the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority–East is trying to hold the oil and gas industry accountable for the damage caused by thousands of miles of canals and pipelines carved through the wetlands. The board was created after Hurricane Katrina to provide independent oversight of flood protection in metropolitan New Orleans east of the Mississippi River. In July, the board filed suit against 97 oil and gas companies, including BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron, accusing them of killing plant life, eroding soil and carrying out a, quote, “mercilessly efficient, continuously expanding system of ecological destruction.”
The nine board members, most of whom are Republican, voted unanimously in favor of the lawsuit. But Louisiana’s Republican Governor Bobby Jindal, who has reportedly received over a million dollars in campaign donations from the oil industry, has staunchly opposed the effort. Governor Jindal said the suit would be a “litmus test” for new nominees to the flood board and vowed not to reappoint two members whose terms had expired, including the board’s vice president, John Barry, who spearheaded the lawsuit against the oil companies. On Monday night, at a politically charged meeting, the committee that selects nominees for the board chose not to renominate John Barry, citing his support for the lawsuit, which the majority on the board supported.
John Barry talking:
the lawsuit is, of course, more important than anything that happened to me. Because of the destruction of the land—and the industry is not responsible for all of the destruction, but it is responsible for a good part of it—then increased storm surge attacks our levees, comes pounding at it. And we are basically suing to get them to abate the problem, to make the storm surge go back down to its natural.
the storm surge coming against our levees has increased because of the loss of the land, so we’re trying to get either the companies to fill in that land or to pay the levee board compensation so that we can improve the flood protection system to compensate.
Levee board in New Orleans.
That’s kind of a unique nominating committee that was created after Katrina. It was supposed to be created to insulate the selection process from politics. If you look at the members of our board, it’s really kind of extraordinary. We have the author of the most advanced storm surge model in the world. We used to have a past president of the American Society of Civil Engineers. We’ve got engineers who’ve written college textbooks. This is a board of truly capable people. And the members of the nominating committee made no bones about it, that they were letting politics intervene. The governor was against the lawsuit. They didn’t want to offend the governor. So they didn’t renominate me. The governor had already said I wasn’t going to get reappointed. He wasn’t going to do that. So, in terms of substance, it’s not that big a deal, but it is offensive to the process that this board, created to insulate us from politics, stated outright they were yielding to politics. More importantly, a majority of the board, no matter who is appointed, will still support the lawsuit. So the lawsuit is going to continue.
it’s important to note that we are not suing the oil companies simply because they have deep pockets. We are suing the oil companies because we believe they have broken the law. And that law-breaking is ongoing.
John Barry was vice president of the Southeast Louisiana flood board. he lost his post, the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority–East, when he lost his post because he has spearheaded this lawsuit against some 97 oil companies. He’ll hold onto the post ’til Governor Jindal appoints someone else.
– source democracynow.org
When Bobby Jindal became governer, lot of posters are showed in indian media. Slave Jindal now shows his real nature.