Infrastructure projects, elections, NERR site designation made news here in 2022

No news is good news, they say. And for St. Mary Parish, two of the big stories of 2022 were things that didn't happen.

After the deadly Delta outbreak late in 2021, there was no new COVID-19 surge in St. Mary as vaccinations and boosters became widely available and the COVID restrictions of 2020 and 2021 faded away. The most visible sign that life was returning to normal was the return of the Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival after two straight coronavirus cancellations.

After the devastating hurricanes of 2020 and 2021, the 2022 tropical weather season turned out to be a breeze, at least for Louisiana. Florida and the Carolinas weren't so lucky.
So much for things that didn't happen. Speaking in the active voice, the area saw the completion of important infrastructure projects, including the new Bayou Chene Flood Control Structure and the end of the long-delayed rehabilitation of the U.S. 90 bridge over Berwick Bay.

On the government scene, 2022 was a year of changes. Morgan City got a new police chief after Chief James F. Blair retired at the end of a three-decade career in law enforcement.

More changes are on the way. St. Mary Superintendent Dr. Teresa Bagwell announced that she won't seek an extension of her contract when it expires in June. Her successor will be chosen by a School Board in which five of 11 members will take office for the first time as a result of November's primary.

Sheriff Blaise Smith announced that he won't seek re-election. And three members of the five-member Patterson City Council will also be new in 2023 as a result of this year's elections.

More changes may be on the way in 2023, when St. Mary Parish Council and state legislative races are on the ballot. State Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin and chairman of the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee, is term-limited and won't seek re-election.

Sports provided plenty of chills and thrills. Berwick High's baseball team finished as the state runner-up in its division, while the football Panthers and Patterson High hosted state quarterfinals on the same November night. Central Catholic also reached the football quarterfinals, and the school's volleyball team made it to the Cajundome for the second straight year.

Here are some of the year's top stories.

COVID: Almost
back to normal

St. Mary entered the year having experienced the low point and the high point in the COVID pandemic in the second half of 2021.

The Delta variant was first detected in Louisiana in July 2021. Within two weeks, St. Mary was identified by the state Office of Public Health as being at "highest risk" for COVID's spread.

Between Aug. 1 and October, 74 St. Mary COVID fatalities were recorded.

But the Delta surge seemed to burn out quickly. By October, Gov. John Bel Edwards was ready to lift most mask and occupancy requirements, and the St. Mary Parish School
Board and the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux made masks optional at schools by the end of 2021.

The total number of COVD deaths in the parish reached 250 in spring 2022. By Wednesday, the number was at 283. Delta claimed more St. Mary lives in two months of 2021 than all COVID variants claimed in the last nine months of 2022.

The widespread availability of vaccines and frequently updated boosters helped stem the tide. As of Wednesday, more than 26,000 St. Mary people had at least started their vaccination series.

Dining at restaurants has become normal again. While masks are still recommended for vulnerable populations, they're no longer obiquitous.

But the virus can't be said to have been conquered, as we learn to our sorrow occasionally. One such occasion came in March, when longtime Patterson City Councilman John C.
Rentrop died from COVID-related complications. His wife, Dawn Rentrop, was appointed to fill his place on the council.

Hurricane season:
A welcome dud

The pre-June predictions sounded dire, especially after the frequent threats and occasional blackouts of 2020 and the devastation of Hurricane Ida in 2021.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast was typical: up to 21 named storms, up to 10 hurricanes and up to six storms of at least Category 3 strength.

What were the odds that all of them would miss Louisiana?

But we spent little time cone-watching during the June-November hurricane season and didn't get so much as a close call.

Our neighbors to the east didn't share our good fortune. Hurricane Ian was the biggest storm to hit the United States this year, coming ashore in Florida in late September with Category 4 winds of at least 136 mph. Ian killed 146 people in Florida alone, plus five more in North Carolina.

Meanwhile, Louisiana continues to rebuild after the hurricanes of 2020 and 2021. This month alone, three press releases from the office of U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Lafayette, announced a total of more than $30 million in recovery funding that had been approved by Congress.

Political changes

Local boards will have plenty of new faces in 2023.

