Curole speaks about clash of special interests at April BIG meeting

South Louisiana needs to avoid the pressures of special interest groups that pit the importance of building levees against preserving wetlands, according to Windell Curole, director of the South Lafourche Levee District. “We need both, and we need to maximize both,” he told members of the Bayou Industrial Group at last week’s meeting. “If somebody tells you just levees or just wetlands, you shouldn’t deal with them.”

The clash of such special interests ultimately affected New Orleans’ level of protection, leaving the city vulnerable to Hurricane Katrina, Curole theorized.

“New Orleans flooded because they compromised failure, and that’s something that we cannot afford to do,” he said. “The people in some of the communities said, ‘I want a canal. I want to be able to go in and out, and I don’t want a pump station at the end of the canal.’ So the special interest’s compromised the system to allow the water to come to the walls of those canals and left the pump stations in the middle of the city. So now, basically, you’re allowing the enemy, the high water, to get to the middle of the city.”

As one of the seven largest deltas in the world, Curole said the Mississippi River brings great opportunity and great risk to this area.

“When people do emergency work, they say, ‘How can people live down there when you’ve got 6 inches of rainfall and you’re threatened by a river than can break through a levee and you’ve got hurricanes out there?'” he asked. “But the point is, how can you not live there when you have an economy that comes through a port?”

Curole added the South Lafourche Levee system helps sustain Fourchon as a port that boosts the area’s economy.

“In South Lafourche, if we did not have a levee system, you would not have a Golden Meadow, Galliano, Cut Off and Larose. They would be basically under water all the time,” he explained. “And if you didn’t have those communities and a dry road, you would never have Fourchon.”

For this very reason, Terrebonne Parish is looking to sustain its coastal regions with the completion of the interim Morganza-to-the-Gulf system.

“The trick about a hurricane, anything you put between the Gulf of Mexico and where you live is going to help absorb energy,” said Curole. “It’s wind energy going into water energy and you put something that you can absorb it.”

That’s why the Bayou Industrial Group sent a letter to the federal government last month urging it to do its part to help complete Morganza.

“It shows that there are a group of industry leaders that are willing to put their name on the line to support such a worthy project for the protection of Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes,” said Chet Chaisson, Bayou Industrial Group vice president.

South Lafourche Levee District Director Windell Curole speaks before members of the Bayou Industrial Group last week. Curole’s speech stressed the importance of both preserving our wetlands and also building up our local levee systems. * Photo by RICHARD FISCHER