Earned Media
Letters: Mid-Barataria project, long term, would have helped fishing industry
I read with disappointment that the Plaquemines Parish council had voted against the Mid-Barataria sediment diversion project.
Which is not to say that it is ever easy to put aside short-term interests in favor of uncertain future benefits, but the fact is that the council’s action is not in the best interests of the local fishing industry, because if nothing is done, there will be no Louisiana coastal marsh by the end of the century.
Diversions like this are in a sense only a drop in the bucket but offer what little chance we have of saving some of the lower third of the state. The qualification is, of course, that if a global commitment is not made to control the warming of the planet, these efforts will have turned out to be in vain.
Gulf Coast Oil Workers Are Building America’s Offshore Wind Industry - Drilled News
Rep. Orgeron didn’t start out considering the engineering difficulties of renewable energy. He grew up in the bayous of Louisiana, the homebase for his family’s business of offshore oilfield service vessels. When the oil work started to dry up, he realized that offshore wind could help his family’s company, Montco Offshore Inc, stay afloat.
“I was fully enamored by offshore wind,” he said. “They’ll need offshore energy production expertise to do those buildouts. The people of South Louisiana would be prime to facilitate that.”
Montco was one of several Louisiana-based companies that helped build the first U.S. offshore wind farm, off the coast of Rhode Island. But exporting Louisiana knowledge gleaned from offshore drilling was just the first step. Next, Orgeron wants to see wind farms built in the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana’s governor supports the idea. Gov. John Bel Edwards asked the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to develop a plan for renewable energy production in the Gulf.
News
What are the downsides to Louisiana's wetland rebuilding plan?
The U.S. State of Louisiana is spending over 1 billion dollars to pump water from the Mississippi River through Louisiana's wetlands in order to help rebuild regions flooded by saltwater. Sean Calebs spoke to fishing boat captain George Ricks on the danger this plan poses to the state's saltwater fishing.
Experts say renewable energy poses opportunity, not a threat, to Louisiana
Louisiana congressional delegation expressed outrage about Biden’s decision. Sen. John Kennedy, a Republican, said the changes would be “devastating to Louisiana,” and Sen. Bill Cassidy, called Biden’s use of the term “Cancer Alley” a “slam upon our state.” Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is leading a lawsuit against Biden’s moratorium on oil and gas leases.
But local economic and environmental experts say it’s time for Louisiana to join the global shift to renewable energy, both to ease coastal erosion and to offset the economic and job losses that now seem inevitable. The state ranks 38th in the country in renewable energy production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Experts warn that if Louisiana continues to move more slowly than other states, it could lose business and jobs to the others.
Dr. John Pardue, an environmental engineer and professor at Louisiana State University, said energy states like Texas and Oklahoma, have been developing their renewable industries for two decades, and Biden’s orders will cut further into the demand for Louisiana’s oil and gas.
Opposition grows to the state’s coastal restoration plan
Nungesser believes the state’s Coastal Protection Restoration Authority also known as CPRA needs to be more forthcoming when it comes to the potential impacts of the project. Tuesday afternoon, Nungesser outlined his concerns before the St. Bernard Parish Council.
Meanwhile, CPRA claims they weren’t invited to the public meeting.
Council Member at Large Kerri Callais said, “We want to build up our coast, but not at the sacrifice of our livelihoods, our economies, tourism and the identities of both of our parishes.”
St. Bernard Parish council votes against Barataria diversion project
“People don’t come here for cypress trees and bullfrogs,” Councilwoman Kerri Callais told WDSU moments before the resolution passed. “They come here for shrimp. They come here for oysters.”
Nathaniel Rich: Writing About Climate Change, Facing Our Uncertain Future
You moved to New Orleans in 2010, a year before I did. When you moved here, did you realize that climate change and the story of our challenged ecology would be an increasingly big part of your focus? NR: Any thinking person who lives in southern Louisiana—or anyone who buys insurance here—is on intimate terms with the perils of climate change and environmental degradation. Though the region, and New Orleans in particular, is often imagined as haunted by its past, in this regard those of us living here already inhabit the future. The Coastal Master Plan, the world’s largest climate change mitigation project—the subject of the longest story in Second Nature—is a good example. We are already having difficult conversations about how to redesign our coast and how to accommodate those who will suffer from our doing so. The rest of the country will soon find itself in similar debates, but in New Orleans we’ve been doing it for years. For better and worse, we’re on the vanguard when it comes to ecological damage and its proposed remedies.