Longtime St. Mary Parish School members Michael Taylor and Wayne Deslatte decided not to run for re-election, as did first-term incumbent Dwight Barbier.
Board President Kenneth Alfred lost his re-election bid to Lindsey Anslem, and Rhonda Dennis beat incumbent Roland Verret. Incumbent Ginger Griffin won her re-election bid.
Murphy Pontiff won the election for Deslatte's seat. Newcomer Andrew Mancuso qualified without opposition, as did incumbents Joseph Foulcard, Tammie Moore, Marilyn Lasalle and Alaina Black. Debra Jones continues to serve as an interim member until a March election. Jones was appointed to fill the post left vacant by the resignation of Pearl Black.

In Patterson, incumbent City Council members Joe Russo and Travis Darnell decided not to run for re-election, and interim appointment Dawn Rentrop steps down at the end of the year. Lee Condolle, now completing his first term, finds himself the senior member of the council. He and Ray Dewey Sr. qualfied without opposition, along with newcomers R. Demale Bowden, Mamie Soudelier Perry and Miranda Knott Weinbach.

Mayor Rodney Grogan and Police Chief Garrett Grogan qualified for re-election unopposed.

They and the council members will be sworn in at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Patterson Area Civic Center.

Any sentiment for change didn't affect the Berwick Town Council, where Mayor Duval Arthur was elected to a second term and council members Raymond Price, Colleen Askew, Lud Henry, Kevin Hebert and James Richard qualified without opposition for the five-member board.

Nor did voters go along with a proposed charter amendment on the Dec. 10 St. Mary ballot. The amendment would have allowed any Parish Council member to serve as council chair and vice chair. Currently, the charter restrictions those positions to members elected from the three at-large districts, where representatives are elected by parishwide votes.

The amendment failed by a 61%-39% margin.

The three federal officials representing St. Mary were re-elected by big margins, and St. Mary went along by voting to re-elect U.S. Sen. John Kennedy and U.S. Reps. Clay Higgins and Garret Graves, all Republicans.

Higgins represents the 3rd Congressional District, which covers most of St. Mary. This year's redistricting put a portion of eastern St. Mary into Graves' 6th District.

A NERR here

More than a year of promotion by the St. Mary Excel citizens group, plus public support by local governments, paid off in June when the governor nominated a Atchafalaya Basin site, still to be determined, for a National Estuarine Research Reserve.

The NERR -- pronounced "near" -- system is a network of reserves in U.S. coastal zones where fresh water meets salt water. Louisiana has been conspicuously absent from the list of states that host NERRs.

The network, overseen by NOAA and funded by the federal and state governments with a 70-30 split, is dedicated to research of and education about estuary ecology.
Edwards put Louisiana in the running for a NERR with a letter in 2019, the beginning of a lengthy review that identified six potential Louisiana sites, later winnowed to three.

The unique nature of the Basin and public support tipped the scales in the Atchafalaya's favor. The Basin features two deltas that are building wetlands at a time when most of Louisiana is battling coastal land loss. And the St. Mary region was the leaders in support for a local NERR, symbolized by blue pro-NERR T-shirts, feedback to NOAA and resolutions from local governments.

The shape the Atchafalaya NERR will take is up to plans negotiated by the federal and state governments. That and the permitting process is likely to take years.

But locals are hoping a NERR will put people in touch with the region's natural history, provide educational opportunities hundreds of thousands of K-12 students within a day's drive of the Basin, and generate economic benefits through tourism and employment.

“The addition of Atchafalaya Basin to the NERR System provides Louisiana the opportunity to tell our story at the national level of the unique and spectacular environment and culture that a delta estuary represents compared to other estuaries in the nation and around the world,” said Dr. Robert Twilley, chair of the Louisiana designation team.

A new chief

Following the retirement of seven-year Chief James F. Blair, Morgan City Mayor Lee Dragna appointed and the City Council confirmed the choice of Chad M. Adams as the new chief on Oct. 25.

Adams, first hired by the Morgan City Police Department in 1996, knew all about the MCPD. He had worked as a corrections officer, patrol officer, K-9 officer and in investigations.

Adams came in with the goal of re-establishing personal contact between officers and the public after the years of COVID restrictions. He has another task, too, a task outlined by Blair as he retired.

Blair told the council that starting pay in the department was $4 less than the average for departments from Franklin to Houma. Forty percent of the department's position had turned over in three years, an unsustainable rate.

The council voted for a $1-an-hour raise in the starting pay and vowed to look for more. That process continues.

