ARCH plan offers ways to make St. Mary stronger

Local officials are urging St. Mary residents to get behind an effort to make the parish better able to withstand natural disasters, social and economic changes, and more.
At a meeting Wednesday at Morgan City Municipal Auditorium, more than 60 people heard about the newly released strategic plan for the Atchafalaya River Coastal Hub.
The hub is described as a one-stop source of information residents and businesses need as well as a generator of pilot projects designed to make the region more resilient.
You can download a .pdf version of the strategic plan at http://bit.ly/4p1KZh2.
The St. Mary Excel citizens group is the force behind development of the plan, but 32 other entities, including local governments and businesses, have signed on.
The idea for ARCH, as the effort is called, grew out of a few words in the 2018 Urban Land Institute study commissioned by St. Mary Excel to examine economic opportunities in Morgan City and Berwick
Supporters are looking for public commitment with hopes that widespread backing will be as useful as when the region was seeking designation as a federal National Estuarine Research Reserve, a process that is in its final steps.
Brian Roberts, chief scientist for the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, is guiding the Atchafalaya NERR site through the final stages of federal approval. He told the crowd that when the Atchafalaya Basin was one of six sites under consideration for Louisiana’s first NERR, a public meeting in Morgan City drew more than the combined attendance at meetings at the other sites.
“The buy-in from this community is why it will succeed moving forward,” Roberts said.
The NERR isn’t directly connected to the ARCH concept, although there are hopes the two will work as partners.
Mike Brocato, operations manager for the St. Mary Levee District, noted that the talks leading up to creation of the master plan focused on what local people want from ARCH.
“Why shouldn’t it be St. Mary Parish?” Brocato asked. “Why shouldn’t it be the Atchafalaya River?”
The next steps are to form a nonprofit organization and to seek funding for an executive director and staff. Officials spoke of housing ARCH somewhere on the riverfront.
The pilot projects under consideration focus on infrastructure resilience, economic resilience and ecosystem resilience.
Infrastructure projects include examining ways to strengthen the electrical grid and make beneficial use of sediment dredged from local waterways.
The economic resilience category includes looking for ways to nurture riverfront businesses, researching subsidence and creating storm-resistant housing.
The ecosystem projects include examining environmental protections that can benefit the ecology and the economy, investigating the decline in recreational fishing in the lower Atchafalaya and exploring ways to expand aquaculture in inland fisheries.
The speakers at Wednesday’s meeting included Roberts; Brocato; Beau Jones and Abby Littman of the Water Institute, which guided the strategic planning process; St. Mary Chamber President Beth Chiasson; Bill Bourgeois, counsel for Hospital Service District No. 2; St. Mary Economic Development Director Evan Boudreaux; and Catherine Holcomb of St. Mary Excel.
The meeting also featured some steps toward ARCH’s goals.
Berwick Mayor Duval Arthur talked about his disappointment after learning about the 2020 Census, in which the town was found to have fewer than 5,000 residents.
“It made us start working,” Arthur said.
To answer the common complaint that there’s nothing for people to do, the town began planning a major expansion of sporting fields at the Berwick Civic Center. The town is now seeking funding.
In Morgan City, there are plans to build storm-resistant homes. Mayor Lee Dragna has offered to invest his own money into two units.