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.
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."
The state court filing appeared to open up another front oflitigation against BP, which is still slogging through a massivefederal case brought by the U.S. Justice Department and severalstates, including Louisiana, over the 2010 explosion of thecompany's Macondo well and the resulting Gulf of Mexico oilspill.
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.
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