LOUISIANA AGENCY TO SUE ENERGY COMPANIES FOR WETLAND DAMAGE - New York Times By John Schwartz
Louisiana officials will file a lawsuit on Wednesday against dozens of energy companies, hoping that the courts will force them to pay for decades of damage to fragile coastal wetlands that help buffer the effects of hurricanes on the region.
“This protective buffer took 6,000 years to form,” the state board that oversees flood-protection efforts for much of the New Orleans area argued in court filings, adding that “it has been brought to the brink of destruction over the course of a single human lifetime.”
The lawsuit, to be filed in civil district court in New Orleans by the board of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, argues that the energy companies, including BP and Exxon Mobil, should be held responsible for fixing damage caused by cutting a network of thousands of miles of oil and gas access and pipeline canals through the wetlands. The suit alleges that the network functioned “as a mercilessly efficient, continuously expanding system of ecological destruction,” killing vegetation, eroding soil and allowing salt water to intrude into freshwater areas.
“What remains of these coastal lands is so seriously diseased that if nothing is done, it will slip into the Gulf of Mexico by the end of this century, if not sooner,” the filing stated.
A spokeswoman for BP said that the company would have no comment. A spokesman for Exxon Mobil said the company had no comment at this time.
Gladstone N. Jones III, a lawyer for the flood protection authority board, said the plaintiffs were seeking damages equal to “many billions of dollars. Many, many billions of dollars.”
Mr. Jones acknowledges that the government, which has strong protection against lawsuits, might bear some responsibility for loss of wetlands. But, he noted, Washington had spent billions on repairs and strengthening hurricane defenses since the system built by the Army Corps of Engineers failed after Hurricane Katrina. By taking the oil and gas companies to court, he said, “we want them to come and pay their fair share.”
The role of the industry is well documented in scientific studies and official reports. Remediation efforts called for by the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority in a 2012 report note, “Dredging canals for oil and gas exploration and pipelines provided our nation with critical energy supplies, but these activities also took a toll on the landscape, weakening marshes and allowing salt water to spread higher into coastal basins.”
The suit argues that the environmental buffer serves as an essential protection against storms by softening the blow of any incoming hurricane before it gets to the line of levees and flood walls and gates and pumps maintained and operated by the board. Losing the “natural first line of defense against flooding” means that the levee system is “left bare and ill-suited to safeguard south Louisiana.”
The “unnatural threat” caused by exploration, the lawsuit states, “imperils the region’s ecology and its people’s way of life – in short, its very existence.”
John M. Barry, an author and a member of the flood protection authority board, noted that there were other causes of coastal wetlands loss, including decisions by the Corps of Engineers over the decades to design navigation and flood control systems for the Mississippi River that kept its waters from delivering the sediment that once nourished the wetlands. Still, he said, “We just want them to fix what they broke.”
The lawsuit relies on well-established legal theories of negligence and nuisance, as well as elements of law more particular to the Louisiana Civil Code, including “Servitude of Drain,” which relates to changing patterns of water flow and drainage across the Bayou State. Even though the industry has been producing oil and gas for 100 years, because the damage is continuing to occur, the board argues, the statute of limitations should not apply.
Walter Olson, a Cato Institute expert on litigation who often expresses skepticism about civil litigation, said that he could not comment extensively without seeing the filing, but he said, “It sounds like the sort of thing you couldn’t dismiss out of hand.” He said some environmental lawsuits, like one against power companies over the effects of climate change on sea-level rise and its effect on the tiny Alaskan town of Kivalina, incorporate creative legal arguments that may not stand up in court.
“It’s not Kivalina,” he said, if the plaintiffs can point to specific people or entities causing specific damage. He added that proving causation in court, however, “can be a big headache.”
The state official who oversees coastal management for Louisiana sounded a skeptical note. Garrett Graves, the chairman of Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, issued a statement that while he and his colleagues had not yet read the lawsuit and could not comment on its merits, "The best way to direct oil and gas company revenues into our coast is through revenue sharing from offshore energy production" through laws like the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006, which directs a portion of federal income from offshore oil and gas exploration and production into coastal restoration and other environmental projects. "We are encouraged by recent efforts in Congress" to increase those funds, Mr. Graves said, adding, "More needs to be done.”
No other state agencies have joined the lawsuit, and Mr. Barry said that during preparation of the suit, his board did not discuss the case with other levee boards. The politically powerful oil and gas industries might bring pressure to bear on others who might be inclined to join, Mr. Jones said, but now that the case has been filed, “it really raises the question that’s going to be asked at a whole lot of boards across Southern Louisiana: can we really afford not to do this?”
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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on
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Jindal opposes coastal erosion lawsuit due to oil industry contributions, environmental groups say - By Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune - August 28, 2013 at 12:19 PM, updated August 28, 2013 at 1:34 PM
A consortium of local environmental groups on Wednesday charged that Gov. Bobby Jindal's receipt of more than $1 million in political contributions from the oil and gas industry is behind his opposition of a lawsuit against the industry aimed at getting them to restore coastal wetland damage.
