The opening of the Alligator Bayou floodgate late one Sunday afternoon in March by Iberville Parish officials has come home to roost.
At an East Ascension Gravity Drainage Board meeting Monday members passed a resolution asking Iberville to close the gate. Alligator Bayou has been drained nearly dry and a noteworthy Ascension Parish business has been damaged in the process.
Frank Bonifay and Jim Ragland, the co-owners of Alligator Bayou Tours, the educational tourist attraction in Ascension Parish, have been forced to stop their marvelous bayou tours because large tour boats can no longer travel in the bayou.
Wildlife, including birds, alligators and fish have all been affected by the drying up of the bayou.
Unwanted plantlife is claiming new turf in the area with the receding of the water.
Why did Iberville Parish officials attempt to open the Alligator Bayou floodgate on a permanent basis just months before the completion of a study commissioned by the Lake Pontchartrain Levee District to study the area and its effect on flooding?
Iberville officials said at the Monday EAGD meeting that they were threatened with a lawsuit by landowners complaining of property flooding when Alligator Bayou water levels are maintained by the gate.
These landowners want to use their property as a federal mitigation bank. Iberville Parish Chief Administrative Officer Edward Songy said at the meeting that draining Alligator Bayou is legal under Louisiana Civil Code 658, which forbids the interference with natural water flows.
We wonder why this code has been dusted off now, after sitting on the shelf for 57 years since the floodgate at Alligator Bayou was first built.
If you are going to drain the bayou to mitigate bank, or for whatever reason, why not wait until the Shaw Group releases its unbiased study and its recommendations commissioned by the Lake Pontchartrain Levee District?
We thank the drainage board for adopting its resolution, which though largely symbolic, will have the effect of uniting opposition to Iberville’s attempted power play at Alligator Bayou.
We hope in the end reasonable thinking will prevail in this matter. Parish President Tommy Martinez, as he has shown by helping put together the coalition to purchase Lamar-Dixon Expo Center, is talented in the art of compromise for the greater benefit of parish residents.
Martinez says room for compromise exists, that if the bayou is dredged, the tour company would be able to continue its business, and drainage would be improved in Iberville.
The key is getting all affected parishes, Ascension, Iberville and East Baton Rouge, to the table and building a consensus solution.
Let’s get some water back in Alligator Bayou.
