James "Bald Head" Dark
March 18, 2008March 20
March 20, 2008Terrebonne to hold permits until DEQ approves project
By MIKE BROSSETTE
An owner of the Houma waste recycler American Advanced Technologies insisted the company is environmentally friendly, but Terrebonne Parish residents who spoke at a Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality public hearing in downtown Houma on March 11 were against the department issuing a water-discharge permit to the company.
American wants to discharge large amounts of treated oily wastewater into the Houma Navigation Canal through the Munson slip in East Houma from a non-hazardous used oil recovery facility.
The department has stated the treated waste will have no adverse impact on the canal, but the water quality could change nevertheless.
Terrebonne Parish Consolidated Waterworks District No. 1 operates a water intake facility on the canal. The Waterworks District opposes issuing the permit.
“AAT is concerned about the environment in Terrebonne,” company owner Mike Broussard said at the meeting. “We’re going to make sure Houma has a clean environment.”
Broussard said American has spent millions of dollars on equipment to recycle industrial waste to return clean water to the environment. Discharging the treated waste into the canal is superior to disposal using injection wells, he said.
American’s expanded facilities would bring new revenue to the parish and state, Broussard added.
But several residents speaking at the meeting said the Department of Environmental Quality assumed wrongly that the flow of water in the canal would cause the discharge to avoid the water intake facility.
“DEQ officials knew about the proximity of the water intake,” said Houma resident Thomas Tabor. “It is potentially hazardous for our community.”
Donald Landry, a former Terrebonne Parish police juror, said hurricane-proofing American’s wastewater discharge facility would be difficult.
He cited a Murphy Oil Corporation storage tank in Meraux in St. Bernard Parish, which ruptured during Hurricane Katrina and spilled more than a million gallons of crude oil on a residential area of Chalmette.
Resident Catherine Rochelle referred to Marine Shale Processors in Morgan City, which in 1997 was ordered to pay millions of dollars for incinerating hazardous waste without a permit.
“Louisiana has a legacy of recycling dreams into nightmares,” she said. “They provide jobs, then become Marine Shale.”
Drake Pothier, president and CEO of the Houma-Terrebonne Chamber of Commerce, said Terrebonne is becoming known as a bedroom community for New Orleans.
“Terrebonne Parish doesn’t want to be known as a place where hazardous waste is dumped,” he said, though the waste is technically non-hazardous.
Dennis Kelly, an engineer who helped to design the discharge site for American, said only waste meeting Department of Environmental Quality standards will be discharged.
The parish will not issue any permits to American until the company receives permits from the department, said Parish Attorney Courtney Alcock.
