The St. Martin Parish School Board voted Wednesday night in favor of selling and logging 450 acres of a cypress-tupelo swamp it owns in Section 16 of the Atchafalaya Basin.
Several concerned St. Martin Parish citizens, including the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper Dean Wilson, were present at Wednesday’s board meeting in Breaux Bridge to voice their outrage.
“It’s not sustainable, you lose the trees forever,” says Wilson. “We explained to the school board that it’s the most important asset that our kids have in the parish because there is no place in the entire world like the Atchafalya Basin.”
Wilson says he has spoken with the timber company Good Hope Inc., which the school board has contracted for the logging. And while Good Hope said it was willing to back out of the contract, the school board is not.
“Trees are a huge asset,” Wilson says. “They have a huge potential for ecotourism and education, but (the school board) completely ignored that and decided to cut the trees down anyway.”
Aside from destroying a pristine habitat for the continent's migratory birds and a gorgeous buffer from those pesky hurricanes, the school board seeks to reap a one-time reward of $148 per acre (or $88,200 after Good Hope gets its pound of flesh) to line its budget. That’s small chips considering the trees would take several hundred years for the trees to mature that is if they can at all in the face of the nutria population and yearly flooding.
But Wilson and his fellow cypress lovers are ready for the fight.
“We believe that the logging will be illegal so we are going to send letters of intent this week against the timber company and against the school board,” says Wilson.
Wilson refers to RS 41:1009 which states:
Cutting or sale, or both, of cypress timber on stateowned water bottoms; prohibition
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, particularly R.S. 41:1001 through R.S. 41:1008, the cutting or sale, or both, of standing cypress timber located on any water bottom owned by the state of Louisiana is hereby prohibited except in the exercise of rights under a state lease, right-of-way, or permit. However, the secretary of the Department of Natural Resources may, at his discretion, permit the selective cutting of such timber.
And as you may have guessed, the Section 16 swamp is considered a state-owned water bottom.
If you want to join the Basinkeeper's campaign to save these precious state resouces and help protect other Atchafalaya cypress swamps for future generations, visit his website here.
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MAY 20 This post in Gambit tells of a benefit concert scheduled to raise money for the 19 people shot during a Mother's Day second line on Frenchmen Street in NOLA. Among them was Gambit blogger Deb Cotton, who spoke frequently about violence in the city and reported on the city's second line culture. Gambit's foundation, along with other NOLA non-profits, also are selling t-shirts to raise money for the victims.
MAY 20 This Picayune story questions the rhetoric of NOLA officials who say the city, aside from having a "murder problem," is safe. The talking points generally are that the criminals are killing each other, but everything else is OK. The police chief there says that even Lafayette is more dangerous than NOLA. But crime experts interviewed here say that NOLA's numbers indicate one of two things: either people are so used to violence they don't report it, or somebody's "fudging the numbers."
MAY 20 The Advocate's Mark Ballard writes about some of the background maneuvering that took place during the development of budget alternatives in the Legislature. From Rep. Joel Robideaux being called a "tax and spend liberal" to robo-call influence, Ballard lets us in on some of the work that happens behind the scenes but usually doesn't make it into the Advocate's daily coverage of the session.
MAY 20 This post by blogger CB Forgotston draws parallels between Gov. Bobby Jindal and two folks he probably doesn't want to be aligned with: President Obama and former governor Edwin Edwards. CB says Jindal's trying to jack up the debt ceiling (an Obama play, according to CB) and buy votes from GOP leges who normally wouldn't go for that (an Edwards play, CB says).
MAY 20 Here's a post in the Baptist Message from an alumnus of Louisiana College. The author, Larry Burgess, calls on the leadership of the private school to take care of some pressing problems. Physical plant issues are critical and unaddressed, some faculty make so little they're on Medicaid, and there is an atmosphere that does not encourage honest discussion, he writes. It's time to get things back in order, he says.
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