The Vanishing of a Dream
The story of a magnificent Louisiana wetlands
destroyed by greedy corporations disguised as conservationists

True conservationists seek help
as their beloved alligators are killed

By Judith Pennington

Wetland areas – and the wildlife that live in them – should have been on the endangered list for the past few centuries. Sadly, conservations have watched helplessly as timber cutters, land developers, and now, ruthless corporations posing as federal mitigation banks wiped out our most ancient and holy heritage: the land and wildlife that awaken us to joy and our roles as stewards of the earth.

A full-throttle environmental battle is now underway in what's left of an ancient cypress-tupelo swamp just southeast of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Politicians and corporate mitigation bank owners banded together in Iberville Parish, west of Baton Rouge, and succeeded in emptying the 13,000-acre Spanish Lake Basin as if it were nothing more than a toilet. When they flushed out the water, some fish swam out through a 1950s floodgate into Bayou Manchac and the larger Lake Pontchartrain Basin that empties into the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans.

With the lakes and bayous drained, countless numbers of fish died and were eaten by vultures and alligators. Without fish to eat, nesting bald eagles and some 285 species of birds flew away. Green herons, snowy white egrets, ibis, roseate spoonbills and flocks of migratory birds, seeing only dry land where a thriving ecosystem had been, circled over Cypress Flats, an ancient cypress-tupelo swamp, and passed it by.

The mitigation banks and the parish officials who backed them won the first battle: They have converted a primeval swamp and generations-old bird rookery into a dry forest. But now they face condemnation for the senseless murder of alligators now climbing out of the basin in search of food and deeper, cooler waters. And while these unconscionable people should face criminal charges, they won't care about public condemnation, nor the 30 alligators that have already been run over or shot.

They won't care, because, according to state officials, the three mitigation banks behind the draining of the bayou and basin have applied for 30 alligator tags. They plan to hunt and kill the alligators they deliberately displaced.

Public Sentiment Ignored

It's been a veritable holocaust at Alligator Bayou over the past three months. The water is gone and so is a popular, award-winning ecotour, Alligator Bayou Tours, which has educated hundreds of thousands of people about the beauty and value of the swamp over the past 15 years.

Public sentiment is soundly in favor of Alligator Bayou Tours and its nonprofit conservation arm, Bluff Swamp Wildlife Refuge. Some 82 percent of area citizens are in favor of closing the floodgate and allowing rainwater to refill the basin and restore the ecosystem, according to a poll conducted by WAFB-TV. Besides public support, on June 1, the Ascension Parish Drainage Board voted unanimously to close the floodgate and allow water to refill Alligator Bayou to a four-foot level. Elevation studies show that at 4-foot levels, water is off the vast majority of the thousands of acres of land owned by the three corporate mitigation banks. Four-foot water levels lap just below Cypress Flats, one of the lowest points in the basin.

Iberville Parish President Mitch Ourso refused the unanimous resolution of Ascension Parish to close the floodgate and restore 4-foot water levels in Alligator Bayou. But now, as predicted by Frank Bonifay and Jim Ragland, owners of Alligator Bayou Tours and founders of Bluff Swamp Wildlife Refuge, the worst of this ecological disaster is underway: The heat of summer and an extended drought are forcing the alligators to search for food and water on neighboring properties.

Concerned about the fate of the alligators, Ragland has been checking with local nuisance hunters. "They took away the habitat of these gators and now, when they look for another place to live, they are being killed," Ragland said angrily. "We put back the namesake of Alligator Bayou and now the alligators are being destroyed.”

Ragland and Bonifay have spent the past 15 years restoring the basin's hydrology and replenishing its wildlife, especially the alligators, which were shot out by poachers over the decades, but were so plentiful centuries ago that naturalist William Bartram said you could walk across the 66-foot-wide bayou on the backs of alligators. If you dared.

Bonifay and Ragland do dare. They know the gators by name: Knot-Nose, One-Eye, Stubby, and so on. Some came when Ragland called them. But not anymore. These gators are now among the murdered.

Their loss is personal and catastrophic. It's about a way of life and a dream of nature. Everything they have done for the past 15 years, for the sake of wildlife and people, has been destroyed.

A Dream of Nature

For Frank Bonifay, the notion of preserving Alligator Bayou and the basin literally came out of a dream. Early one morning in 1993, he woke up from a disturbing nightmare in which his neighbors sold their ancestral lands to timber cutters. The nightmare turned out to be true. The old-growth cypress giants in Bluff Swamp, many of them 2,000 years old and up to 36 feet in circumference, would be cut down and ground into cypress mulch.

