first buffer zone committee meeting

more than just fillin' up
A St Bernard Parish Planning Commissioner Chairman, whose business has contracts with the Meraux refinery, commented at the first Buffer Zone Committee meeting about the new administration's fillin' lots relocation programs to reduce the parishes footprint of redevelopment and how our neighborhood would have to face it: we would be treated as if this were a natural disaster and be part of this relocation program.

Residents in higher flood risk areas that also have a low return of residents would be offered fillin' lots as relocation to another area with lower flood risk and higher return. Fillin' lots are the LLT or LRA ( Louisiana Land Trust    and Louisiana Road Home Authority ) residential properties sold to the state through Federal Grant programs after Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. LLT properties will be offered for sale first through the Lot Next Door Program {  SBPG LND Program . } before being placed on the open market. Fillin' lots will be given consideration for this trade to relocate within the parish in an effort to fill in areas of higher return and rebuild.

As our Council and Administration trade our neighborhood, it helps make room for what most likely will be an ambitious Murphy Oil Meraux refinery expansion presumably to include a coker unit application and upgrades to comply with the anticipated New EPA Rules for Gasoline Limit Benzene, a Carcinogen .

Our only high school is now 14 blocks west of the Meraux refinery. If this expansion results in the same emission exceedances of the clean air act as the clean fuels project allegedly has, will most of of our high school students and neighborhood children have petroleum coker dust filling their lungs?

Given the historic past of this refinery, what type of future are we willing to trade for?