neighborhood surveillance

"In the refinery towns where I’ve worked for 17 years, the police and private security have consistently harassed me and those I work with. When we stop near a refinery and take a picture of a burning flame or black cloud of pollution, we know to snap fast. A police officer or oil industry security guard will pull up and tell us what we’re doing is illegal, even though it’s not. The law may be on our side, but these security forces are not. It’s often not worth risking a dangerous encounter in a small southern town to stop and record pollution. What we’re recording is another form of violence – this kind the long, steady attack of carcinogens and neurotoxins that ruin the health and the lives of those in Louisiana, usually African Americans, who are unfortunate enough to live cheek to cheek with Big Oil’s refineries."   -   Anne Rolfes, Founding Director Louisiana Bucket Brigade


http://www.labucketbrigade.org/blog/i-expect-more-violence-oil-industry

crude by rail news

Interesting developments in Benicia, California, where a small city's local council struggled to uphold its right to decide land use and protect its residents' health and safety.  The local council denied "a land use permit to bring in volatile Bakken and Tar Sands crude oil from North Dakota and Canada by train".   


Hopefully this company doesn't  attempt the same crude by rail project in Chalmette.  Although Chalmette has similar tax base dependencies, we struggle to find apparent prosperity, while  the poverty rate, especially for children, continues.




http://beniciaindependent.com/grant-cooke-cbr-permit-denied-and-new-green-inudstrial-revolution-developments-impact-benicia/


excerpts from The Benicia Independent article by Grant Cooke




Which is why Valero pushed so hard to transport volatile Bakken crude by rail cars through the densely populated Sacramento corridor and cram the trains into Benicia and a refinery that is not designed or equipped to deal with them. The industries, the refineries and all connected to the fossil fuel era, know that the incredibly lucrative period when oil was king and black gold flowed from the sand is coming to an end.


Bringing this back to Benicia, we see a city that is dependent on Valero for tax revenue and its governing process glimpsing a new reality. Small cities like Benicia that have been so dependent on the fossil fuel industries for so much and for so long, struggle to change. Other cities like those in the deindustrialized Midwest that have suffered sudden collapses of their major companies and tax bases have had to reinvent their economic drivers or just blow away. But it’s hard for a city like Benicia with its apparent prosperity and ease of living to understand that its fossil fuel base is in decline and that the future is elsewhere.

Grant Cooke is a longtime Benicia resident and CEO of Sustainable Energy Associates. He is also an author and has written several books on the Green Industrial Revolution. His newest is “Smart Green Cities” by Routledge.

night time flaring

mid September night time flaring (Sept 18, 2016)

Public Meeting Florida Corridor

PUBLIC MEETING Thursday September 8 2016 4pm-7pm
Public Comments due September 28 2016


UPDATED  9/13/2016:    Presentation at Public Meeting   http://wwwapps.dotd.la.gov/administration/public_info/projects/docs_test/97/documents/Florida_Ave_PublicMeeting1_Sept8_2016_Presentation.pdf


Other Documents and Maps from DOTD at bottom of link
http://wwwapps.dotd.la.gov/administration/public_info/projects/home.aspx?key=97




Florida Avenue Project (H.005720)

Florida Avenue Project Environmental Assessment (EA)

St. Bernard and Orleans Parishes

State Project No. H.005720

Federal Aid Project No. H005720

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LADOTD) will be conducting a public meeting in open house format for the above project. LADOTD is proposing to construct a new roadway bridge adjacent to the existing Florida Avenue Bridge over the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal (IHNC) in Orleans Parish. In addition to a new bridge, the improvements include: upgrade and extension of the existing Florida Avenue corridor from Elysian Fields Avenue (LA 3021) to Paris Road (LA 47) into St. Bernard Parish; operational improvements along existing Tupelo Street; and several North-South alignment options are being considered for a connector between Florida Avenue and St. Claude Avenue. The purpose of the meeting is to present the proposed project to the public and to solicit comments about the project from the public. The meeting will include a looping presentation that describes the project as well as stations where attendees can speak informally with representatives from LADOTD and the project team. Comments and suggestions will be invited from all interested parties to help insure that the project team addresses the full range of environmental issues during the EA study process.

The meeting is scheduled:

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016
4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
St. David Catholic School Gymnasium
1230 Lamanche Street
New Orleans, LA 70117
(Enter on Caffin Avenue)

All interested citizens are invited and encouraged to attend. Should anyone require special assistance due to a disability to participate at the public meeting, please send a request at least five working days prior to the public meeting by mail, email, or telephone. Written and verbal comments will be received at the meeting. Additional written comments emailed or mailed to the address shown, if postmarked by Monday, September 28, 2016, will become part of the record of this public meeting. Comments must include name and address of person making comment. Please see the contact information listed below:

Mail:
Florida Avenue Project
HP.O. Box 56845
New Orleans, LA 70156
Phone:
504-648-3619

Email:
FloridaAvenueEA@gmail.com

no zoning changes, no trees

zoning change seemed traded for ball park in what residents think is a quid pro quo donations for zoning change

shortly after the council approved a zoning change for Valero's administration building on Ohio Street, it is slowly being revealed that councilmembers have been discussing Valero's funding of a ball park in District C in the area of the oil spill, reminiscent of the zoning change for trees trade by Murphy.  

reposted from Tuesday, March 16, 2010

no title

Playing politicians against survivors instead of taking responsibility for failing to implement its own hurricane preparedness plans, and with little to no humanitarian aide to residents while gifting generous donations to politicians post crude oil spill, Murphy Oil adds insult to injury in its proposal to use residential homes for its own gain. Although presented as a transient contractor's parking lot, Murphy Oil admits it really wants heavy industrial zoning for future usage. Future heavy industrial usage not just on the north side, but the south side as well.

