New coastal post for Carlton Dufrechou

in People Issues by Admin — August 26, 2009 at 1:54 pm | 0 comments

 

On Monday August 24 Cindy Chang announced in the Times-Picayune blog nola.com  that Carlton Dufrechou, my long term coastal colleague-in-arms, would be stepping down as executive director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation (LPBF)* to take over from the retiring Robert Lambert as the general manager of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. My immediate thought on reading the announcement was, “Why?”

On July 27 Carlton Dufrechou gave what few if any listeners knew would be his legacy address at the biennial State of the Pontchartrain Basin luncheon in New Orleans. During his impassioned and very personal speech he summarized his philosophical evolution from a civil engineer with a narrow focus on improving water quality in Lake Pontchartrain to someone who has become fatally infected by coastal holism.

Carlton acknowledged that his 1992 goal as new LPBF director was to clean up the lake, e.g., to allow swimming along the south shore. His 2009 vision includes restoring all of southeast Louisiana from the Mississippi River to the Pearl River and from Baton Rouge to the Gulf of Mexico. 

With obvious pride he described being a part of the modest LPBF team that garnered sufficient political influence to turn a degraded Lake Pontchartrain into a healthier estuary than it was in the eighties, e.g., as evidenced by clear water and record tarpon landings. On the other hand Carlton tempered this success story by his candid recognition that restoring and maintaining a viable, sustainable landscape around the lake is a far greater challenge than reducing the E. coli count to a swimmable level at Pontchartrain Beach.

Carlton’s energy, honesty and passion came through his words on July 27th, and he received an enthusiastic standing ovation. I started to add the word optimism to that list of descriptors but I’m not sure that he’s quite as optimistic as he once was. During my drive home I thought how we need an LPBF-like non-profit  from the Mississippi River to Freshwater Bayou and a third to the Sabine River, each headed by a “Carlton clone.”

New Orleans’ Homeboy Dufrechou joined the LPBF as their second director the same year (1992) that I was appointed to be Gov. Edwards’ coastal advisor. Since then we have worked together and have been allies on many coastal issues.

Without question, the top two issues both involved his former employer, the Corps of Engineers. He and I engaged in prolonged and bloody battles with the corps over two hot-button projects: the authorized but not constructed Bonnet Carre diversion project (BC); and the long completed and disastrous Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO). We (and others) fought to block (or modify) BC and to shut down MRGO. The former effort remains unresolved; the latter ended successfully when the channel was recently closed.

Carlton Dufrechou and I aren’t out of the same mold, however. He’s an engineer by training, highly organized, articulate, extremely polite, politically savvy and impeccably dressed. I’m none of those.

Since Carlton became LPBF director the Bonnet Carre control structure has been opened twice, in 1997 and 2008. In both cases huge volumes of river water and sediment have been released directly into Lake Pontchartrain. Dufrechou and I have never totally agreed on the consequences of these episodes. He sees the short term harm and I see the long term benefits.

Anyhow, now what’s up for Carlton?

He describes stepping down from LPBF as the second most important decision he’s ever made. I didn’t ask but I assume that the first involved proposing to his lovely wife Lynn. Since Katrina, Carlton says that he has declined several lucrative offers that would have necessitated relocating. He also says that he didn’t seek the new position and postponed a final decision until the MRGO closure became a reality. Apparently he extracted a promise from his new employers to be able to stay involved in coastal issues and the LPBF.

Thus, my sense is that Carlton is taking the new position not with financial considerations in mind but in order to allow someone else to savor the spotlight that he has enjoyed for 17 years and 2 months. He has lost none of his trademark enthusiasm but acknowledges wondering whether he’s peaked and whether new leadership could reinvigorate the organization of which he is so proud. He speaks very warmly of the small LPBF staff and says he hopes that his replacement is appointed from within the “family.” He justifiably brags about the role of the LPBF in promoting and sponsoring state-of-the-art restoration science. On the subject of science, Carlton noted the significance of the loss of Dr. Shea Penland, the UNO geology professor who died prematurely in March, 2008.

In terms of the huge restoration challenges that Dufrechou recognizes, he reports losing patience with platitudes and empty rhetoric, especially  at the state level. He particularly gripes about what he sees as a pattern of avoidance of hard decisions with political overtones.

Carlton says that his successor is due to be announced by the Pontchartrain Commission on September 17.

I congratulate him for his tireless and effective service, wish him the very best in his new position and promise never to use our friendship to try to void causeway speeding tickets.

Carlton thinks very broadly so perhaps he can discover an opportunity to connect the north-south transportation function of the Pontchartrain Causeway as an element of coastal restoration. If nothing else, the 24 mile drive offers a huge opportunity to inform travelers of the importance of the estuary they are crossing. 

Len Bahr

*A position once held by former “Roemerista” Steve Cochran, now with Environmental Defense in DC.