We’ve heard some good words from new Gov. John Bel Edwards that sounds like he is getting active in restoring our deteriorating coast of Louisiana. He has announced that he is getting involved in law suits against oil and gas companies which have violated permits in the past by damaging coastal wetlands in southern Louisiana and leaving them unrepaired.
In the past many years, as citizens of our southern coast of America know, oil and gas related companies have, to a great extent, ignored the regulations for their companies to repair the land they damaged in their productions and were not apprehended by the state.
Many people in the state have seen numerous instances where the companies drilled for their products and then left the sites without putting them back in their original states which they were supposed to do.
Gov. Edwards administration and Attorney General Jeff Landry recently filed motions to get involved in the cases.
This seems to have given a bright new future to our efforts to help restore the coast to be one of the most productive in the world in producing minerals and wildlife.
To make the case even better, this could open the door to having a better, and more understanding relationship, between the state and the mineral companies which certainly owe the state a great deal of money for the wetlands and other coastal properties they have put out of commission for other uses.
And Gov. Edwards says he doesn’t have choice other than to intervene in the cases of parishes in the state which have suffered from the destruction to our coast that has resulted.
Governor Edwards says he wants assurance that the intervention he is seeking will be spent on coastal restoration.
It is also hoped that it could bring the mineral industry as a whole to the negotiation table to further help restore Louisiana’s coast.
We have been waiting a long time for our valuable and wonderful coast to be restored.
And hopefully, with the arrival of a new governor, it has.
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