DA shoots down proposed Company Canal fight

Supporters of a plan to seize for public use – at market price – a portion of a canal that runs through private property in Lafourche Parish must pursue their goal without the support of their chief legal advisor.

District Attorney Cam Morvant issued an opinion last week punctuating earlier opinions, that the Company Canal, which runs through tugboat company owner Benny Cenac’s Golden Ranch in Gheens, that the parish has no business using resources to pursue the matter in the courts; Such a fight, Morvant said, must be left to residents in the area like any other boundary dispute.

Councilman Lindell Toups had requested an opinion from Morvant as to whether $100,000.00 intended for drainage projects could be used to hire an attorney, who would research the ownership history of the canal with an eye toward expropriation.

A court case brought by residents, Morvant’s opinion notes, was unsuccessful; a later Louisiana Attorney General’s opinion determined that there was no new information contained in hundreds of pages of documents brought to the parish after the court case was concluded.

“It wasn’t a parish issue back in 2001 and it is not a parish issue now,” Morvant’s opinion letter says.