Louisiana government swamp purchase from politically-connected owners on hold

Photo caption: This portion of Bayou Chevreuil in St. James Parish leads to 2,000 acres of swampland the state may buy from a group that includes the former speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives. Photo courtesy Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator.

A controversial government purchase of south Louisiana swampland from politically-connected landowners is on hold after an official questioned how much money the state was planning to pay for the site.

Louisiana Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne requested a second appraisal for the parcel after an initial assessment put its value at $3,500 per acre. The first estimate assumed the land would be used as an environmental mitigation bank by industrial companies, which likely drove up its value, Dardenne said.

“Obviously, we need an appraisal based in reality,” Dardenne said. “You can’t appraise something based on what it might be.”

Last year, Gov. John Bel Edwards and Louisiana lawmakers approved a state budget plan that set aside $9 million for the purchase of 2,000 acres of swampland in St. James and Lafourche parishes. Former Louisiana House Speaker and Public Service Commissioner Charlie DeWitt, D-Alexandria owns the land with five other people, four of whom are major state political donors.

Budget documents also laid out unusual instructions for the sale. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries was expected to buy the swamp and then transfer its ownership to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

But the purchase can’t happen until at least next month, after the second appraisal is due to the wildlife agency. Though $9 million had been set aside for the property – the equivalent of $4,200 per acre – the state is required by law to only pay a fair market price for land. The restriction could mean the payment ends up being much lower than originally estimated.

“We conducted our due diligence for the property,” said Cole Garrett, the lead attorney for Wildlife and Fisheries.

This isn’t the first time state funding would be used to purchase parts of this swamp. St. James Parish has used $12 million of state construction money to buy a series of surrounding parcels from the same ownership group since 2007.

In the most recent purchases — the ones that have taken place since 2013 — St. James government paid $4,200 per acre for the property, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the state is obligated to do the same.

UL Lafayette also hasn’t come up with a concrete plan for how the swamp will be used yet, despite millions of public dollars being on the line. The university is considering the site for a carbon capture project, but those details haven’t been hammered out, said Ramesh Kolluru, vice president for research, innovation and economic development at the school.

“The acquisition of the land hasn’t happened so we haven’t done much finalizing of thought or crystalizing what would happen,” Kolluru said.

Turning the swamp into an environmental mitigation bank for industry could still be on the table, Kolluru said. Under those circumstances, UL Lafayette may lease the land to industrial users who use it for carbon removal to offset another polluting project they have. Companies might also purchase the land from the university in order to restore it and make up for environmental damage elsewhere.

It’s unclear how successful such a venture would be. The current owners have already tried to market the property as a mitigation bank. It’s listed as a “turnkey mitigation option” on the website of Ecosystem Renewal, a company owned by Daniel Moran, one of the landowners.

Moran declined to comment on the land purchase when reached by phone Friday. DeWitt did not answer recent calls made to his cellphone, but last year he said one of the swamp’s other owners, Jeff Richardson, was handling the deal’s logistics with the state.

Richardson, an Alexandria businessman and political donor to Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser, also hasn’t returned phone calls and emails, but another state project connected to him is also receiving scrutiny.

He is part of a separate business group — one that doesn’t include the other swampland owners — who pushed for last year’s state budget to include $3 million for a new drug treatment facility in Lafayette, according to reporting by The Advocate. Legislators inserted the funding, in spite of state health officials never asking for the money.

One of Richardson’s partners in the proposed rehab facility, Leonard Franques, has also been implicated in the same bribery scheme that led to the quick resignation of former Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Jack Montoucet, according to The Advocate, though Montoucet and Franques have not been charged with a crime.

Richardson also hasn’t been implicated in that scandal at all, which allegedly involves steering hunters and boaters caught violating Louisiana law into specific pre-trial diversion programs, including one owned by Franques.

In an interview this month, Dardenne said he had no reason to believe the proposed swamp purchase had anything to do with the bribery scheme that allegedly took place during Montoucet’s time at the wildlife and fisheries department.

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