Back to four
lanes at last

October's reopening of all four lanes of the U.S. 90 generated collective "about time!" in local social media posts.

The $12 million rehab project was supposed to replace structural metalwork along with sandblasting and repainting the bridge. But the work required reducing traffic on the bridge from two lanes to one in either direction. The job was expected to take less than two years, and the onramps in Berwick and at Morgan City's Federal Avenue were closed in September 2019.

But then came the delays. The work was halted or slowed by the threat of hurricanes, by the COVID pandemic and a shortage of paint.

Meanwhile, the reduced traffic flow created minor headaches during rush hours and major ones in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, when accidents blocked lanes on either the old or new bridges, and after a series of truck strucks on the height-limit beams guarding the old bridge.

At least three different expected completion dates were announced in the second half of the year before the October reopening of all four lanes.

On the upside, the new paint job is beautiful.

Drivers will get a short reprieve before the old bridge is closed in February for cleaning and painting and to accommodate any repairs on the bridge deck and surface, the superstructure above the deck, and the pilings and abutments below. That work is expected to cost $26 million and take at least 2-1/2 years.

The world of sports

Central Catholic entered the LHSAA Select Division IV playoffs as the second seed, but Eagle hopes were dashed in the quarterfinals with a 52-12 loss to Opelousas Catholic.

But Central Catholic still provided what was arguably the most thrilling moment of the season on Sept. 9. Trailing Abbeville 34-28 with 16 seconds left and a fourth and 10, quarterback Caleb O'Con heaved a desperation pass to the goal line.

Abbeville batted down the pass, but the ball floated into the arms of Eagle running back Damondrick Blackburn, who would go on to set school rushing and touchdown records.
Blackburn took a step into the end zone, and Channing Rivere's kick gave Central Catholic the 35-34 win.

On the other side of the river, Berwick and Patterson scored two playoff wins and would have clashed in the Non-Select Division III semifinals had they scored quarterfinal wins.

It didn't work that way. Patterson, behind the state-leading passing duo of Caylon Davis and Howard Kinchen, beat Port Allen 44-28 and Winnfield 36-12 before falling to eventual runner-up Union Parish 38-14.

Berwick, relying on Jayden Milton's rushing and Cru Bella's passing, beat Jewell Sumner 38-26 and Bogalusa 33-30 before falling to Amite 42-14 in the state quartefinals.

Berwick's baseball Panthers created some thrills of their own, tearing through the Non-Select Division III playoffs before falling to Lutcher 5-4, stranding a runner on third, in the state finals.

Players from the team were recognized by the School Board, and the school's baseball field was named for longtime coach and former BHS baseball player Lud Henry.

And, after reaching the quarterfinals in 2021, the Central Catholic volleyball team scored playoff wins over M.L. King Charter, St. Edmund and, in the quaterfinals in Lafayette, Ascension Catholic without losing a game.

In the semifinals, the Eagles fell 25-21, 25-11, 22-25, 25-15 to Westminster Catholic, which was defeated 3-2 by Metairie Park Country Day in the finals.

Bayou Chene

For years, high water in the Atchafalaya River meant back-flooding for Bayou Chene, threatening property in east St. Mary, lower St. Martin and portions of four other parishes in the region. And since 2015, Atchafalaya flooding has been a regular feature.

The frequently used and expensive remedy had been to sink a barge in Bayou Chene to block the flooding. What was needed was a permanent flood gate that could be deployed in hours rather than the days required to plan and execute the temporary.

But, despite pleas from lawmakers and other local officials, the permanent solution was delayed again and again.

Finally, in 2019, the word came down: $80 million in funding had been obtained through the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority for a permanent flood control structure.

In April, state and local officials marked the completion of the project with a ribbon-cutting on the gate at the center of the structure.

That gate is a barge, more than 400 feet wide, that can be swung into place across the bayou and filled with water to settle it into place. The major contractor was Sealevel Construction Inc. The barge was manufactured at Bollinger's Amelia facility.

The lead agency for the project was the St. Mary Parish Levee District, which also marked the completion of the Yokely Levee extension project in November.

The extension fills a gap in the levee system in the Franklin-Charenton area with removable flood walls that can be deployed in eight hours.

Those projects followed the 2021 completion of the Bayou Teche Flood Control Structure, another movable gate designed to block storm surge flooding from running up the Charenton Canal into the Teche.