NEWS

Acadiana People: Schoeffler loves the outdoor life

Bill Decker
Louisiana

The Boy Scouts taught Harold Schoeffler how to navigate.

"Once we learned map and compass," Schoeffler recalled, "we would go on canoeing and camping trips that would go from one end of Louisiana to the other."

Politics wasn't on the path he mapped out for his life. But whenever environmental issues work their way into a piece of proposed legislation or a City-Parish Council meeting, chances are that Schoeffler, president of the local Sierra Club, will have something public to say about it.

"You're dealing with public policy, so it inevitably leads to the politicians' door," Schoeffler said.

Schoeffler's love for Louisiana's environment has been leading him to politicians' doors for more than 40 years. Sometimes, his approach is from a direction observers wouldn't expect.

Raised in Lafayette, Schoeffler said he inherited his love for the outdoors from his father, who took his four sons hunting and fishing often. He bought the family a canoe for $48 in the late 1940s. Schoeffler still has it, and recently had it restored.

"He loved hunting and fishing, and he certainly brought his four sons into that arena," Schoeffler said.

The Scouts indulged Schoeffler's love for the outdoors even more. His troop, active in camping, went in for long canoe trips and exploring the Atchafalaya Basin.

"Once we learned map and compass in Scouting, the world was ours," Schoeffler said. "We couldn't drive, but we could rent a boat, or paddle a boat."

He became the outdoors editor for the Cathedral High School student newspaper and a member of the Hub City Rod and Gun Club. After college, during his hitch in the Air Force, he became chairman of the Robbins Rod and Gun Club, the largest in Georgia and active in water quality and wildlife issues.

After the Air Force, he returned to Lafayette and became active in the Sierra Club. This was the middle 1960s, when the environment was beginning to make itself felt as a political issue.

One source of environmental concern at the time, as it is now, was the Vermilion River. In the 1970s, Schoeffler said, an oil sheen could be seen on the river. He said the oil industry got the blame, and fingers were pointed at the nearby Bosco and Anse La Butte oil fields. But Schoeffler said the sheen didn't appear north of Lafayette, where it would be expected if the oil fields were the villains.

"It started at Lafayette," Schoeffler said. "We got to wondering about filling stations, what they did with waste oil."

A little investigating told him that Lafayette had 54 service stations. Only two recycled their oil, and one of Schoeffler's family, which owned an auto dealership here. Much of the rest went into the storm sewers and into the river.

That turned out to be a lot of oil, Schoeffler said, an average of 1,000 gallons a week per station. Some produced much more waste oil.

A recycling company was brought in to make a pitch: The company would provide a collection tank and pay 30 cents a gallon. But only two more stations began to recycle.

Schoeffler found a Lafayette law prohibiting the dumping of oil into storm sewers. The fire marshal agreed that the law applied, and soon filling stations were being inspected. And the sheen on the Vermilion went away.

Another environmental problem centered on the river in 1979. Here, memories begin to diverge.

According to Schoeffler, waterborne diseases, including a few dozen cholera and hepatitis cases, began to appear and were linked to the river. The '70s were a time of rapid growth in Lafayette, and the feeling was that the city's sewage treatment capacity wasn't keeping pace. Environmental Protection Agency officials in Dallas were no help.

Schoeffler gives then-Mayor Dud Lastrapes credit for decisive action once he was presented with figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Schoeffler said Lastrapes went to the City Council and made a convincing case for a big sewer fee hike to fund system improvements. One result was the sewage treatment plant near the river at Ambassador Caffery Parkway.

In an interview, Lastrapes said he doesn't remember the specific disease problems that led to the request for a sewer fee hike. He deferred to Schoeffler's memory.

Terry Huval, director of the Lafayette Utilities System, wasn't with the city-owned utility at the time. But he said his research showed no direct link between disease outbreaks and the decision to build the Ambassador Caffery plant. Huval believes the plant was built to accommodate Lafayette's growth.

The Journal of Diarrhoeal Disease Research of March 1999 refers to 11 Louisiana Gulf Coast cholera cases related to the mishandling of seafood in 1978, but doesn't get more specific.

Another big environmental issue of a different kind arose around the push to upgrade U.S. Route 90 into Interstate 49 South between I-10 and New Orleans. The most controversial and most expensive part of the plan is the Connector, the portion of the highway between I-10 and Lafayette Regional Airport. Highway officials have designated the current Evangeline Thruway as the route for an elevated highway.

But some people have criticized the plan because they believe it will create a dead zone under the highway and that it will encroach on the historic Sterling Grove neighborhood. Some of them have pushed for a route that swings around to the east, into undeveloped property that, to the layman, appears to be environmentally sensitive.

Schoeffler the environmentalist is among those who favors the eastern route, and joined in a lawsuit by a citizens group hoping to block the use of the Evangeline Thruway route. To Schoeffler, it's a question of cost. The $1 billion for the Connector plan is too expensive. And because federal money is necessary to do the work, and federal money is unlikely to go toward a controversial project, the lawsuit was a way to demonstrate controversy.

Looking ahead, Schoeffler believes water quality will continue to be a huge issue. That includes coastal restoration, the subject of a new state plan with a $50 billion estimated cost and the health of the Atchafalaya Basin.

And while the Vermilion River's condition has improved, "it's got a long way to go. We need to continue to make those improvements (in problems) that still affect health in a negative way and affect the ability of youngsters to enjoy those systems that are a treasure to our area."

Reach Bill Decker at 337-289-6327, bdecker@theadvertiser.com or @BillDeckerTDA.