Baja St. Martin

I drove to Pensacola, Fla., last week in the worst rain storm I have ever had the bad luck to experience in a car. It wasn’t bad when I left Belle River but at the Sunshine Bridge the deluge began. As I sat in a huge line of traffic waiting to cross the bridge, which, as you likely know, is reduced to two lanes now, the rain pounded down in blinding sheets. Once on the bridge, it was worse with the traffic creeping forward, and every few feet an absolute waterfall poured down from the construction cover. I have a standard shift vehicle and I was steadily praying that I wouldn’t stall in the bumper-to-bumper lane. I guess even if my car had died, I would have been pushed by those behind. There was nowhere else to go!
On the interstate, things weren’t any better. Traffic was moving about 35 mph, and everyone had on their emergency flashers. It was truly hard to see a vehicle ahead – just a faint glow of red taillights! Conditions improved past New Orleans and then worsened periodically all the way to Mobile.
Upon my arrival at my daughter’s home, I told her it was a good thing I loved her so much, because otherwise I’d not have made this trip. The rest of the time, things were great. My daughter, son-in-law and I went for a long kayak paddle in Tarkiln Bay, did some shopping, found a really great Farmer’s Market in Foley, Ala., visited a neat place called Bamboo for You where I found the staghorn fern I’d been looking for!
You may have heard by now that the St. Martin Parish Council met on June 3 at which time attorney Chester Cedar presented a resolution to the council saying the parish would not give FAS the zoning variance it requested. I was unable to attend the meeting, but heard that Mr. Cedar stated many reasons for the denial and that the resolution would be sent to certain agencies most particularly the Department of Natural Resources which is currently studying the application for a variance submitted by FAS to them.
(Oh, by the way, on the night before the council met, all the FAS objection signs we had put in our yards here were stolen. This is the second time.)
So the issue is basically settled although I understand that it is theoretically possible for the DNR to say yes to the FAS request, thereby overriding the parish decision. I’m not at all sure how that could be legal, since I would think the parish should be the final arbiter, but who knows what might happen.
Since we are told that the DNR has yet to study the FAS request and that it might take as much as a month or two for them to do so, we, the residents over here will beef up our calling campaign, trying to make sure as many people as possible know what the situation is and urging them to support the parish resolution. If you are one of these supporters, please call or write your congressman, the DNR, the Atchafalaya Basin Levee Board people, anyone you can think of who might have some influence or who just might be affected by all this or who should at least know about it.
In truth, the rezoning request by this company doesn’t affect just those of us on Hwy. 997. It could lead to more such requests from the fracking business in the north, to companies looking for places to dump hospital wastes, to other dump sites and these might not be just here. They might be in Stephensville or in the Atchafalaya Basin itself or on the west levee or along Bayou Teche .
If nothing else, we here hope you all do not want Louisiana to become the dumping ground for the country. This rezoning request might be the toe-in-the-door beginning. Let everyone know we don’t want this kind of thing in our parish or in our state.

Teche News’ Lower St. Martin correspondent, Linda Cooke, can be e-mailed at lcooke9417@bellsouth.net.