The combination of fog and thick smoke may return this weekend, as a peat fire in remote New Orleans East swamp burns underground. Unlike the fire in Lafitte, which is actively being battled by firefighting crews, the Orleans blaze is largely unchecked. But it’s now watered by two pumps from the Sewerage & Water Board pouring the equivalent of two Olympic-size pools a day into the marsh.
Posted inCriminal Justice
‘Another step backwards’: $9.5 million private security contract for Louisiana youth prisons raises eyebrows
OJJ pays $75 per hour to staffing company for guards. Critics say that contractor seems to be “enriching themselves on the backs of Louisiana’s teenagers and taxpayers’
Posted inBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens episode 217: ‘Wetlands may be severed from that historic protection’
A new judicial interpretation of the Clean Water Act leaves more than half of the country’s 118 million acres of wetlands unprotected, including the swamps of Acadiana and key waterfowl habitat.
Posted inOpinion
Revolutionary History: Lost and Found, and Lost Again
How the Desire Street “Panther mural,” painted in 1970 to chronicle Black history for residents of the Desire housing development, met its end.
Posted inEnvironment
Louisiana’s inland, non-tidal wetlands are most at risk to lose protections from weakened Clean Water Act
As the Clean Water Act turns 51 today, environmental advocates scramble to understand a new judicial interpretation that leaves more than half of the country’s 118 million acres of wetlands unprotected, including the swamps of Acadiana and key waterfowl habitat.
Posted inCriminal Justice
‘No Phase III’ still a battlecry
Even as construction begins, the fight continues. Within the jail, monitors find, conditions are worse, due to the same old chronic issues: short staffing, violence, and shoddy mental-healthcare.
Posted inEnvironment
Federal review finds grain terminal would harm historic sites in climate-vulnerable St. John Parish
Several historic sites would suffer “adverse effects” from construction of gigantic Greenfield Grain Terminal, says review of rural St. John the Baptist Parish – which was recently placed at the top spot of a nationwide list of places vulnerable to climate risks.
Posted inOpinion
School-facilities millage up for a vote on Saturday
“This is about honoring our commitment to educating our children in safe and modern spaces,” Dr. Williams writes. “Learning spaces matter, and they can help scholars excel academically.”
Posted inBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens episode 216: ‘It’s torturous’
This week on Behind The Lens, Calvin Cains died in police custody in June and his mother sought body camera footage from on-scene officers through a lawsuit. Those recordings, she hopes, can show her sons final moments, before he was killed by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Posted inOpinion
Wise grid expansion could provide reliable power and give consumers cost savings — if allowed by regulators.
An updated, well-connected power grid is critical to shielding New Orleans — and the rest of the state — from the worst financial and life-threatening impacts of record-high temperatures and flooding.