Bourg native seeking caviar distinction

Members of a House legislative committee in the state House of Representatives will have about a month to decide whether they will take oversight — and thus debate — whether to allow a species of Caspian Sea sturgeon to be cultivated in Louisiana.

The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission last week approved a notice of intent requested by Ledet’s Louisiana Seafood, owned by Bourg native Johnny Ledet, for the raising of sterlet sturgeon.

Ledet wants to build a plant in Natchitoches to harvest the small fish’s prized eggs for commercial distribution. Similar caviar plants have operated for a decade in Florida. Ledet notes a key difference between those plants and the one he wants to build. The Florida operations are open-air. His project is a totally closed environment, with what he says is a failsafe system to keep the aquacultured fish from affecting the environment.

“This project will help Louisiana’s continued recovery. We know how to do this safely and responsibly and are eager to start work.” said Ledet. “We have purchased the property, we have spent tens of thousands of dollars on architecture plans, fish have been purchased, everything is agreed, we are well-orchestrated and we are ready.”

Opponents of the project are also ready, well-orchestrated, and flexing their muscles.

“We are very concerned about the proposed introduction of non-native species of fish to Louisiana,” said Haywood “Woody” Martin, Sierra Club Delta Chapter Executive Committee Chair. “Given the numerous examples of escape of non-native species into the Louisiana natural environmental we must register our objection to introduction of the sterlet sturgeon. We suspect that such introduction could constitute a serious threat to Louisiana native species including gulf sturgeon, which is federally listed as a threatened species, freshwater shovelnose sturgeon, and pallid sturgeon, which is federally listed as an endangered species and found in the Mississippi, Atchafalaya and Red Rivers.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has cited two reports, one from 2000 and the other from 2012, which theorize that sterlet could be able to cross-breed with other sturgeon found in the wild.

The Louisiana Wildlife Federation has aggressively made its own views known.

“There are too many examples of negative outcomes when introducing a non-native species for LWF to be assured that the benefits of introducing sterlet sturgeon for commercial aquaculture outweighs the potential costs to Louisiana’s natural resources,” the organization states, their concerns echoed by deputy Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Patrick Banks and some state scientists.

Ledet agrees with the dissenters on a single point, which is that nobody knows what effect starlet sturgeon would have if released into the wild, because it hasn’t happened. But he balks at his plan being compared to sitauations that were either accidental or

The precautions built into his plans, he maintains, will see to it that it doesn’t. While most have now become part of the proposed rules for raising sterlet in Louisiana, Ledet says he and his associates had already created many on their own, to avoid controversy and address what concerns might exist.

Houma attorney Michael St. Martin, who represents Ledet and the project, said he has complete fate in the operation’s environmental safety.

“No water is discharged from this system,” he said, explaining the security procedures that start with the transport of fingerlings fro from a Florida farm to the Natchitoches site.

“The fish leave the facility in Florida by trucks with tanks on them and the tanks are locked,” St. Martin said. “Nothing inside the tanks can get out.”

The trucks, St. Martin said, will be met at the Louisiana border by armed guards who will escort them to the Nagitoches site.

“A guard stands by while the fish are loaded into the tanks which are inside the building. It is all covered,” he said.

The plant has a backup generator, cameras throughout the interior and exterior, which can be monitored by LDWF and are part of a system that alerts local police.

The facility is to be surrounded by a chain link fence topped with razor wire.

St. Martin notes that the plant, built on high ground, is seven miles from any moving water. If an emergency occurred — flood, fire or earthquake as examples — processes are in place for the fish to be killed instantly to prevent their release live into the environment.

“To get into the wild they would have to escape from the tank and escape from the building then get out to the open and then walk seven miles to jump in the bayou,” St. Martin said.

All water inlets are screened, as are all outlets, according to the plans, to prevent any potential of fish or eggs escaping into the environment.

Opponents have offered lists of various pants and animals considered invasive in Louisiana. Most arrived here because of plans for farming, or human introduction into aquariums. Nutria, salvinia and apple snails are only a short list of the species that have taken hold.

Ledet bristles at descriptions of the sterlet as invasive, as they have not invade anyting, and occur nowhere at this point in the state’s environment.

Additional precautions, Ledet said, are provided by nature itself.

“If the water gets above 75 degrees these fish die,” said Ledet, who is no stranger to caviar. He produced caviar from bowfin for over twelve years, at a Raceland plant.

Whether he will have to defend his project yet again against detractors remains to be seen. It was not yet received by the House Committee on Natural Resources, whose chairman has given no advance guidance as to whether he will seek to have it discussed for potential oversight. If the committee does not take up the matter, then Gov. John Bel Edwards will receive it for his signature.

With numerous hearings and discussions already behind him, Ledet is hoping that last week’s Widlife and Fisheries Commission meeting will be the last hoop he will need to jump through. If the project is blocked at this stage more than a year of do-overs will be required.

“I’m keeping my fingers crossed and praying,” Ledet said. “None of my companies, Warbucks International Seafood or Ledet Seafood, none of them ever had a citation, a write-up or an accusation of anything unethical or illegal at either the parish or federal level. We have always placed safety first.

Ledet acknowledges that he has received invitations from other states, and if the measure fails in Louisiana he may take someone up on it. But that’s not what he hopes for.

“I want to do this in Louisiana,” he said. “I want Louisiana to have the benefits of this, the jobs and the money, because it is my home.”

Caviar