Nearly 100 oil and gas companies, from giants such as Chevron to independents including Anadarko, have ravished Louisiana’s coastal wetlands and drilling will lead to their complete demise if no action is taken, according to a lawsuit filed July 24 in New Orleans.

The lawsuit filed by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority – East (SLFPA-E) accuses the companies of negligence and creating a public and private nuisance by scarring the coast. The suit contends that drilling has caused extensive weakening of coastal lands that would help mitigate the strength of hurricanes. SLFPA-E contends the companies have breached contracts by failing to address damage to wetlands.

SLFPA-E asks for abatement and restoration of the coastal lands, including backfilling and re-vegetating of canals dredged and used by the companies as well as similar activities such as wetlands creation, reef creation, land bridge construction, shoreline protection and several other measures.

Though the suit does not name a specific dollar amount for restoration but asks for “just and reasonable” damages. The New Orleans Times-Picayune noted that compensation could include picking up part of the tab for US $14.6 billion in levee improvements.

John M. Barry, vice president of the SLFPA-E, said the suit is an attempt to protect southern Louisiana by strengthening “our first line of defense against catastrophic flooding” – the buffer of land and marsh that cuts down hurricane storm surge before it reaches the levees.

Barry said the industry has taken about $470 billion of the state’s natural resources during the past 20 years and should pick up its share of the increased costs of flood protections required to offset the loss of protective coastal wetlands.

“The industry recognizes that it is responsible for a significant part of the problem. We want energy companies to fix the part of the problem they caused – and which they promised to address. We want them to do what they said they’d do,” Barry said.

A spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, which is not a party to the suit, said the industry group does not comment on pending legal matters.

The US Geological Survey cites oil and gas activities among the primary causes of coastal land loss. According to conservative estimates, since 1932 the state has lost more than 4,921 sq km (1,900 sq miles) of coastal lands, enough to cover the state of Delaware.

Another 1,813 sq km (700 sq miles) are expected to be lost in coming decades.

The suit says oil and gas activities continue to transform a once stable ecosystem of naturally occurring bayous, small canals, and ditches into an extensive – and expanding – network of thousands of miles of oil and gas access and pipeline canals.

The canals continue to “widen due to ongoing failure to maintain this network or restore the ecosystem to its natural state,” the suit says, adding that the canal network continues to push larger and larger volumes of damaging saltwater at increasing velocity deeper into Louisiana’s coastal landscape and interior wetlands.

The result is that saltwater stresses the vegetation that holds wetlands together, weakening and ultimately killing it. “Thus weakened, the remaining soil is washed away even by minor storms. The canal network thus comprises a highly effective system of coastal landscape degradation,” the suit says.

The SLFPA-E was created by the Louisiana legislature in 2006 following Hurricane Katrina.

Since the early 1900s, Louisiana’s coastal zone has been explored and developed.

America’s WETLAND Foundation, sponsored by Shell, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and others such companies says that since Jan. 1, 2012, Louisiana has lost 62.9 million sq yards of land at a rate of a football field worth of coast every hour.

The foundation argued in 2010 that restoration efforts necessary because of the BP spill should be financed through federal penalties.

In November 2012, the Department of Justice settled criminal charges with BP for $4 billion. About $2.4 billion of the criminal recovery was set aside for acquiring, restoring, preserving and conserving marine and coastal environments, ecosystems and bird and wildlife habitat in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) and bordering states harmed by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The foundation also noted that since 1933 offshore oil and gas production has generated more than $165 billion in revenue for the federal treasury – the second largest source of federal revenue after income taxes.

“However, states that host onshore energy production on federal lands receive 50% of the revenues as compensation for the impacts, and have since 1920.”

Some companies already make efforts to preserve the coast, including one defendant, Chevron.

Since 1983, the company has donated 74 structures to programs in Louisiana, Mississippi, and other US states to create artificial reefs in the GoM. Reused platforms create an ecosystem with thousands of invertebrates and fish, according to Chevron’s 2012 Corporate Responsibility Report.

“Something no one can argue about is that there’s no better fishing anywhere in the Gulf than off the Louisiana coast, and that’s due in part to these artificial reef structures created from decommissioned oil platforms,” said Randy Pausina, assistant secretary at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

Companies Named In Lawsuit

Contact the author, Darren Barbee, at dbarbee@hartenergy.com.