Atchafalaya Basinkeeper

Dean Wilson

Atchafalaya Basinkeeper 162 Croydon Ave  Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70806 United States of America 225-928-1329 225-922-9247 (fax) basinkeeper@aol.com http://www.basinkeeper.org

Region Gulf

Atchafalaya Basinkeeper is dedicated to protecting and restoring the environmental health of the Atchafalaya Basin for future generations. We do anything allowed by law to accomplish this goal, including enforcing our environmental laws, monitoring for violations, as well as education and outreach.

Recent Accomplishments

--Cypress Campaign- Basinkeeper challenged the legality of logging in deep cypress-tupelo swamps and used monitoring flights to gather the evidence needed to stop all cypress logging in coastal Louisiana. We monitored for illegal logging from air, ground and water and put most of the environmental groups in Louisiana under the same banner, creating the Save Our Cypress Coalition and managed stop the illegal logging. We also started a campaign to make sure that the main retailers live up to their environmental commitments and stop selling cypress mulch. As a result of our efforts, Wal-Mart has stopped selling cypress mulch harvested, bagged or manufactured in the state of Louisiana; Home Depot and Lowe’s have a boundary that protects most of coastal Louisiana from cypress logging. Today, all cypress logging in coastal Louisiana has stopped.
--Flat Lake & Bear Bayou- In 2006 Carrizo Oil applied for a permit to make a canal with spoil banks in Flat Lake & Bear Bayou (one of the last pristine areas of the Basin). Basinkeeper sent legal comments against the permit and threatened to litigate. Carrizo Oil withdrew the permit. This was the first time that an oil company was forced to withdraw a permit for a new canal in the Basin.  
--Lake Rycade- The person leasing the land dredged a big canal to drain Lake Rycade in violation of the Clean Water Act and the Rivers & Harbors Act. Basinkeeper, with members of the Louisiana Crawfish Producer’s Association-West, went to the site and collected evidence of the violations. As a result of the evidence presented to the Corps of Engineers, the lessee got a cease and desist order from the Corps and was forced to restore the area to its original state, including replanting trees.