A tale of two basins

Recently, Ascension Parish honored Swamp People television star Troy Landry for promoting an iconic image of the Cajun swamp man around the world. The Assumption Parish native was lauded in the council chambers, proclaimed an honorary sheriff and citizen of Ascension. To top it all off, Ascension President Tommy Martinez declared June 17th as Troy Landry Day and presented the Atchafalaya Basin hunter with plaques and a key to the city. After surviving two seasons on reality TV, Landry was hailed a hero.

Certainly, Landry and the other trappers featured on the popular History Channel series perform a needed service by preventing the overpopulation of Louisiana’s largest and most dangerous predator. But, these days, Ascension clearly values individuals who “choot” wildlife much more than those who conserve it.

Just a week before Landry’s celebration, District Judge Thomas J. Kliebert Jr. ruled against the owners of Alligator Bayou Tours.

In the 1990s, Frank Bonifay and Jim Ragland bought 1,500 acres in the Spanish Lake Basin to prevent the clear-cutting of an old growth cypress forest in Bluff Swamp. Nestled next to a municipal floodgate that remained closed for 42 years and kept water levels high enough to float a pontoon, Alligator Bayou Tours provided swamp boat excursions complemented by exhibits featuring live snapping turtles, 14-foot alligators and bobcats.

Besides developing an internationally renowned eco-swamp boat tour and educational program for local schools including a curriculum developed with the Lake Ponchartrain Basin Foundation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Ragland and Bonifay created a 901-acre, national, non-profit organization and the area’s first federally approved wetland mitigation bank.

The existing environment lent itself to the development of a rookery and a sanctuary for abandoned bobcats and nuisance alligators relocated by the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Besides contributing to parish and state coffers with tax revenue, the eco-friendly business also promoted Cajun culture, wildlife conservation and education.

Over the years, Ragland and Bonifay fended off threats from an interstate extension plan, E. coli outbreak from prison sewerage, a hazardous waste recycling facility and an airport. However, in 2009, adjacent landowners pressured Iberville and Ascension Parish leaders to order the opening of the Alligator Bayou floodgate. The consortium asserted the closed lock caused year-round flooding, which made their acreage ineligible for a federal mitigation bank program.

A few weeks after the lock opened, the bayou’s water level dropped below 18 inches. So, the Alligator Queen tour boat was grounded, and the seasonal flow of buses filled with children and tourists slowed to a trickle.

Despite appeals to local and state government officials (who later enthusiastically greeted Landry in the governor’s mansion and legislature), Bonifay and Ragland’s requests for intervention fell on deaf ears. They closed the business in 2010, which had literally dried up along with the bayou.

Later, Bonifay and Ragland filed a lawsuit on the basis of “inverse condemnation,” a provision that allows individuals to seek payment for private land expropriated for government use. Since the owners had constitutionally protected right to operate a business on their land, they equated the closing of the floodgate to private, commercial property being accessioned by the state. Explaining their business did not have a protected, private right to the public waterway, Judge Kliebert ruled the owners were not entitled to compensation from Iberville and Ascension parishes.

When floodgate opened, no one could have predicted the enormous interest Swamp People would generate Louisiana wetlands. It could have been a “tree shaker,” a moneymaker in a depressed economy. For the 13 years Alligator Bayou tours operated, the economic ripple effects of Cajun-craze tourism trends reached Baton Rouge restaurants, hotels and businesses.

Now, Ascension officials can fete a homegrown TV star, but they can’t capitalize on swamp celebrity anymore.

Early in the battle over Alligator Bayou, the landowner coalition’s wetland consultant charged the closed floodgate created an artificial ecosystem, likening it to a “bathtub full of alligators.” The expert asserted that leaving the gate open would encourage a more diverse animal population, similar to that described by the 17th-century explorer D’Iberville. The consortium even talked about building a visitors center, walking trails and observation stations. But those things have yet to materialize.

In a recent promo, Swamp People trapper Bruce Mitchell cruises the swamp and pondering: “One word to describe the swamp? Heaven.” It’s sad tourists and locals now have to go to Tangipahoa Parish to experience it.

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