La. AG suing CoE over wetlands

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry filed a lawsuit in Lafayette’s U.S. District Court accusing the Army Corps of Engineers (CoE) of failing to maintain the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The suit also demands the federal government repair land within the White Lake Wetlands Conservation Area in Vermilion Parish that has been eroded by the expanding GIW. The waterway was begun in the 1920s by the CoE and purchased by the state’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in 2002. The suit claims that with the purchase comes the right to enforce provisions of a servitude entered into by the original landowner in 1929. The lawsuit claims CoE failed to maintain the waterway, which was authorized to be 125 feet wide and nine feet deep within a 300-foot wide easement granted to the federal government by the original property owners. "In some areas, the width of the waterway now exceeds 670 feet … and appears to be continually growing larger," the lawsuit states. The expanding waterway is causing damage to the wetlands, a 72,000-acre site located about seven miles south of Gueydan, and 13 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, according to the state. "The decline of Louisiana's coastline over the past 50 years has been a constant issue for Louisiana," Landry said in a news release about the suit. "Unfortunately, the creation of the Intracoastal Waterway by the corps has exasperated the problem." The suit came as a surprise to Gov. John Bel Edwards, who in a statement said Landry did not consult his office or the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority regarding the lawsuit. (Source: NOLA.com 02/09/18)