Learn how to protect your community!
July 31st Baton Rouge and August 1st Vacherie, LA.
Friday, July 26, 2019
Clean Air Act workshop
Save the date!
Learn how to protect your community!
July 31st Baton Rouge and August 1st Vacherie, LA.
Learn how to protect your community!
July 31st Baton Rouge and August 1st Vacherie, LA.
Saturday, July 20, 2019
Chinese Wanhua scamming Louisiana
How Louisiana is being scammed by the Chinese government.
According to a Town Hall meeting in St James Parish today
Chinese government controlled chemical plant company, Wanhua, is requesting exemption
from new U.S. tariffs on both the equipment to be manufactured to construct its proposed plant in St James Parish Louisiana and the imported chemical feed
stock to operate the plant.
Wanhua submitted 55 tariff exclusion requests for the $300,000,000 modular equipment they want to import from China, instead of manufacturing the equipment in the united States. The equipment tariff exclusion request has an estimated value of $60,000,000, and is still pending.
Wanhua also submitted a tariff exclusion request for the chemical feed stock to be imported from China; the U.S. Trade Representative rejected that request in May 2019.
Wanhua has also requested support from St. James Parish local officials on its application to make its St
James plant a foreign trade zone. A foreign trade zone designation would further exempt other assets from business inventory taxes.
Through an American consulting group, Louisiana's U S Senator Bill Cassidy has received a letter requesting his assistance on Wanhua's tariff exclusion requests. How will Bill respond?
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Flood "Authority" maintained canals
In yesterday's press conference, the Flood Authority East reported they were prepared for Tropical Storm Barry and had checked ALL the canals and took out debris. Below are photos of the 20 arpent rain drainage canal, which does not look storm ready.
National News is its own disaster
Lamar White, Jr
Bayou Brief
https://www.bayoubrief.com/2019/07/12/national-news-coverage-of-tropical-storm-barry-is-its-own-disaster/?Bayou Brief
""New Orleans, of course, did not flood in 2005 because it was hit by a hurricane. It flooded because the federal government’s levee protection system failed. The catastrophic flooding began after Katrina left.
Both CBS and CNN have emphasized the possibility of {Tropical Storm / Cat 1 Hurricane} Barry being a bigger rain event than Katrina. But rain didn’t cause the city to flood; levee failures did.
The reason the city received such a deluge {Wednesday prior to Barry} is a different story, but, apparently, it’s not polite to talk about climate science in a state dominated by Big Oil and the petrochemical industry. So, the official version remains what it always has been: This 301-year-old city was built in the wrong place. Pay no attention to the fact that this flooding occurred in parts of the city above sea-level.""
Lamar White, Jr
Bayou Brief
Bayou Brief
Friday, July 12, 2019
a convenient recalculation
Local news reports the National Guard and several 18 wheelers of sandbags are used to address a low spot in the river levee behind the PBF Energy refinery dba Chalmette refining.
https://www.nola.com/multimedia/photos/collection_e08ef030-a3f9-11e9-af2d-bf5dd2500186.html#2
Local newspaper's report exposes discrepancies in how the Army Corps of Engineers measures the height of levees compared to river levels, and highlight the Lower 9th Ward Industrial Canal levee as vulnerable.
https://www.nola.com/news/hurricane/article_f31f5436-a347-11e9-beaa-67f2b43123a7.html
Lydia Nicols of Bayou Brief provides a refreshing honest perspective of lessons learned from the river.
