NEW ORLEANS, July 24 (Reuters) - A Louisiana agency sued 97oil companies - including BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp, Chevron Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc - in state court on Wednesday for allegedly damaging hundreds ofmiles of sensitive wetlands by cutting through them withpipelines and transportation canals.
Governor Bobby Jindal quickly accused the agency ofoverreach and said the filing should be withdrawn.
The suit demands the oil industry pay for or remediateenvironmental damages stemming from decades of work thatallegedly caused erosion and hurt coastal wetlands - whichexperts say serve as critical buffers during floods and higherocean swells from hurricanes, like the 2005 Katrina disaster.
John Barry, the vice president of the Southeast LouisianaFlood Protection Authority - East, a state agency, saidcompanies' drilling permits required them to perform remediationwork that in most cases was never carried out after diggingcanals to reach drilling platforms.
Barry said the filing was also based on a federal law thatprohibits doing anything that hurts levees, and a Louisiana lawfrom the 1700s that prohibits one person from doing something onhis property that sends more water flowing onto someone else's.
"The authority takes its mission to protect the publicseriously," Barry told reporters. "Because of that, andrecognizing the controversial nature of what we are doing, wehave filed a lawsuit."
Jindal, a Republican, demanded the case be dropped and saidthe agency had overstepped its authority by hiring trial lawyersto file the suit, apparently without permission from him or thestate's attorney general.
"A better approach to helping restore Louisiana's coastincludes holding the Army Corps of Engineers accountable,pushing for more offshore revenue sharing and holding BPaccountable for the damage their spill is doing to our coast,"he said in a statement.
The state court filing, if allowed to proceed, could open upanother front of litigation against BP, which is still sloggingthrough a massive federal case brought by the U.S. JusticeDepartment and several states, including Louisiana, over the2010 explosion of the company's Macondo well and the resultingGulf of Mexico oil spill.
Officials at BP, Shell and Chevron were not immediatelyavailable for comment. Exxon Mobil declined immediate comment.
Legal experts said the federal and state drilling permitsreceived by the companies likely will be a key issue.
Because oil companies have been involved in drilling inLouisiana for decades, establishing that the companies areliable for damages "at this late date will require a new look"at the situation, said Edward Sherman, a Tulane University lawprofessor.
"They probably have an uphill battle, but it sounds likethey're being creative," he said.
Sherman, who cautioned he had not seen the complaint, addedthat the lead attorney for the agency, Gladstone Jones, hasbuilt a reputation for going against oil companies, particularlyin north Louisiana, in cases having to do with storage andwaste.
"He's been very effective," Sherman said of Jones.
