Lafourche council votes to explore new Company Canal suit

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The latest chapter in the Company Canal saga was written when the Lafourche Parish Council passed a resolution March 10 requested the parish’s administration to seize the contested water body – claimed as private – for public use.

The vote resurrects a contentious, decades-long dispute that some attorneys say will likely result in hefty legal fees for taxpayers and little more.


The measure passed with eight affirmative votes. District 7 Councilman L. Phillip Gouaux registered the lone vote opposed.

The canal – along with the adjoining property called Golden Ranch Plantation in Gheens – was purchased by Houma businessman Benny Cenac in 2000.

Many local residents claim that Cenac only purchased the property and not the canal, which runs through it, however a 2003 Louisiana Supreme Court ruling stated that Cenac did indeed purchase the canal also.


Private ownership of the canal rankles many residents of Gheens and the surrounding areas who once used it to access Lake Salvador by boat

After initially allowing boaters to utilize a boat launch on his property for a small fee, Cenac closed public access to the canal in 2007 by placing gates blocking passage. The change occurred when a shack which housed a guard employed at the boat launch, disappeared, according to Gouaux.

Gheens resident and District 6 councilman Lindel Toups said he has no knowledge of the guard shack disappearing haven taken place.


Since the blocking, boaters – including some who own camps along Lake Salvador –have had no way of accessing them from Gheens by water, Toups said.

“It killed Gheens. Gheens is a ghost town now,” Toups said. “It affected a lot of people, not just Gheens. I’m talking about Larose, Des Allemands, all of Lafourche Parish. People launched there, they went fishing, they took their kids. Right now, our kids don’t have nowhere they can go fish. Nowhere.”

Gouaux, however, said that residents still can access Lake Salvador, albeit with some inconvenience, by hauling their boat to Des Allemands, launching there, and traveling over over Bayou Des Allemands to the lake.


“Expropriation will not occur if there is another route and there is another route. It’s just not a convenient route for the people in Gheens. Company Canal being closed is not stopping them from utilizing their camps,” Gouaux said.

Additionally, Gouaux opposes pursuing expropriation due to the undetermined cost of doing so.

“We don’t know if it’s going to cost us $2 million, $10 million or $50 million so it’s senseless to pursue something without knowing whether or not you can afford it,” Gouaux said.


Toups argues that removing the blockages to Company Canal would improve drainage and salt-water intrusion in the central Lafourche area.

“We used to drain in that canal all of Gheens and Mathews,” Toups said. “But now you can walk across it. It’s plugged up. Between Lockport and Gheens, it’s plugged up all the way. And also we talk about coastal erosion. That salt water comes and it stays here. It can’t go back out.”

Toups presented a petition to the council at its March 10 meeting with about 100 signatures supporting the resolution, and claimed he could get as many as 10,000 signatures on it.


A spokesman for the Golden Ranch corporation questioned why the parish would wish to wage a potentially costly battle on a matter already resolved by Louisiana’s highest court. As for drainage, the spokesman said a servitude already exists, negotiated when litigation was dropped on the first go-round.

A Louisiana Attorney General opinion also maintains that the canal is private property.

Asked where the money would come from for action to be taken against Golden Ranch, Parish President Charlotte Randolph said her administration is exploring options. Lawmakers would have a choice, she said, of taking the money out of the parish’s drainage or recreation budgets.


Arlen “Benny” Cenac Jr. owns Golden Ranch, the property that is bisected by the Company Canal, a now-private water body whose use is coveted by some Gheens residents.

 

COURTESY PHOTO