right to know the issues

"Concerned Citizens" advocates for all residents and strives to effect the ever changing decisions in our community by encouraging public participation. Residents must be fully informed in order to fully participate. Democracy is not an invitation only event.

April Sweeps

As part of Rediscover District C's Sweep, CCAM is calling all block captains to photograph local neighborhood and compliance concerns and submit to Parish Administration. There is more information on the website www.rediscoverdistrictc.com .


Here's some from today's sweep.

We are also preparing for May's Rain Season and Hurricane Season by monitoring the municipal canals for any blockage of culverts. Jacob Canal at Judge Perez was all clear today, as was the municipal pipe at Jacob and the 20 arpent canal.




commercial use residential property







industrial use of residential property

culvert at Campagna and Ohio (above); culvert at Judge Perez and Jacob (below)
abandoned building below

open manhole and storm catch basins

storm catch basin clogged with parking lot gravel

if you look closely you'll see the return of the turtles and some fish in the 20 arpent canal, since December's oily discharge

Let's all do our part to be part of the Solution !!

M E A N Mossville

CNN will be airing a special report about Mossville, LA
on April 24, 2010 at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central time

link to previous CNN report http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/26/toxic.town.mossville.epa/

Mossville residents to be heard By Brandon Troullier
http://www.kplctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=12241076

EARTH DAY '10

2010 New Orleans Earth Day Festival - April 22

http://www.labucketbrigade.org/article.php?id=549

Are You Ready ?

Listen up! Get prepared!

St. Bernard Parish Department of Homeland Security in conjunction with Duke Engage prepared this informational segment in 2007 to help St. Bernard Parish prepare for hurricane season.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6raCupzkUg

Directed by Ken Winters. Produced by Sam Bowler and Joseph Lanser.

Are You Ready?
http://www.getagameplan.org/planFamily.htm


Trim a Tree - Save a House

http://www.getagameplan.org/planMitigate.htm

Clear storm drain basins and drainage canals

http://www.getagameplan.org/

Jacob Canal Floods

Summer 2007: Exxon Houston Pipeline Group, while excavating to install a new crude oil pipeline, filled in the municipal storm drainage canal in the area where Ohio Street intersects Jacob Drive (shown above in photo from 2010). SBPG Public Works director confirmed he was contacted by several residents, inspected the canal himself, and ordered Exxon to remove the excavated soil. A few residents report they approached the heavy equipment operator and advised him not to fill in the rain ditch. One can only imagine the pleasantries exchanged.

Summer 2009, residents report the Jacob Canal was cleared at the southern end, at the petrochemical testing lab site, but improvements were not made in the area which directly effects the residential homes.

Around the same time, Murphy Oil made improvements to Exxon's pipeline easement, raising the topography with aggregate for the makeshift parking area and grading the lot to drain west, changing the easterly flow. Once again Jacob Canal was inadvertently filled in, this time in the area directly north of the restored residential homes, just south of the Ohio - Jacob intersection.

.

One could simply walk across the ditch.... The June 2009 rain event illustrated flooding effects of storm drainage management.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w34l7_bpkFY (around the four minute mark)


December's rain event brought an oil discharge into another neighborhood's canal, which, like the Jacob Canal, discharges into the Central Wetlands.


http://s786.photobucket.com/albums/yy141/concerned_citizens_2010/oil%20spill%20into%20neighborhood%20canal%20December%202009/




Jacob Canal, shown above in 2010 photo, holds water in area directly behind restored homes.

Just north of that area, where the canal has been filled in twice, the canal is dry (first two photos above). When properly maintained, the natural hydrology flows north through other residential neighborhoods and into the Central Wetlands.

The blockage caused by the pipeline - parking lot work has not been remedied.

Homeowners patiently wait the appropriate fill to their properties, which is part of the post 2005 crude oil spill remediation project. At the very least, the parish should enforce installation of required chain walls on adjacent, higher-grade, Murphy-owned lots. This would stop adverse flooding from adjacent "buffer zone" properties.

Residents are not aware of any improvements made to assure Murphy Oil will contain its own refinery storm water runoff.

Hurricane Season Is 6 weeks away.

What are we waiting for....................................

Community Survey

Click Here to take survey

Murphy Oil USA, Inc, represented by a perspective buyer of land acquired postKatrina to create a buffer, has applied for a zoning change in our neighborhood. Homeowners and residents have opposed this commercial development. Concerned Citizens received a communication of alleged harassment and intimidation tactics by this representative -- the perspective buyer -- and do not take such threats lightly. While these types of rude and egregious behavior were the unfortunate common interactions initiated by the refinery's subcontractors during remediation and demolitions for the crude oil spill, it is no more representative of Murphy Oil's corporate commitment now than it was then. It simply is not tolerated by either party and illustrates all the more why industry, transient workers, commercial traffic, development and the lot should be buffered from the families in our community by the empty green space which exists now.