Inspired and awed by these huge, ancient trees, Frank and Jim set out on a mission to save them and found their life work. Blocking timber cutters from the road into the swamp, they asked their neighbors to sell the land to them instead. It was complicated. While liquidating their land, holdings and retirement funds earned through their high-rise roofing and construction business, the conservationists negotiated with the EPA, Corps of Engineers and other state and national offices to relieve Ascension Parish, their local government, of millions of dollars in wetland penalties. In return, Ascension Parish promised to enhance the hydrology in Bluff Swamp.

Bonifay and Ragland bought some 1,500 acres in the basin and placed 901 of them in the national non-profit, Bluff Swamp Wildlife Refuge. The clear-cutters beat them to the 60-acre entrance to the basin, but they bought it anyway and spent the next 10 years cleaning it up.

By 1997, the land deal was done, and in place with the EPA and Corps of Engineers was a hydrologic enhancement plan calling for the parish to install larger locks and drain the bayous, or at the very least install three large pipes to drain Bluff Swamp into Alligator Bayou. One day in 1997, now broke and wondering what to do next, the business partners were driving along the winding bayou roads of South Louisiana. Bonifay turned to admire a white, steepled church and saw behind it a rusty barge outfitted for swamp tours. They bought the boat and dragged it 70 miles across narrow, rickety bridges to Alligator Bayou, where they refurbished it with the enthusiastic help of their families and friends.

Excitedly, they realized that the eco-swamp tour would produce needed income for restoring the basin and educating visitors about the value of this ancestral wetlands. Their excitement grew as Frank studied centuries-old maps and realized that Pierre LeMoyne, Sieur d'Iberville, Louisiana's most famous explorer, spent the night of March 25, 1699, on the banks of Alligator Bayou, admired the beautiful trees, and realized that Bayou Manchac was the backwater shortcut between the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans and the port built on the bluffs of Baton Rouge.

Few people recognized the importance of this historical landmark, but Bonifay did, and on the boat tour, he and Ragland taught local people about their own history. In 1999, they wrote an educator's guide that traced the ancient history of the basin, its geology, hydrology, ecological value and its environmental challenges. School children from across Louisiana and neighboring states came here to learn about their Native American, French, Spanish, Germany, English, Scot, Canary Island, Cajun, Creole and African-American ancestors, who had settled these lands and fished its waters for generations.

Alligator Bayou Tours shared the music, dances, food and history of these cultures during their cruise into Cypress Flats and as people disembarked at a landing to walk down the levee and peer in wonder at the giant bald cypress trees, some of which are 1,800 years old and up 36 feet in circumference. The swamp tour was a smash hit, and so were the animals of the swamp, as Ragland, a playful comedian, brought a young nutria out of a cage in the back of the boat, fed it a lollipop and let people pat it. Everyone loved the year-old alligator, Gucci, and the smooth feel of its belly. Even the non-poisonous snakes held up by Bonifay were admired by visitors.

As people laughed and pet the animals, admired the huge, magnificent trees, and photographed the beautiful egrets, herons and cormorants fishing from Cypress Flats, you could see them relax and soften. From the very old to the very young, people changed in these two hours. They boarded the Alligator Queen as strangers and disembarked as jovial friends.

Through the years, Bonifay and Ragland drew the attention of reporters from Europe, Canada and the U.S., even the CBS Early Show. With great pride in their cultural history and the beauty of the ecosystem, they made heroes of the people of Louisiana.

Their popularity did not go unnoticed. In 1998, the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program at LSU gave them its Louisiana Rural Tourism Success Award. In 1999, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network gave them its Scott Welch Award. In 2003, the Coalition to Restore Louisiana presented them with the Coastal Stewardship Award.

Bonifay has recently been appointed to the Governor's Coastal Restoration Finance Board, but no public official has been willing to stand up for Alligator Bayou Tours, the basin's ecosystem, and its wildlife. Their hopes and dreams dashed on the sharp rocks of public powerlessness and harsh political realities, their 15-year labor of love for Louisiana has just been hit with its own Katrina.

But instead of drowning in floodwaters, Bonifay and Ragland have been left high and dry.