Industrial and Commercial Usage of residential properties in this area are a determent to the residents who have returned, provide nothing towards the safety of the community and lowers the buffer while rewarding an unjust enrichment for an incident of their own negligence.

Encroachment, incursion, a taking, you name it what you want, the result makes the parish further liable.

.

It's our land, we'll use it as we do, if you please. [We'll do what we d*** well please]

.

Denying secure tenure to victims after the worse environmental disaster, the worse land based oil spill, Murphy Oil proposes the financially strapped community raise its own funds to construct a dog park and other recreational usage where existing residual crude oil remains on the land of domiciled residents. Residents want no such thing and point out the numerous, readily available parks and parkways throughout the parish, which would be better suited for these suggestions.

.

Accepting donations for trees with the implication "No Zoning Changes, No Trees", newly elected officials are pushing this lovely linear park as the best thing for the community, while not only ignoring their constituents, but also the existing facilities and economic development opportunities at Val Reiss Park .

.

Slicker than oil and more offensive than obnoxious smells, this proposal was rejected by residents who serve on the Council's Murphy Oil Buffer Zone Committee. Yet, the Council continues the misnomer that if Murphy were only to reveal "The Plan"-- "The Plan" which everyone but the land owners and surrounding neighbors seem to have access to -- that it could move forward --- just exactly what the council wants to move forward is unclear to those homeowners who would be asked to once again lose everything.

more or less the same

Thursday, February 21, 2008

more or less on the horizon

FROM 2008   
47302. NOLA FORUM

INTEGRITY

02/21/08 11:34 AM
The people of St. Bernard deserve to be informed by their elected officials. Residents of District C, who are and have been for many years concerned about the expansion of industrial giants and the poisonous emissions from the manufacture and refining, have indeed been lied to by their elected officials. The stone walling and lies of deception continue to this day. When even one resident asks, " what is being built here?" he has a right to be answered. Our neighbor, Murphy Oil USA is going to build a lab on the site of the old Campagna Skiff Company location. We were NEVER given an opportunity, as a neighbor or neighborhood to examine the plan, ask questions or express our concerns. To offer input now is obviously an insult. As I stated before it was a done deal. Probably years in the making between our government and that industrial giant. Encroachment. A nasty word. But it is happening. Murphy, in moving it's lab from the river side of St. Bernard Hwy (probably to expand it's plant) now finds that the location where they plan to build the new lab is not large enough to accommodate parking. They want to (ENCROACH) on to residential property. They want a zone change. After everything said about greenspace, and bufferzone. Our government continues to play along with the plan. The Murphy plan.Our parish president and council members as well as zoning and planning commissions need to remember who pays them. Or is that exactly what they are doing?

 

The refinery was originally located on the other side of the highway and the land behind the neighborhood was not zoned for industrial use.  Then over the years there were a series of wise decisions to allow more and more industrial zoning changes further and further away from the river and into the backyards of our community. The processing plant doubled in the 1970's and several large additions including a clean fuels process began in the late 1990's early 2000's. How did the Parish ever allow these units to be constructed so close to family dwellings??

 

Let's not make the same mistake again with warehouses, administration buildings, parking etc. on Jacob Drive; that land was purchased with the pretense of a green zone buffer and a good neighbor would honor that agreement.  Any other use makes the Parish further liable.

 

 

Above, EPA Region VI map of oil spill

Notice the area just west of the processing plant was not "in the oil spill" but this is the area most often pushed by parish officials to participate in the buyup.

Below map of oil spill first purported by Parish government

 

 

Thursday throwback

The obvious reality that oil refineries are not good neighbors (go to www.oilrefinerypollution.com) and contemplating expansion of one in a fragile wetlands ecosystem, knowing that sulfur dioxide is the principal precursor to acid rain and the risks to human health, is irresponsible and ultimately a formula for long-range health and environmental costs we can’t even begin to envision.

We’ve all driven through and, if possible around, cities or towns that choose to chase smokestacks for their economic vitality. Evidence is abundant that making billions in profits superseded quality of life considerations

For the sake of our health, we must choose wisely. It’s no longer a question of whether we can. Global indicators increasingly are telling us that the real question for the future is whether we should?!

http://www.superiortelegram.com/content/letter-refinery-expansion-would-degrade-city

 

excerpts from LETTER: Refinery expansion would degrade city

The Daily Telegram - 07/08/2008
To The Telegram:

From     — Paul D. Helbach,  Brule