The state agency overseeing construction of the controversial $3 billion Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, Louisiana's biggest-ever coastal restoration project, says it plans to ask the state Supreme Court to intervene after an appeals court moved a lawsuit seeking to stop the work back to a Plaquemines courtroom.
On Jan. 31, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeal ordered a suit filed Nov. 9, 2023, in the 25th Judicial District Court in Pointe a la Hache to be returned to that courtroom, after the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority won a ruling from a Baton Rouge judge temporarily blocking the parish from enforcing a stop-work order that had halted construction of the diversion.
A non-unanimuous panel of appeals court judges based in New Orleans ruled that 19th Judicial District Judge Tiffany Foxworth-Roberts' conclusion that the Plaquemines lawsuit should be heard in Baton Rouge because the CPRA is based there and its actions approving the diversion were also made there was incorrect.
A Baton Rouge-based state judge has temporarily blocked Plaquemines Parish,
Instead, it found that based on a state law and past Supreme Court decisions, CPRA's actions were taking place in Plaquemines Parish and the suit should be heard there.
Ruling in favor of returning the case to Plaquemines were Judges Roland Belsome, Daniel Dysart, Sandra Jenkins and Dale Atkins. Opposing that ruling was 4th District Chief Judge Terri Love.
In a court filing before Plaquemines Judge Michael Clement on that same day, attorneys representing CPRA said they planned to file a writ of certiorari with the state Supreme Court, asking it to review the 4th Circuit ruling, and asked Clement to stay all proceedings in the case until the Supreme Court makes a decision, since it could decide to return the case to the Baton Rouge courtroom.
Plaquemines Parish has appealed the stay, and Clement ordered a hearing on it on March 7. As of Wednesday, the CPRA had not filed its appeal with the Supreme Court.
"We are currently reviewing the ruling and determining next steps. We cannot provide further comment at this time," said Marina Clay, a spokesperson for CPRA.
In late November, Foxworth-Roberts ruled the state and CPRA were entitled to a temporary restraining order blocking the parish from enforcing a stop-work order it issued to halt construction, based on their arguments that state law and provisions of the state constitution overrule the parish's authority to block the work.
She also found that "immediate and irreparable injury, loss or damage will result to the state by virtue of the actions" of the parish.
The stop-work order was issued on Aug. 11, a day after the state held a ceremony to break ground, kicking off construction of the 2-mile-long concrete structure that will divert up to 75,000 cubic feet per second of freshwater and sediment from the Mississippi River near Ironton into the Barataria Basin.
The state says the project will build 21 square miles of land over its first 50 years of operation.
The parish stop-work order was based in part on arguments the diversion would increase flood risk for parish residents and needed parish permits for construction.
The Plaquemines suit was filed a few days after Plaquemines oyster harvesters and the Earth Island Institute environmental group notified the state they were filing their own suit in federal court to block the diversion because it would harm endangered species.
Early, relatively minor work is continuing on the project.