are supposed to exercise our judgment in how best to do so. We are a board with expertise in flood protection, not politics. Based on our responsibility, expertise and best judgment, we filed this lawsuit."

Besides being a diverse and economically important ecosystem, Louisiana's coastal wetlands serve as a critical barrier to storms, with every 2.7 miles of marsh estimated to reduce damaging storm surge by a foot. But those wetlands are disappearing at the alarming rate of a football field every hour, with oil and gas industry activity estimated to bear responsibility for as much as 60 percent of the loss. Besides putting the lives of the state's 2 million coastal residents at greater risk, Louisiana's land loss is also contributing to the state's average annual toll of about $50 million in coastal property damage.

Here's how the lawsuit, filed July 24 in state district court in Orleans Parish, describes the problem:

Oil and gas activities continue to transform what was once a stable ecosystem of naturally occurring bayous, small canals, and ditches into an extensive -- and expanding -- network of large and deep canals that continues to widen due to Defendants' ongoing failure to maintain this network or restore the ecosystem to its natural state. That canal network continues to introduce increasingly larger volumes of damaging saltwater, at increasingly greater velocity, ever deeper into Louisiana's coastal landscape and interior wetlands. The increasing intrusion of saltwater stresses the vegetation that holds wetlands together, weakening -- and ultimately killing -- that vegetation. Thus weakened, the remaining soil is washed away even by minor storms. The canal network thus comprises a highly effective system of coastal landscape degradation. The product of this network is an ecosystem so seriously diseased that its complete demise is inevitable if no action is taken.

The lawsuit notes that the permits the companies are working under require restoration after the work is completed. It asks the court to order the companies to immediately begin filling in canals and to compensate for past damages. While the bill could run into the billions of dollars, the top five U.S. oil and gas companies made an estimated $120 billion in profits last year alone.

In a statement about the lawsuit, Barry -- author of the award-winning book "Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Change... -- noted that the industry "has taken about $470 billion of the state's natural resources during the past 20 years, and we ask that it pick up its share of the increased costs of flood protections required to offset the loss of protective coastal wetlands."

But while Barry and other authority members view the legal action as a matter of enforcing basic accountability, that's not the way some of Louisiana's top political leaders see it. Instead, they have condemned the lawsuit and are trying to stop it from going forward. And not surprisingly in a state where oil and gas money gushes into politics, the politicians making the most noise over the lawsuit have especially close ties to the industry:

* Slamming the lawsuit as a "windfall for trial lawyers," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) has questioned the authority's legal right to file the suit and urged the state's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) to consider intervening. Jindal claims that in order to hire special counsel to prepare the lawsuit, as the SLFPA-E did, it needs his permission, though the authority disagrees. Jindal has received substantial political support from the oil and gas industry. In fact, it is the top contributor to Jindal after party committees, investing over $730,000 in his gubernatorial campaigns to date, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

* Garret Graves, Jindal's appointed CPRA chair and his executive assistant for coastal activities, has said he wants to talk with SLFPA-E members to encourage them to drop the suit. The group has invited Graves to its next meeting, which is Aug. 15. CPRA provides the SLFPA-E with its annual $500,000 budget. Graves previously served as an advisor to Louisiana's former Democratic U.S. Sen. John Breaux and former Congressman Billy Tauzin, who served as a Democrat from 1980 to 1995 before becoming a Republican. The oil and gas industry was the second-biggest contributor to Breaux after lawyers and law firms and the top contributor to Tauzin, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

* U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, a Republican who represents Louisiana's Jefferson Parish, is demanding the SLFPA-E turn over information on the contract with its attorneys. Scalise is upset about the inclusion of a "poison pill" provision that would require the SLFPAE to pay the attorneys for their time and expenses if the suit is withdrawn; it was added to discourage political efforts to force it to drop the suit. The oil and gas industry is the second-biggest contributor to Scalise's campaign after real estate, at over $349,000, with the Koch Industries' PAC alone contributing $25,000. The oil and gas industry was also a major contributor to Scalise when he served in the Louisiana legislature.

* Former Congressman Chris John of Lafayette, La., who now heads the politically powerful Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, has said his group -- which includes many of the defendants -- may ask state lawmakers to scuttle the lawsuit. During the time John, a Democrat, represented Louisiana's 7th congressional district from 1997 to 2005, the oil and gas industry was the second-biggest industry contributor to his campaign after lawyers and law firms, with the Koch Industries PAC contributing $28,000 and the Chevron PAC donating $18,000.