The Well Goes Dry

There's an old blues song with this famous hook, "You don't miss your water, 'til the well goes dry." This won't be the case for the 9-foot-tall invasive sawgrass bushes spreading across the empty bayous, lakes and swamps in the Spanish Lake Basin. The sawgrass is glad the water has gone away. Four-foot water levels would have deterred their spread, but today, they are rapidly taking over and will soon clog all of the bayous and swamps in the basin. Bonifay and Ragland predict the result will be worsened drainage problems, conceivably along the order of a Louisiana Bhopal.

Bonifay, watching the effects of climate change since the late 1980s, has repeatedly petition Ascension Parish to install larger, more efficient locks at Alligator Bayou and Frog Bayou and to dredge these sedimented, debris-filled drainage canals. In 1998, Iberville Parish asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a drainage study on the basin, and its own study recommended larger locks and a red-flag warning about the potential for devastating floods, due to the slow drainage of water out of the small, inefficient floodgate.

Still threatened by the Corps and EPA with millions of dollars in wetlands penalties for not following through on its 1995 agreement to enhance the hydrology of Bluff Swamp, the parish used Bonifay's drawings to install three culverts to help with drainage, and at one point set aside monies for the locks and dredging. But the money vanished, and the work was not done.

The emptying of the basin by Iberville and Ascension parishes – without even a courtesy call to Alligator Bayou Tours, a major tourist attraction operating in its busiest time of year – reeked of ill intent. The rich corporate mitigation banks want to increase the value of their land and co-opted Iberville Parish politicians to drain the bayou and basin without regard to the ecosystem and its wildlife, much less Alligator Bayou Tours. Their PR machine set out to polarize the public and confuse the media by claiming that high waters were being held for the benefit of "Bonifay's boat." They suggested that Bonifay buy smaller boats, despite the obvious fact that not even a canoe can ply an empty basin.

Blaming Bonifay for high water levels is disingenuous, since Alligator Bayou Tours has never controlled the operation of the floodgate and has consistently petitioned for the water level to be lowered. The mitigation banks' smoke-and-mirrors distortion of the issues and the elevations of homes and hardwoods in the basin paralyzed the public and confused the media to the point of inaction. The result was an ecological disaster, worsened today by the murder of the alligators climbing out of the basin, as Ragland and Bonifay warned would happen.

What has surprised them most is the lack of interest on the part of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries, which is charged with the protection of the now-dead fish and wildlife. "The environment is adjusting," was Wildlife & Fisheries' answer to the news media. In fact, while bushes and grass are growing on Cypress Flats and in Bluff Swamp, the wildlife is not adjusting at all. The fish, birds, and reptiles and amphibians have vanished. There is no longer any life in the basin, except for the vultures feeding on the remains of dead animals.

Nor will conservations and ecosystems find any remedy in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, whose new mitigation philosophy is self-sustaining environments. According to James Barlow, director of mitigation for the Corps, whatever happens to the Spanish Lake Basin – and any wetlands – is acceptable. New ecosystems will spring up, and when these are impacted, the new result will be acceptable, too. Barlow said that even if the existing ecosystem, bird rookery, wildlife and Bonifay's ecotourism business are destroyed, the basin will survive in some form and nature will start over again. Ce sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be.

With the Alligator Queen now sitting in the mud, the astonished conservationists are shocked and stunned. They felt like giving up until their dreams turned into their worst nightmare with the murder of the innocent alligators. Now, only a popular uprising can pressure the politicians to let the bayou fill back up enough to return water levels of 3.8 to 4.2 feet to restore the cypress-tupelo swamp on Cypress Flats. But even this is not likely, since Louisiana is known for its indifference and corruption.

Worst of all, to Jim and Frank, is the killing of their gators, who, like all animals, are their children.

Only prayer, money and public activism can save this wilderness paradise now. Learn more about this Louisiana environmental holocaust by visiting www.alligatorbayou.com. Listen to the mating calls of the alligators, and watch the video. See the photographs and look into the hearts of Bonifay and Ragland.

If you are touched by what you see, stand up and be counted. Donate to help them with attorneys fees, send letters to the governor and president, make signs and stage a protest. What has happened here, can happen anywhere. And it might be in your own backyard next.


Writer Judith Pennington grew up fishing the waters of Bayou Manchac. If you too can contribute your time, talent or treasure to helping save Alligator Bayou and the Spanish Lake Basin, please contact Jim and Frank through alligatorbayou.com, where you will find photographs, stories and video of this amazing wetland wilderness. Or write judy@eaglelife.com.