Federal Magistrate To Oversee Wisner Donation Demand That BP Clean Oil From Its South Lafourche Parish Land

According to the July 3, 2014, NOLA.com article by Mark Schleifstein:

“Allegations that BP Exploration & Production Inc. has stopped cleaning up oil contamination on Edward Wisner Donation property along the Caminada headland and Elmer’s island in southern Lafourche Parish will be overseen by a federal magistrate judge in New Orleans, according to a ruling issue in federal court earlier this week. 

The ruling on Tuesday (July 3) by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier allows both sides to begin collecting evidence and taking depositions involving the dispute, and urges the two sides to allolw Magistrate Judge Joseph Wilkinson, Jr. to oversee a trial in the dispute.  Barbier oversees the majority of civil lawsuits filed against BP in the aftermath of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The Edward Wisner Donation is a trust controlled by the city of New Orleans that owns 35,000 acres in southern Lafourche Parish along the Gulf, including the property on which Port Fourchon is built, one of the busiest offshore oil ports on the Gulf.  Wisner’s property also contains a variety of oil well leases and other oil production facilities.

In 2013, the trust earned about $8 million.  Historically, the city has spilt the revenue with Tulane University, Charity Hospital, the Salvation Army, and Wisner descendants.  The city has used its share to provide grants for non-profit organizations and more recently to underwrite the city’s NOLA for Life crime fighting program.

A complaint filed by Wisner on Tuesday charges that BP halted its cleanup of donation land in May.  Wisner is represented by the Herman, Herman and Katz law firm, whose lawyers are leaders of the Plaintiffs Steering Committee in the civil claims settlement with BP.”

To read the entirety of this story go to:  http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/07/federal_magistrate_to_oversee.html#incart_river_default