Some observers have drawn a parallel between the politicians' response to the lawsuit against the big oil companies and what happened when former Louisiana Attorney General Richard Ieyoub joined a massive lawsuit against the politically influential tobacco companies. Then-Gov. Murphy "Mike" Foster (R) and Jindal, who was secretary of the state Department of Health and Hospitals at the time, submitted affidavits saying the case was not properly authorized and should be thrown out. The judge did not agree, however, and the lawsuit went on to end in a multibillion settlement for the states.
 
In the coming weeks, the SLFPA-E will make presentations about the lawsuit to the Association of Levee Boards of Louisiana and to key state legislative committees in an effort to win their backing. But some levee board members have expressed concern that the lawsuit will damage their relationship with oil and gas companies, The Advocate reports. Other observers expect the legislature may try to intervene by passing laws to restrict the SLFPA-E's authority.

Meanwhile, nine environmental groups are circulating a petition asking Jindal to support the lawsuit; over 10,000 people have signed it so far. Environmental advocates have long called on oil and gas companies to pay to restore the damage they have done to coastal wetlands.

Asked about whether he thought the lawsuit might discourage oil and gas development in Louisiana, Barry said he did not.

"They will leave the state when the oil goes away," he told the Times-Picayune. "When they suck all the oil out, that's when they'll go away."

 

By Sue Sturgis on Thu, 08/08/2013 - 10:40

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Permalink Reply by courtney oliver on August 9, 2013 at 3:34

There is more to the problem than the oil and gas companies, Start with the Corp of Engineers who gave out permit to dig the canals, the La. Dept. of highway who built roads stopping the flow of water to the marsh, Parish planning commissions that gave permits to dig the canals, Dept. of Wildlife and Fish who gave permits to dig canals, La Departments that gave permits to drill wells. And on and on , also the old Orleans board than did nothing to protect New Orleans for many years.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on August 9, 2013 at 3:52

I agree, courtney.  The board has acknowledged that there are multiple causes to the loss of wet lands.  And differing contributing factors and responsible parties.  My opinion, so far, is that the board is attempting to assign a portion of the responsibility to the O&G industry and recover damages for that portion.  The job of rebuilding the coast is huge and will require more than one or two sources of funds.  As with any story this complex, details seem to dribble out.  And it takes a while to get enough information to form an opinion.  Yes, governmental agencies approved permits for the dredging of canals.  What has been missing from that part of the story is what those permits required.  In this latest article the author is stating that the permits require "restoration".

The lawsuit notes that the permits the companies are working under require restoration after the work is completed.

Now I guess we wait for an article that states whether responsible companies have actually conducted any restoration work.  And if not, what is their reasoning for not meeting the requirements of their permits.

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Permalink Reply by Joe Aldridge on August 9, 2013 at 4:37

Skip,

There are companies that have installed weirs and dams in the marsh to break the flow water into and along areas that were dredged for pipelines. So yes, some restoration work has been done from that standpoint.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on August 9, 2013 at 5:29

Joe~

Do you know if the companies you mention are amongst the list of defendants?  Do you know if restoration work is a regular occurrence and performed by the bulk of companies that receive permits to dredge canals?  If the defendants can prove reasonable due diligence in restoration of canals that would certainly strengthen their case.

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Permalink Reply by Joe Aldridge on August 9, 2013 at 6:36

No, I don't if they are named in the suit. I'll check next time I go. The pipeline I'm referring to crosses Chenier at Grand Isle. We have fished that pipeline because of the "structures". Those dams and weirs hold fish.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on August 9, 2013 at 6:38

In the areas of the marsh that you frequent, do you see much activity that could be considered restoration work?  I hope the fishing has been good.

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Permalink Reply by Joe Aldridge on August 9, 2013 at 7:34

No recent work. The structures were put in when the pipeline was laid and that was a number of years ago.

I don't fish that area during the Summer. We go coastal and off shore. The fishing in marsh areas gets better as we go into Fall and Winter. That's when the reds and specks move into the ponds and channels and around the inside structure.

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Permalink Reply by courtney oliver on August 9, 2013 at 4:57

There is not enough dirt in S. La. for restoration of the canals. The Breaux act was passed in1990 and very little restoration has been done, but a lot of studies have been made. Terrebonne Parish have had enough and are building their own levee system on their own. A good type of poor planning on the highway system is a road from Dulac to Dularge called the Falgout canal road. Check a map and look at the different in the marsh from the north side to the south side. There is a marsh on the north side and water on the south side. Check a map in St Mary parish of the Wax Lake Outlet and the loss of the sediments forming a new delta in the bay.

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