Behind The Lens episode 251: ‘Quite traumatizing’

Nick Chrastil on the use of mace and pepper spray now allowed in juvenile detention facilities. Terry L. Jones on community air monitoring and Delaney Dryfoos on campaigns to call attention to Venture Global's air quality violations.
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This week on Behind The Lens, in one of its first moves since taking over licensing and oversight from the Department of Children and Family Services, the state Office of Juvenile Justice has authorized the use of mace and pepper spray in local juvenile detention facilities.

Venture Global, the large LNG plant in Plaquemines Parish has been the target of a series of prankster attacks designed to call attention to the company’s repeated violations of air-quality permits, its displacement of Plaquemines Parish residents, and the pressure it placed on federal regulators to build Calcasieu Pass 2, a project that will produce the equivalent emissions of more than 50 coal-fired power plants.

And in a story about strange bedfellows, a bulk liquid storage facility in southeast Louisiana and a local environmental group announced a partnership that will create a neighborhood air quality monitoring system in the region known as cancer alley.

Our guests this week are Lens reporters Nick Chrastil, Delaney Dryfoos and Floodlight reporter Terry L. Jones. 

Theme music by Podington Bear. Additional music Mont Blanc by Podington Bear soundofpicture.com. 

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Carolyne Heldman

Carolyne Heldman has been in media for 35 years, most recently as Executive Director at an NPR member station in Colorado where she was responsible for new multi-platform content initiatives, strategic planning, research, branding, and non-traditional revenue generation. During her tenure she also created and launched four weekly news, public affairs and cultural affairs programs and monthly live Town Hall broadcasts. Heldman moved to New Orleans last summer with her husband and canine companion and they live happily in The Marigny.