The governor, in a statement, called the group's assertion "just another tactic to draw attention to a lawsuit that the Attorney General already said interferes with the public's best interest."
At a New Orleans news conference, environmental groups presented a list of 231 contributions to Jindal state election campaigns between 2003 and 2013 by oil and gas companies and executives that total $1,019,777.
The Jindal administration has criticized a lawsuit filed by the East Bank levee authority against 97 oil, gas and pipeline companies.
Representatives of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, Global Green, League of Women Voters, Levees.org, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Sierra Club, and Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association of New Orleans attended the news conference Wednesday.
"I have a dream," said Sierra Club representative Darryl Malek-Wiley, alluding to the 50th anniversary Wednesday of the Rev. Martin Luther King's historic address on civil rights. "I want to see the Louisiana coastal wetlands restored and the oil companies paying their fair share."
Anne Rolfes, executive director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, said the tally of donations indicates that Jindal received an average $4,000 from each company or lobbyist, "meaning that he's really obligated to the oil and gas industry as a whole, and our point here today is that you're seeing that obligation play out."
"There's absolutely no other explanation for why Bobby Jindal refuses to make the oil and gas industry pay for the coast that it acknowledges that it destroyed," she said.
Under Jindal's leadership, the state has moved aggressively to oppose the lawsuit filed in July by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East. The suit demands that the companies repair damage to wetlands and land, or pay for unrepairable damages, with the money to be used to improve levees.
Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Chairman Garret Graves, who is the governor's coastal and levee adviser, has said the authority should have secured permission from the governor before filing the suit and contends the lawsuit conflicts with the state's coastal restoration and protection Master Plan.
In his statement Wednesday, Jindal said the state needs to protect and restore the coast, "but this lawsuit is not the way to do it." The statement also called the lawsuit "a potential billion dollar plus windfall" for the attorneys representing the levee authority.
At a meeting dedicated to the lawsuit last week, Jindal and other members of the state's top levee and restoration board said allegations that the oil and gas industry don't participate in the state's restoration efforts are incorrect. They pointed out that a number of the restoration and levee projects actually are being built on industry property or with industry assistance.
The state also has begun the process of filling three authority member seats, with the expectation that the authority's president and vice president, whose terms have expired, won't be reappointed.
Authority Vice President John Barry contends the authority's action will not conflict with the state's Master Plan, and, indeed, will help pay for some of the restoration and levee improvements it contains.
Jindal's statement Wednesday said the levee authority should focus on the flood risk reduction system and ensuring homes and businesses don't flood during storms. He also said the levee authority should join the state's efforts to seek higher share of federal oil and gas revenues to pay for coastal restoration.
"We are going to continue our efforts to have the federal government treat Louisiana the same way it treats New Mexico, Wyoming and virtually every other state in terms of sharing energy revenues," Jindal's statement said.
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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on
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LA. LAWSUITS MAY PORTEND SHIFTING TIDE
By Kevin McGill - Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — When a South Louisiana flood control board filed a lawsuit last summer against nearly 100 oil and gas companies over the loss of coastal wetlands, it was treated as a political pariah for attacking an important Louisiana industry.
An association of its fellow levee districts voted to oppose the lawsuit. Gov. Bobby Jindal lambasted the action as a windfall for trial lawyers and announced he would seek to replace the board’s members as their terms expired.
Now, two coastal parishes heavily dependent on the industry have filed lawsuits of their own, raising the question of whether the political tide is turning.
“It’s very disturbing in a lot of ways,” Chris John, president of the Louisiana Midcontinent Oil and Gas Association said of the lawsuits filed by lawyers for Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes. “Because these are the very people that are making their living off of the oil and gas industry.”
Critics of the industry have a different view. John Barry, ousted from the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority- East by Jindal after the filing of its historic lawsuit, hopes the parishes’ lawsuits will lead to a settlement in which the companies will do more to mitigate damage done by decades of drilling and canal dredging.
“As the number of lawsuits mounts, oil companies will eventually recognize that it is in their interest to sit down and work out a solution, with or without the governor’s leadership,” Barry, a historian and author, said in a written statement. Barry last week announced formation of Restore Louisiana Now. The new nonprofit will raise funds to, among other things, drum up support for the lawsuits. That support will include lobbying state lawmakers against any effort by Jindal or industry lobbyists to undermine the lawsuit with legislation in the 2014 session.
Foster Campbell, who spent years in the Legislature unsuccessfully pushing for a processing tax on oil piped into the state, said he hopes the lawsuits portend a change in attitude among lawmakers.
“We’ve had too many politicians in the pockets of the oil companies,” said Campbell, now a public service commissioner.
