Reggie Dupre, retired executive director of the Terrebonne Parish levee district and author of key legislation establishing the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, received the R. King Milling Distinguished Coastal Service Award on Wednesday.
The award, established in 2022, was presented to Dupre by the authority’s board of directors. Accepting it, Dupre described how he ended up organizing coastal legislation for former governors Mike Foster and Kathleen Babineaux Blanco in the late 1990s and 2000s.
It began with a letter to Governor-elect Foster in 1995, when he said the two most important issues facing the state were hurricane protection and coastal restoration.
Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority board chairman Gordy Dove, authority executive director Glenn Ledet Jr. and Reggie Dupre with the coastal service award. (Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority)▲
“Reggie, I have 144 letters on my desk and only one person responded to hurricane protection and restoration, so you will be my floor leader on coastal activities,” Dupre described Foster telling him.
Foster also introduced him to Milling, then president of Whitney National Bank and a lawyer advising Foster on coastal issues. Shortly thereafter, the first meeting of a new advisory board on coastal issues, the predecessor of the current Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation, took place in Houma.
Ten years later, after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Dupre said he had been discussing with then-Department of Natural Resources Secretary Scott Angelle how to move forward on shoreline consolidation and restoration projects then underway. at the DNR and the Department of Transportation and Development. Blanco called him, Angelle and then-DOTD Secretary Johnny Bradberry into his office.
At the beginning of the meeting, Blanco asked Angelle and Bradberry to leave while she spoke with Dupre.
“That day she told me something that I have never repeated, but that lets you know what kind of dedicated person Governor Blanco was,” Dupre said.
“You know that this hurricane was the worst we have seen, we have lost 1,500 lives,” Blanco said. “I may not survive this politically. He may be governor for only one term. However, we must do what is best for the people.”
She told him to move forward with the two bills he says are his legacy: one that merges parts of the DNR and DOTD into what was first the Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration, and later became the CPRA , and a constitutional amendment requiring extraterritorial federal revenue. of oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico will be placed in a new trust fund dedicated to coastal restoration and hurricane risk reduction projects.
The constitutional amendment was approved in a state election with a record 82% vote in favor.
R. King Milling, former chair of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation, congratulates Reggie Dupre on being named the second recipient of the coastal award named in Milling’s honor. (Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority)▲
In brief remarks before Dupre received the award, Milling praised him for having “done so much for all of us.” But he also issued a warning about potential threats to the state’s coastal programs, saying Louisianans need to “start screaming because we have some people in Baton Rouge who I don’t think have any idea what the hell this is about.”
“And that’s not good for us or anyone else,” said Milling, considered a pioneer in Louisiana’s coastal restoration efforts, particularly through his work raising awareness in the state’s business community.
Gov. Jeff Landry has created a commission to push for changes to the structure of the Department of Energy and Natural Resources and to determine whether the CPRA or some of its functions could be better integrated into the DENR.
The administration is also in negotiations with Plaquemines Parish officials over construction of the nearly $3 billion Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, whose construction was delayed from February until a week ago over the parish’s insistence that the state request a parish permit for its construction.
The parish, in a state lawsuit, contends that the project could increase the height of flooding within its levee system, which could threaten homeowners’ eligibility to participate in the National Flood Insurance Program, although FEMA has denied that the project represents such a risk.
Parish fishermen and oyster farmers oppose the diversion because its freshwater will make current oyster locations unsustainable, could stunt shrimp growth and disrupt other commercial fish catches.
During Wednesday’s meeting, CPRA Executive Director Glenn Ledet Jr. noted that an agreement with the parish has allowed initial work on the bypass to restart, including construction of temporary road relocations and a rail line and structure of entry for the detour, while negotiations are The parish permits continue.
Dupre was a member of the Terrebonne Parish Council from 1988 to 1996 and represented Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes in the House of Representatives from 1996 to 2001 and the Senate from 2001 to 2009.
He was also instrumental in the continued development of the 98-mile-long Morganza-to-Gulf hurricane levee system and has been overseeing more recent efforts to complete the project as its executive director in recent years.
Dupre is the second recipient of the Milling Award. Last year, the inaugural award was presented to Mark Wingate, who recently retired as deputy district engineer for programs and project management at the Army Corps of Engineers’ New Orleans district office.
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