The Atchafalaya Basin Program has begun the public input process mandated by the new legislation, written about earlier on these pages. The first public meeting was held on October 14 in Morgan City and the second on October 15 in Plaquemine. The last one of this phase will be held October 16 in Henderson. The meetings were delayed from early September because of the hurricanes that disrupted normal functions in the State. I attended the Plaquemine meeting.
These meetings are intended to continually collect suggestions from citizens for projects to be evaluated by the new Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and presented to the Research and Promotion Board (RPB). The Board will review the projects and create an Annual Plan for Legislative review and funding. A second round of hearings will give citizens a chance to comment on the Annual Plan before it goes to the Legislature.
Assistant Program Director Robert Benoit recalled some of the political history of the Basin and described the new planning process. Representative Karen St. Germain also discussed the process and asked all participants to vote for Constitutional Amendment #4 on the November 4 ballot. The amendment would guarantee funding of the Basin Program from existing taxes and fees paid on State land in the Basin and is an important part of the new process. If the amendment does not pass, the process will continue but annual funding battles will likely continue for Capital Outlay funds for the Program.
The Plaquemine meeting was attended by approximately a dozen private citizens and about the same number of resource agency personnel (the federal and state people who work and study the Basin.) The citizens were vocal in their frustration over the delays in getting more water projects moving and were told to keep pushing because the new process is even more dependent than ever before on independent input.
One landowner pointed out the importance of keeping landowners in the loop and was invited to make suggestions and attend the meetings to stay informed of the upcoming plans.
An Iberville Parish councilman asked for a process which allowed the Governor to more easily ask for more water in the Basin from the Corps of Engineers, who control the Old River Control Structure and the flow into the Basin. He was told that there is a set of guidelines for the introduction of water into the Basin. Those guidelines were worked out by an advisory committee several years ago to meet the needs of many Basin stakeholders, from the hydroelectric plant at Old River to land owners to Basin commercial fishermen to oyster fishermen on the coast. They address the timing and temperature requirements for increased water flow to help the Basin water quality and fishing. One important thing to remember is that any requests for water need to be prepared as soon as it becomes apparent that water might be needed, so that the request can work through the system and still do some good. Requests from private citizens will be expedited through the TAG to assure that the guidelines are met.
I recommended that all suggestions for projects should include specifics about locations so that land ownership issues can be addressed early in the evaluation process. Real estate problems have held up or derailed many potential water management projects under the Program.
I also told the attendees that the Friends of the Athafalaya were trying to continue the tradition of communicating Basin activities to the citizens through these pages and the main basinbuddies.org web site. Robert Benoit made a note that the ABP web site should link to our pages and vice versa. We are already linked to the ABP pages.
Although there was some frustration voiced by the contributors, the overall attitude was upbeat and the hope for a stable funding source was strong. If you want to see the Program funded and focused on Water Management projects, vote for Constitutional Amendment 4 on November 4.
crc/30