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Dr. Robert Twilley speaks to local officials at last week's meeting on the development of a NERR site.

St. Mary Excel Photo

Local enthusiasm, education opportunities helped land NERR nomination

When the time came to pick a site for Louisiana’s first National Estuarine Research Reserve, public enthusiasm — symbolized locally by blue LANERR T-shirts —grabbed attention for the Atchafalaya Basin.

So did lots and lots of schools, and the prospects for educating youngsters about the magic place where the river meets the sea.

That’s the word from St. Mary Excel President Catherine Holcomb, who took part in a meeting last week on the next steps in developing what is known as a NERR in the Basin, nominated to be the state’s first NERR site.

“Public participation was very important,” Holcomb said Monday. “I don’t think they could justify it just on public participation.”

But more than 800 K-12 schools and proximity to at least five universities also tipped the balance toward the Basin, where the reserve could mean millions in new spending and scores of jobs.

Gov. John Bel Edwards nominated the Basin as the NERR site July 13.

National Estuarine Research Reserves, about 30 of them, dot the Atlantic, Gulf and Pacific coasts and the Great Lakes. The program is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in cooperation with individual states.

NOAA provides 70% of the operational funding, with the states picking up the rest. Existing state land rules continue to apply in NERR sites, which offer educational and tourism opportunities.

Six possible Louisiana sites were originally identified, stretching from the Calcasieu to Barataria. The list was narrowed to three: the Basin, Pontchartrain and Barataria. Edwards chose the Basin.

NOAA must still approve a Basin site. A meeting last week with Dr. Robert Twilley, former executive director of Louisiana Sea Grant, brought together Mayors Lee Dragna of Morgan City and Duval Arthur of Berwick, Parish Presi-dent David Hanagriff, state Sen. Bret Allain and Holcomb. The focus was on the next steps in the development of the local NERR.

Louisiana Sea Grant guided the applications from the three potential sites. Twilley, an LSU professor in the university’s Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, has performed his own research on the evolution of the Wax Lake Delta. NASA is also researching that delta, one of the few places on Louisiana’s coast that is gaining land rather than watching it erode away.

Learning more about the Basin seems to be a popular pursuit here.

St. Mary Excel says 415 people took part in informational meetings in the Atchafalaya area, 130 in person and the rest online. A total of 385 attended the Pontchartrain and Barataria meetings combined, in person or online.

At this spring’s Rotary New Generation event in Morgan City, where parish high schools presented their ideas for civic improvements, Berwick High made the Louisiana NERR their cause and started a social media campaign.

Despite the enthusiasm, the Basin got its lowest marks for education/training, St. Mary Excel member Monica Mancuso said. Holcomb said the election officials seemed to think Morgan City was too isolated to allow for easy access.

Supporters had numbers to overcome that objection, identifying 860 schools with more than 456,000 students near the Basin.

A survey of 464 Morgan City High students showed that only 232 students knew Morgan City was part of the Basin.

About 2.2 million people live within 75 miles of the Basin, and 3.3 million live within 100 miles.

Morgan City is also within an easy drive of UL Lafayette, Nicholls State, LSU, the University of New Orleans and Tulane.

Education “was the key,” Holcomb said, “and the fact that we could draw people from all over the state.”

On June 29, Allain, R-Franklin, told a St. Mary Chamber luncheon that the development of a NERR in the Basin could result in $20 million-$50 million in investment and 60-130 jobs.

“This is huge, guys,” Allain said. “This is absolutely huge.”

ST. MARY NOW

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