We've got an update on a story we told you about back in May.
At issue is a state-backed river diversion project ostensibly aimed at restoring the Atchafalaya Basin; here's our May 2025 story about it. Environmental advocates and fishermen expressed concern the project would lead to widespread flooding and ecological damage.
The East Grand Lake Ecological Enhancement Project, approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and proposed by the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, has a stated aim to divert sediment-filled water from the Atchafalaya River and Bayou Sorrel through 12 engineered cuts into nearby cypress swamps.But critics argue the plan could do irreversible harm.
Now, those advocates and fishermen have teamed up again to try to stop the project in court; a similar coalition filed a lawsuit in May 2024 challenging the permitting of the project.
Last week, Atchafalaya Basinkeeper and the Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association – West have now filed a lawsuit alleging that the program itself violates the state constitution, state open meetings laws and other laws "by managing the Atchafalaya Basin in a manner that is inconsistent with the public’s interest in prioritizing the Basin’s use as a spillway, creating advisory groups that influence the Program behind closed doors and without public notice, undertaking projects that were not reviewed by the Atchafalaya Basin Program Oversight Committee and engaging in various other activities contrary to the law and the public interest."
The lawsuit, filed last week in state district court in Baton Rouge, alleges years of willful mismanagement of the Basin’s flood capacity and violations of the Louisiana’s constitutional obligation to protect the natural resources of the state for the health and welfare of the people. The lawsuit specifically seeks to prevent the Program’s East Grand Lake project from moving forward, as well as requesting the court to require certain meetings related to CPRA’s Atchafalaya Master Plan be opened to the public.
We've reached out to CPRA, the parent agency for the program, for a comment on the lawsuit. We'll update the story when we hear back. If you want to read the lawsuit for yourself, you can scroll down.
The plaintiffs sent out a press release about their lawsuit. In it, Avery Theriot, President of LCPA – West, is quoted as saying that “the voices of the crawfishermen and local communities have been consistently ignored.”
“We are in the Basin monitoring what is happening, and the decision to continually ignore our interests as stakeholders is a threat to the future of the state of Louisiana, our way of life and our culture” said Theriot.
For nearly a century since the Great Flood of 1927, every level of government from Congress to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to CPRA to local Parish councils have all recognized that maximizing the flood capacity of the Atchafalaya Basin must be the top priority in every management decision. According to this lawsuit, the Atchafalaya Basin Program has spent the last decades implementing many disastrous projects, knowing the projects would result in the loss of wetlands and vital flood capacity.
“The biggest threat to our long-term survival in Southcentral Louisiana is the loss of the Atchafalaya Basin’s flood capacity caused by mismanagement and projects designed to fill wetlands” said Dean Wilson, Executive Director of Atchafalaya Basinkeeper. “By 1982, the Atchafalaya Basin had lost almost half of its flood capacity, and the situation is getting worse year after year. It is deplorable that the state has become the biggest threat to our future in Southcentral Louisiana.”
In their release, the plaintiffs say this lawsuit challenges the Program’s attempt to implement the East Grand Lake project, which a federal judge recently said is “distinctly similar” to these past projects that failed. As the lawsuit points out, the Program is attempting to go forward with the East Grand Lake project despite near unanimous public opposition; the crawfishers and local residents who attend meetings have all expressed opposition; St. Martin, Assumption and Iberville parishes passed resolutions against the project; St. Martin Parish and Iberville Parish have both filed amicus briefs in support of the federal suit challenging the permit for the project; and residents in the area that will be impacted continue to voice their disapproval whenever possible.
"While the EGL project has been coined a “swamp enhancement project,” experience and sound science demonstrate that the project will lead to increased sedimentation in the East Grand Lake area. This will ultimately convert productive and vital swamp habitat into bottomland hardwood forest by introducing sediment-laden river water and physically dispersing dredged sediment in the area. Sedimentation severely harms the Basin because it decreases flood storage capacity, and the Basin is a vital part of Mississippi River flood protection. In addition to alleging violations of the Louisiana Constitution, the lawsuit challenges the legality of closed-door meetings impacting the Atchafalaya Master Plan and the impropriety of the administration of the Atchafalaya Basin Program," the release states.
Here's a copy of the lawsuit, provided by the plaintiffs:
