Census Bureau estimate: St. Mary population is down

The U.S. Census Bureau’s latest population estimates say St. Mary Parish was shrinking even before oil prices began their steep dive last summer.
The estimates, released last week and based on calculations made in mid-2014, are that St. Mary’s population slipped to 53,162.
That’s down 2.7 percent from the official 2010 Census figure of 54,650.
The Census Bureau makes population estimates for municipalities, counties and states each year between the official census head-counts, which occur every 10 years. The 2014 estimates of city populations haven’t been released yet.
St. Mary’s population actually grew a little from 2011 to 2012, the estimates say. But then the parish lost about 400 people in the year ending last summer.
The news might seem discouraging in a decade when the energy industry, an important staple of the St. Mary manufacturing and service economies, has radically increased production by hydraulic fracturing and improved deep-water techniques. But officials say the estimates tend to undercount St. Mary, where large numbers of people may move in and out based on the health of the oil and gas industry.
St. Mary’s population was 57,989 in 1990 before dropping to 53,256 in 2000 and rising again to 54,577.
Statewide, Louisiana’s population has been growing, but much more slowly than is true for the nation as a whole. One result is that Louisiana has lost two of the eight U.S. House of Representative seats that belonged to the state in 1990. That also means Louisiana has lost two electoral votes in presidential elections.
The slow growth remains a demographic fact in Louisiana. Only 28 of the state’s 64 parishes showed any population growth at all, according to the new estimates.
The fastest-growing parishes are St. Bernard (24 percent) and Orleans (12 percent), where the population remains below pre-Katrina levels; Baton Rouge and its suburbs; Ascension (9 percent), Livingston (6 percent), Bossier (7 percent) and Lafayette (6 percent).
Only nine parishes lost a larger percentage of their populations than St. Mary, according to the estimates. They are Tensas, -8 percent; St. Helena, St. John the Baptist, Red River and Claiborne, -5 percent; Morehouse, Winn and East Carroll, -4 percent; and Bienville, -3 percent.