[StBernard] East Bank levee authority to file lawsuit Wednesday aimed at getting oil, gas, pipeline firms to restore wetlands and ridges

[Westley Annis]

East Bank levee authority to file lawsuit Wednesday aimed at getting oil,
gas, pipeline firms to restore wetlands and ridges
Print Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune By Mark Schleifstein,
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune 
on July 23, 2013 at 6:50 PM, updated July 23, 2013 at 8:22 PM

The regional levee authority overseeing East Bank flood protection will file
a lawsuit Wednesday against dozens of oil, gas and pipeline companies aimed
at forcing them to repair damage to a buffer zone of wetlands and ridges
"that helps protect the greater New Orleans region from catastrophic
flooding," according to a press release from the agency.

Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East officials would not
publicly comment Tuesday on what could be a historic lawsuit that, if
successful, would require the energy companies to fill in canals and restore
wetlands and other land features that scientists say help reduce the size of
storm surges caused by hurricanes.

Activities related to oil and gas exploration -- including dredging and the
cutting of canals through the wetlands -- has long been blamed for
contributing to the loss of land along the Louisiana coast and making the
area more vulnerable to flooding during hurricanes.

"We have not read the lawsuit so cannot speak to the merits of the action,"
said Garret Graves, adviser to Gov. Bobby Jindal on coastal issues and
chairman of the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, in a
statement released late Tuesday. 

But the statement didn't seem to agree with the authority's strategy to take
the oil and gas industry to court.

"The best way to direct oil and gas company revenues into our coast is
through revenue sharing from offshore energy production," Graves said. "We
are encouraged by recent efforts in Congress to increase GOMESA funds. More
needs to be done." 

GOMESA refers to the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, which directs
a share of offshore oil revenue to Louisiana and other coastal states.

"At this point, we are facing a coastal crisis and focused on making
progress to protect our citizens, sustain the fisheries and restore the
coast," the statement said." This includes making the largest coastal
investments in state history, restoring more barrier islands than ever
before, rebuilding lost coastal marsh and having a record number of our
citizens living behind hurricane protection levees. 

"We are also working to hold BP accountable for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon
disaster and reforming the Corps of Engineers," Graves said. 

Authority officials have repeatedly expressed concern about the financial
ability of the individual levee districts to pay for operation and
maintenance of the improvements to the area hurricane levee system when the
Army Corps of Engineers turns completed segments over to it during the next
year.

Authority members also have repeatedly said they are not satisfied that the
improved levees provide enough protection.

Designed to stop overtopping from storm surges caused by a hurricane with a
1 percent chance of occurring in any year - the so-called 100-year storm -
the improved levees also are designed to be "resilient" to the effects of
surges caused by storms with a 0.2 percent chance of occurring, a 500-year
event. Resilience means that an earthen levee would still be in place, even
after being overtopped for several hours, or that walls and other structures
would not fail.

In recent months, the authority has authorized the study of a possible
combination of levees and gates that would stretch across the eastern New
Orleans land bridge into St. Tammany Parish, which would reduce the flow of
surge water into Lake Pontchartrain, and reduce potential damage to parishes
along the lake.

That project could cost as much as $1 billion.

The authority also has embraced an expansion of its historic role of
hurricane and river flood protection to include restoration of wetlands on
the outside of levees that provide the levees with protection.

Oil and gas exploration and development canals criss-cross wetlands adjacent
to Lake Borgne in New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish, and in areas to the
south along the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish.

A study conducted by the late University of New Orleans geologist Shea
Penland in 1996 for the U.S. Geological Survey and the Gas Research
Institute concluded that about 36 percent of the wetland loss in
southeastern Louisiana between 1932 and 1990 was the result of the direct
and indirect effects of actions taken by the oil and gas industry.

In dredging canals for access, industry firms stacked sediment in berms that
cut off the flow to interior wetlands, speeding their conversion to open
water. The removal of oil and gas from beneath the surface also increased
the speed of sinking soils in areas above oil and gas reservoirs, according
to other USGS studies.

Other causes of wetland loss include other natural sinking of soils, also
called subsidence, sea level rise, and the leveeing of the Mississippi River
and the funneling of its sediment into the deep Gulf of Mexico, which halted
wetland growth caused by Spring floods.