Atchafalaya Basin Coalition Letter To John Bel Edwards

Atchafalaya Basin Coalition

December 18, 2020

Governor John Bel Edwards

Office of the Governor

P.O. Box 94004

Baton Rouge, LA 70804

Dear Governor Edwards:

The Atchafalaya Basin Coalition (The Coalition) is a newly formed coalition of fishermen and environmental groups with the common purpose of protecting Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin swamps, lakes, and waterways for generations to come[1]. We write to express our excitement over your executive order creating the Atchafalaya River Basin Restoration and Enhancement (ARBRE) Task Force to address long-standing issues in the basin and raise public awareness of the critical nature of these concerns. We agree that the Basin’s stressors are not only harming water quality and the environment but also threatening the capacity of the basin to carry floodwaters from the Mississippi and Red Rivers safely and effectively.

The Executive Order requires that members of the Task Force include:

● Two representatives of landowners in the Atchafalaya River Basin;

● Two representatives of conservation organizations participating in policy or projects relating to conservation of the Atchafalaya River Basin

We would request that members of the coalition be considered to represent the conservation perspective. Each of the environmental NGOs that are members of the Atchafalaya Basin Coalition has more than a decade of experience participating in policy or projects relating to conservation of the Atchafalaya River Basin. The Atchafalaya Basinkeeper was founded in 2004 with a mission to protect and restore the swamps, lakes, rivers, streams, and bayous of the Atchafalaya Basin for the future generation

We understand that in the normal course, the Nature Conservancy would be considered to fill one of the conservation organization positions. However, in this instance, the Nature Conservancy owns land in the basin. Moreover, the description of Nature Conservancy’s Atchafalaya Basin Initiative, contained on their website, specifically states that they work to develop a decision-making process that fully engages stakeholders in designing the future Atchafalaya and places landowner vision at the forefront. Accordingly, for this Task Force, we believe it would be more appropriate for the Nature Conservancy to be appointed to represent landowners in the Atchafalaya River Basin, allowing another conservation organization focused on conservation and protection of the Basin’s fish and wildlife to be appointed to the Task Force.

The Executive Order also requires a representative from the commercial fishing industry in the East Basin and one representative from the commercial fishing industry in the West Basin. Crawfishing is a major commercial fishery in the Basin and representatives of that industry have a substantial interest in the protection and conservation of the Basin’s resources. We would request, therefore, that a representative of the Crawfish industry be appointed to one of these positions on the Task Force, specifically a representative from the Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association West.

Again we wish to express our thanks for creating this much needed Task Force to elevate critical issues facing the Atchafalaya River Basin.

Sincerely,

The members of the Atchafalaya Basin Coalition

Dean Wilson

Atchafalaya Basinkeeper

Cynthia Sarthou

Healthy Gulf

Jody Meche

Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association West

Woody Martin

Delta Chapter, Sierra Club

[1] The current members of the coalition include Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association West, Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Sierra Club, and Healthy Gulf