Louisiana has lost an estimated 1,500 square miles of coastal wetlands since 1930 and is losing an estimated 30 square miles annually. Fixes, including river diversion projects meant to replenish the wetlands with silt, are estimated to cost in the tens of billions.
There is little dispute that the oil and gas activity has contributed to the loss — with canals for navigation and pipelines and other industry-related activity allowing the salty Gulf to encroach and weaken wetlands.
But estimates vary on how much of the damage is attributable to such activity. Also blamed are federal levee and river control projects that keep the Mississippi River from changing course — and as a consequence, keep it from replenishing the wetlands with silt.
Jindal’s top coastal official, Garret Graves of the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, has repeatedly said the SLFPAE lawsuit jeopardizes cooperative endeavors involving the state and the industry.
The flood board’s actions “fundamentally conflict with the CPRA’s efforts to protect our communities from flood, restore our coast and hold liable parties accountable,” he said in a statement last week when asked about the litigation.
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Permalink Reply by courtney oliver on
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Skip they are going to leave. No one does not say anything about the oil and gas tax that has kept this state running all these years. Campbell is probable going to run for governor
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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on
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courtney, who is the "they" to whom you are referring?
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Permalink Reply by 1kw6x71km1v37 on
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Perhaps "the very people who are making their living off the oil and gas industry" are now realizing they, and the marsh, are coming up short in the long run. Environmental damages from exploration and development should have been imputed to the selling price of marsh-produced hydrocarbons. That didn't happen, and now the nation, the prime beneficiary of Louisiana oil and gas production, should cough up the dough for remediation along with the defendants in these lawsuits. Of course, damages should be reduced commensurate with the collective stupidity of Louisiana over the years to submit to the rape of resources which occurred in the low country.
It remains a matter of speculation if the plaintiffs can win in court before rising sea levels nullify their claims.
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Permalink Reply by courtney oliver on
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Oil Company
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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on
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courtney, the oil companies aren't going anywhere. They don't have that option.
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Permalink Reply by courtney oliver on
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I hope you are right, but I have talked to two who have said we have better places to drill than put up with this. A lot of the majors are sell some of there production to people like Gulfport, Hilcorp etc. The marsh drill barges are the one that are hurting.
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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on
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The industry has too much invested in LA infrastructure not to mention too many hydrocarbons yet to produce. They will complain and threaten but the truth is their ability to do much beyond that is very limited regarding operations.
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Permalink Reply by P.G. on -
Aren't coal companies required to make some kind of restoration attempts after mining?
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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on
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For strip mines, yes. Areas of DeSoto Parish have been mined and then returned to near their original surface appearance. Mining and reclamation are ongoing.
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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on
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Contract changes in ‘Big Oil’ suit OK’d
Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — Attorneys suing 97 oil and gas companies on behalf of a New Orleans-area levee board have agreed to modify their contract to trim the amount they would receive if they succeed with the suit.
The lawyers also agreed to remove elements of the contract that critics have said give them too much control over the process. One change under the agreement: If an energy company is forced to rebuild wetlands, the law firm will not be paid a share of the cost of the rebuilding.
The agreement was proposed by the Jones Swanson law firm a month ago in a letter sent to the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority- East but made public after a closed-door session Thursday.
Commissioner Stephen Estopinal said the changes would focus on four elements of the contract and were proposed “unilaterally” by the attorneys working on the case. The provision dropping awards to the attorneys that would come as a result of restoration projects, rather than from cash awards, had been criticized as potentially taking money from efforts to repair the coast.
The changes would not drop a so-called “poison pill” that requires the authority to pay the lawyers for their time and expenses if the board drops the case or is forced to stop pursuing it because of actions by the Legislature. Supporters of the suit have said that provision is necessary to prevent political meddling in the case.
However, the new provisions would limit the amount the attorneys would receive under that scenario.
Previously, officials had suggested the lawyers would get repaid for about seven months of work they did laying the groundwork for the case at the request of flood protection authority commissioners. Under the altered agreement, the authority is expected to be required to repay only the costs of work done since the contract was signed in July.
In addition, the alterations would clarify that the attorneys could be fired for cause without bringing the “poison pill” into effect and would specify that the board must approve suits against any new defendants.
All those elements of the contract have been criticized by Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Chairman Garret Graves, Jindal’s point man in opposing the lawsuit. In particular, Graves has said vagueness in the contract’s language could allow the attorneys to file new suits without board authorization, something he claimed could make future board members “indentured servants” unable to rein in their lawyers.
Details of the altered contract were discussed during a closed-door executive session.
Despite the contract alterations, debate over the hiring of the authority’s attorneys is expected to continue. Last week, the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association sued Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, saying he illegally approved the hiring of the law firms. The suit says the authority is not permitted by law to hire outside counsel and that the contingency fees and other elements of the contract violated state law.
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