Tulane University and Louisiana State University will lead the Mississippi River Delta Transition Initiative – working with researchers from the National Academies’ Gulf Research Program, six HBCUs, four Southern universities and two Louisiana marine-focused nonprofits – to ‘navigate the challenges of sea-level rise, erosion and shifting river dynamics’

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.

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.