Board settles Save Our Wetlands lawsuit

The Terrebonne Levee & Conservation District voted unanimously Monday night to settle a lawsuit filed by a Metairie-based environmental group demanding work stop on the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane protection system.

Following a 15-minute executive session, the board agreed to accept the deal negotiated by its special counsel, Houma attorney Berwick Duval.

No details of the settlement were made public; however, Duval and levee board president Tony Alford insisted that no money would be paid in the settlement.

“The settlement was not about money,” Alford said. “This was a good thing for the parish.”

“I think this is an excellent deal for both parties involved,” Duval said.

Save Our Wetlands, the organization that filed the suit, is expected to agree to the settlement today. U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman must also sign off on the deal to resolve the matter.

Save Our Wetlands filed a $24 million lawsuit last April, claiming the levee district did not obtain the proper permits to build Reach J-1 of the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane protection system.

The reach is a 10-foot high, three-mile stretch of levee constructed 16 miles southeast of Houma. It is designed to link a gap between existing levees from Pointe-aux-Chenes to Montegut.

Save Our Wetlands, represented by Jill Witkowski of the Tulane Environmental Law Center, said that the levee district needed to obtain a permit under the federal Clean Water Act to ensure nearby marshes are protected by dredging soil and filling in areas of sensitive wetlands before work could begin.

Director of Planning and Programs for the Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities Jerome Zeringue, who was executive director of the Terrebonne levee district at the time, maintained that the district received required permission from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build the levee.

The levee district started work on Reach J-1 in March 2006 and finished last year at a cost of $18 million.

Terrebonne Parish and the levee district are currently working on H-3 of the Morganza system.