Harlan Kirgan
Without fanfare, the St. Landry Parish Council staked out a new path for development when it approved three ordinances to govern waste disposal in the parish.
The ordinances are in response to a proposed wastewater injection well site near the St. Landry Parish Solid Waste Landfill at Beggs.
The site is in Harold Taylor’s sixth district that includes north St. Landry Parish.
“This is the beginning of a comprehensive look at land use in this parish,” Taylor said.
Parish President Bill Fontenot said the state Department of Natural Resources has not decided on a permit for the well that is to be used to dispose of fracking waste from oil and natural gas drilling.
Fontenot doubted whether the parish ordinances would block the site if the state aproves the site permit.
But Taylor said the ordinances are the tools to be used to stop the development.
“If they approve then the company has to get the petition from the residents,” he said.
Many residents near the site have turned up at public meetings to oppose the well.
The new ordinances also require approval by the Parish Council.
“We will definitely turn it down,” Tayor said.
Next, the site cannot be within one mile of the Chicot Aquifer. Taylor said it is eight-tenths of a mile from the aquifer.
The ordinances follow Eagle Oil LLC seeking a permit from the state Department of Natural Resources for a well.
Taylor noted the Parish Council faced another land use issue about three years ago when an addiction treatment center sought to locate a facility in a rural residential area near Sunset and Grand Coteau. The facility did locate there because there was parish law to forbid it.
Andrew Jacoby, one of the environmental attorneys writing the parish ordinances, said in February that if the state approves the permit before the Parish Council acts, that could prove “dicey.”
The approval at Wednesday’s meeting comes before a state decision.