LA Flood District's Suit Vs. 90+ Oil, Gas & Pipeline Firms For Long-Term Wetland Damage Dismissed

[hatrack]

(Reuters) - A federal judge in Louisiana threw out a lawsuit Friday against more than 90 oil, gas and pipeline companies accused of collectively damaging the state's coastline, according to court records.

The suit was filed in 2013 by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, accused the companies of destroying the state's fragile wetlands that protect the greater New Orleans area from catastrophic flooding, such as that which occurs during hurricanes.

The suit says the companies cut at least 10,000 miles of oil and gas canals and pipelines through Louisiana coastal lands and asks that they repair the damaged environmental buffer zone. "The product of this network is an ecosystem so seriously diseased that its complete demise is inevitable if no action is taken," the lawsuit said.

The board operates and maintains the system of levees, floodgates, seawalls and jetties that protect property and about a million residents in and around New Orleans. Some 97 defendants in the suit included BP Plc , Exxon Mobil Corp, Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc. U.S. District Judge Nannette Jolivette Brown, in a 49-page ruling, dismissed the lawsuit Friday evening.

EDIT

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/14/us-usa-louisiana-wetlandslawsuit-idUSKBN0LI03G20150214?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews

[pscot]

1. Brown is an Obama appointee

For what that's worth.