Five years before five members of a Baton Rouge-area groundwater commission were charged with conflict-of-interest violations, an attorney for the commission warned of exactly the problem that led to the charges, commission records show.
In mid-2015, former Assistant Attorney General Megan K. Terrell, then the groundwater commission s legal advisor, concluded that state ethics law could bar commissioners from drawing a salary from the big groundwater users they were supposed to regulate, like Baton Rouge Water and ExxonMobil.
The 18-member Capital Area Ground Water Conservation Commission manages the Southern Hills aquifer, the drinking water source for nearly 600,000 people in the Baton Rouge area. The aquifer also supplies industries, farms, cattle ranches and others.