Though they once applauded the jail’s ambitious, federally overseen reforms, community groups and political leaders in New Orleans united in opposition to a key mandate stemming from those efforts: the construction of a $109 million mental health jail.
In the same week, a judge again barred the parish from making the Greenfield Property industrial. And parish-council critic Joy Banner filed a First Amendment lawsuit.
Banner planned to ask the council why they were retaining a lawyer to defend its president from personal ethical concerns. But she was interrupted by the council chairman, who cited an invalidated statute and warned her that, if she spoke, she could face criminal prosecution.
Though there is still room for mitigation, the cycle of flooding and drought will become more extreme.
Fifty years after the historic 1973 flood, land is still forming in the Wax Lake and Atchafalaya River deltas. It’s held in place by the roots of coastal trees, which protect from flooding and hurricane winds and store carbon dioxide.
As St. John, the nation’s most climate-vulnerable place, opens the state’s seventh Community Lighthouse, other struggling communities try to fight LNG export terminals and open community solar projects.
