Louisiana Wants the Oil and Gas Industry to Pay to Restore Its Coast

ery two weeks, a swath of Louisiana the size of this city's French Quarter vanishes into the Gulf of Mexico. Since the 1930s, the state has lost nearly 1,900 square miles, a quarter of its coastal land area.
 
For decades, oil and gas companies cut canals through fragile wetlands with the state's approval to haul equipment and install pipelines. But scientists say the dredging let salt water flow in, killing vegetation that kept the land from eroding.
 
Without the buffer of these marshes and barrier islands, Louisiana's many low-lying coastal communities — and its biggest city — now have little natural protection from storm surges created by hurricanes.
 
 
The cost of rebuilding the defenses is estimated at $50 billion or more, but so far, there's little money for it. Last summer, the independent board that oversees flood protection for New Orleans decided that oil and gas companies should pay their share. In a move that roiled a state where the energy industry is the economic foundation, the board voted unanimously to sue all 97 companies operating in the state for unspecified damages.
 
The lawsuit alleges that in "racing to extract the region's resources," the oil and gas industry built a canal network of more than 10,000 miles that is "a mercilessly efficient, continuously expanding system of ecological destruction."
 
Aerial photos taken by the U.S. Geological Survey from Cameron Parish in the west to the town of Delacroix in the east show coastal areas before and after canals were dug for oil and gas production. The photos — one taken 50 years after the canals were built, another just nine years after — show vast stretches of open water where land had been.
 
In November, two southeastern parishes, Jefferson and Plaquemines, also sued companies that had dredged canals. Two other coastal parishes are considering lawsuits.
 
 
"We have been told for so long that the oil and gas industry is the hand that feeds us and that we are biting the hand that feeds us," said Tim Doody, president of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, the nine-member board that oversees the levees in New Orleans and areas to the east. "But other places require them to be responsible businesses, and that's all that I want."
 
The cases are pitting those who believe the industry should be held to account for its role in the relentless coastal erosion against those who see it as a crucial business that has followed state laws in its shoreline construction.
 
 
The backlash from politicians has been swift and forceful. Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal and key legislators denounced the litigation, initiating legislation that would quash the lawsuits and undo post-Hurricane Katrina reforms aimed at removing politics from flood control. Last month, the state Senate passed a bill that would allow Jindal to kill the New Orleans lawsuit by replacing the lawyers who are handling it.
 
"I think it's absurd to say that the oil and gas industry has damaged the coast. They did what they were told to do, and a lot of what they have done has helped us, not hurt us," said Republican state Sen. Robert Adley, sponsor of a bill that would curb the flood protection board's autonomy.
 
But the proliferation of lawsuits is a clear signal that the urgency of repairing the coast is changing how some in Louisiana see an industry the state has long embraced. Despite considerable pressure from the governor's office, the flood protection authority, also known as the levee board, reaffirmed its litigation.