2016 lawsuit claiming contamination of Chicot Aquifer still pending

A five-year-old lawsuit alleging contamination of the Chicot Aquifer is still pending in Lafayette court.
Lawyers for several of the downtown property owners who filed the suit recently gave an update on the suit. The business owners’ property is adjacent to several old railroad yards located on the Evangeline Thruway near or in Downtown Lafayette.
The suit, filed in 2016, claims that several railroad companies either contaminated the ground or added to pre-existing contamination and have never cleaned it up. It also alleges that the “toxic soup” is threatening the Chicot Aquifer, the source of water for all of Acadiana, including Acadia Parish.
Environmental experts hired by the plaintiffs tested samples collected by state officials in their required environmental assessment for the extension of Interstate 49 through the heart of Lafayette and the results were not good news for the aquifer, according to attorney William Goodell.
“Contamination that we found exceeds DEQ’s regulatory threshold for safety, so it’s beyond what would be safe for the general public to have in their groundwater,” Goodell said.
The state Department of Environmental Quality, the department responsible for ensuring that Louisiana’s land and water are clean, has said they won’t comment on pending litigation. Attorneys for the railroad companies have been fighting the suit by claiming the suit is too vague to answer.
Goodell said he is filing an amended petition to include allegations related to this new information.