Caleb Sumrall of New Iberia is in 81st place in the AOY standings going into the next Bassmaster Elite tournament in August on Lake St. Clair in Michigan. BASSMASTER

It’s reassuring and encouraging to learn that elected officials of St. Martin Parish filed an amicus brief to support a lawsuit against a planned U.S. Army Corps of Engineers river diversion project in the Atchafalaya Basin, the jewel of Acadiana.

St. Martin Parish Council members took the action at last week’s meeting when they voted for the legal document that makes the council a non-party to the case, providing additional information, perspectives or arguments to help the court in making its decision. They joined Iberville Parish, which filed its own amicus brief on March 5.

The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s proposed project was given a permit by the Corps in December 2023. It calls for diverting water from the Atchafalaya River and Bayou Sorrel via 12 cuts, then into a 5,000-acre area.

That plan didn’t sit well with the Atchafalaya Basinkeeper, Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association-West, Healthy Gulf, Sierra Club and its Delta Chapter, and the Waterkeeper Alliance, which sued in May 2024 to challenge the Corps’ permitting. The suit states: “The loss of flood carrying capacity will be irreversible. There will be no second chance to reverse this damage once begun.”

St. Martin, Iberville and Assumption parishes passed resolutions against the project.

St. Martin Parish President Pete Delcambre said the Parish Council opposes the project because it could fill the nation’s last great overflow swamp with sediment. The unwanted result would be detrimental to commercial fishermen who make their living between the levees and recreational fishermen and other outdoors enthusiasts who enjoy the Basin, Delcambre said.

“For flooding purposes, they’re filling up the retention pond. It’s going to have diverse and very catastrophic results to both this area and possibly Baton Rouge and New Orleans.”

Conservationists and fishermen, both commercial and recreational, believe the project would bring more sand, silt, pesticides and fertilizer into the interior of the swamp causing algal blooms, depleting oxygen levels in the water and snuffing out aquatic growth.

We have seen disastrous results from two previous Corps projects, as noted in this column two weeks ago.  Both were in our backyard, so to speak, first Buffalo Cove and then Beau Bayou.

What happened to Buffalo Cove is the most tragic of them all because the huge, beautiful cove became a silt-laden bottomland hardwoods leaving just a narrow channel leading to Grevemberg.

It’s good to hear Delcambre say the project should be assessed carefully before final decisions are made.

“These are very vital governmental agencies. We just think we need to take a good look at what’s going on right now and catch our breath and make sure that whatever we’re going to be doing in the future is advantageous to the Basin and to the people of St. Martin Parish and the surrounding parishes,” he said.

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Caleb Sumrall’s 77th-place finish in the recent 2025 Lowrance Bassmaster Elite tournament at Lake Tenkiller in Oklahoma left the New Iberian in a precarious position to qualify for the next Bassmaster Classic.

Sumrall found himself in 81st in the Angler of the Year standings following the seventh tournament of 2025. His 286 points are far behind the projected cut line where Tennessean Hunter Shyrock and Bryan Schimdt of Deale, Md., currently share 40th with 410 points. At the Lake Tenkiller tournament held June 12-15, Sumrall missed the cut to fish on Semifinal Saturday. The all-around outdoorsman weighed five bass for 11 pounds, 1 ounce, on Day 1 to leave him in 73rd place going into Day 2. He closed out with another limit weighing 11-14 for a two-day total of 22 pounds, 15 ounces, a little less than 2 pounds away from the Top 50 and a chance to fish Day 3. Three of Louisiana’s four Elites made the halfway cut at Lake Tenkiller.  Logan Latuso of Gonzalez, who was 33rd after the first two days with 26-01 made the most of the Semifinal Saturday opportunity by qualifying for Championship Sunday and finishing ninth with a four-day total of 54 pounds. Veteran Elite Greg Hackney, also of Gonzales, also fished into the weekend after grabbing the 13th spot on Day 2 with 13-3 pounds for a two-day total of 28-5.  The personable pro bass angler wound up in 16th with a three-day total of 41-1 pounds, narrowly missing a berth in the Top 10. Tyler Rivet of Raceland bowed out after three days and 38-1 pounds. He was able to fish Semifinal Saturday after catching a 13-pound sack on Day 2 that left him 18th with 27 pounds, 6 ounces. Louisiana native Dakota Ebare of Brookeland, Texas, also notched his second Semifinal Saturday appearance in his first season as an Elite. He was 33rd (tied with Latuso) going into Day 3 with 26-1 pounds. He finished 17th with 40-14 pounds. There are two chances left on the schedule to get into the 2026 Bassmaster Classic on the Tennessee River’s Fort Loudoun and Tellico lakes out of Knoxville. The Elites have more than a month off before their tournament Aug. 7-10 at Lake St. Clair in Macomb County, Michigan. The regular-season finale is Aug. 21-24 on the Mississippi River out of LaCrosse, Wis. Ebare, Rivet, Latuso and Hackney are ahead of Sumrall in the AOY race but below the magic line of 40th. Ebare is the closest to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic with 372 points (50th), followed by Rivet, 362 points (57th), Latuso, 358 points (64th), and Hackney, 333 points (70th). We wish them all good luck and good fortune down the stretch.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.