Representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals held a public meeting at the Buras Auditorium July 13 to discuss their ongoing efforts to monitor air and water quality in Plaquemines Parish in response to the BP oil spill. Overall, the report regarding air and water quality was positive, [...]
Empire’s ‘Vessel of No Opportunity’ gets its chance to work for BP The sign was easy to spot from Highway 23 in Empire. Painted on the side of an ice chest on the deck of an imposing 70-foot-long schooner named “Perfection,” the sign, in red and black letters, read “Vessel of No Opportunity.” The Perfection’s [...]
By the time Plaquemines Parish Council Chairman Don Beshel gaveled the council’s July 8 meeting to a mid-afternoon close, the council had, with little fanfare, affected significant change on the makeup of the parish’s legal team. In two votes, the council impacted three of the parish’s attorneys – terminating one, promoting another, and placing a [...]
Last Monday, Audrey Mudge and her neighbors on G Street in Belle Chasse were enjoying a pleasant weekday afternoon – working in the yard, visiting with passersby, enjoying the outdoors from the patio. And then, around 3:30 that afternoon, the neighbors on G Street were confronted face-to-face with one of the grim realities of the [...]
Anyone driving on Highway 23 through Boothville can’t miss it. In just a month, some 32-acres of vegetation-filled, undeveloped land has been transformed into BP’s new “Venice Responders Village,” an almost-all-inclusive camp for workers aiding in the oil spill cleanup. For residents, restauranteurs, and hotel operators in southern Plaquemines Parish, the Responders Village, from the [...]
A dead-in-the-water effort to issue $18 million of revenue bonds to finance improvements to the non-federal levee between Braithwaite and White Ditch on the Eastbank of Plaquemines may have found new life through a resolution passed at the Plaquemines Parish Council’s June 24 meeting. But the financial implications of the bond proposal and the resolution’s [...]
Parish President Billy Nungesser joined other state and local elected officials June 23 to fire back at the federal government for halting the cutter dredge California from building oil-blocking sand berms near the Chandeleur Islands. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, at the behest of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the Department [...]
Plaquemines Parish officials & business leaders gathered in Baton Rouge last Tuesday for the annual Plaquemines Parish Day at the state legislature. The event allows [...]
B.C. townhouse project moves one step closer to reality A large tract of land along Highway 23 in Belle Chasse moved a step closer toward being developed into townhouses June 16, thanks to a narrow 5-4 vote by the Plaquemines Parish Development Board to grant a zoning change from R-1 (residential) to RM-2 (multi-family residential). [...]
Coast Guard temporarily sidelines vacuum barges amid safety concerns U.S. Coast Guard officials approached a group of vacuum barges June 16 that were removing oil near Barataria Bay on the Westbank of Plaquemines, and ordered the vessels back to dock, citing safety concerns and improper certification documents. The vacuum barges sat inactive until the next [...]