Lydia Nicols
Bayou Brief
https://www.bayoubrief.com/2019/07/11/listen-to-the-river-a-change-is-gonna-come/
""But one of the under-appreciated uniquenesses of New Orleans is that the city’s people are among those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and the crude oil, natural gas, and petrochemical industries on which the city’s people depend by design are most culpable for climate change. And that’s before we even scratch the surface of the environmental injustices that have relegated Black and indigenous peoples, immigrants, and the working-poor to the most vulnerable areas of the most vulnerable region – on the lowest land, adjacent to poisonous plants, in neighborhoods with the least infrastructural support.""
https://www.nola.com/multimedia/photos/collection_e08ef030-a3f9-11e9-af2d-bf5dd2500186.html#2
Local newspaper's report exposes discrepancies in how the Army Corps of Engineers measures the height of levees compared to river levels, and highlight the Lower 9th Ward Industrial Canal levee as vulnerable.
https://www.nola.com/news/hurricane/article_f31f5436-a347-11e9-beaa-67f2b43123a7.html
Lydia Nicols of Bayou Brief provides a refreshing honest perspective of lessons learned from the river.
Lydia Nicols
Bayou Brief
https://www.bayoubrief.com/2019/07/11/listen-to-the-river-a-change-is-gonna-come/
""But one of the under-appreciated uniquenesses of New Orleans is that the city’s people are among those most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and the crude oil, natural gas, and petrochemical industries on which the city’s people depend by design are most culpable for climate change. And that’s before we even scratch the surface of the environmental injustices that have relegated Black and indigenous peoples, immigrants, and the working-poor to the most vulnerable areas of the most vulnerable region – on the lowest land, adjacent to poisonous plants, in neighborhoods with the least infrastructural support.""
Lydia Nicols
Bayou Brief
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
Polluting Louisiana to make disposable plastics
"Polluting Louisiana's air to make disposable plastics we don’t need is a terrible idea.”
"Remember the mantra "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle"? There's a reason recycling is third in that list—reducing and reusing are far more important. You don't have to recycle the plastic bag you don't use." Paul Rauber https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2019-4-july-august/editor/youre-recycling-wrong
Louisiana to Hold Hearing on Massive Formosa Plastics Toxic Chemical Complex
ST. JAMES PARISH, La.— Louisiana [Department of Environmental Quality] will hold a public hearing on issuing 15 air permits for Taiwanese company Formosa Plastics. The massive proposed complex would be one of the largest and most toxic plastic production facilities in the world.
On Tuesday, July 9, at 6 p.m., the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality will hear public comments on the Formosa chemical complex, a proposed project that would create 14 new chemical plants in a largely African-American community. The hearing will be held at the Westbank Reception Area, 2455 Highway 18, Vacherie, Louisiana. A short press conference will be held at 5:30 p.m., prior to the hearing
On Tuesday, July 9, at 6 p.m., the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality will hear public comments on the Formosa chemical complex, a proposed project that would create 14 new chemical plants in a largely African-American community. The hearing will be held at the Westbank Reception Area, 2455 Highway 18, Vacherie, Louisiana. A short press conference will be held at 5:30 p.m., prior to the hearing
Formosa will be gifted $12 million in a cash grant from the state of Louisiana and another $1.5 billion in tax breaks for its new plastics complex through the controversial Industrial Tax Exemption Permit. But with plastic products being banned in Europe and municipalities across the U.S., the demand for Formosa’s output is likely to decline over time. Additionally, the value of neighboring homes that residents have invested in for generations will be wiped out, never to be recovered.
“Formosa’s project would emit 13 million tons of greenhouse gases per year, the same as three coal-fired power plants."
The Formosa complex would emit the second-highest amount of ethylene oxide and the second-highest amount of benzene of any plant in a state already full of large-scale industrial development. Both ethylene oxide and benzene are known human carcinogens and cause numerous other chronic health problems.
Public Hearing Tuesday July 9 2019
Comment Deadline 4:30pm Monday August 12 2019
All correspondence should specify AI Number 198351; Permit
Numbers: 3141-V0, 3142-V0, 3143-V0, 3144-V0, 3145-V0, 3146-V0, 3147-V0,
3148-V0, 3149-V0, 3150-V0, 3151-V0, 3152-V0, 3153-V0, 3154-V0, and PSD-LA-812;
and Activity Numbers PER20150001 through PER20150015
Comments and request for a public hearing or notification nof
the final decision can be submitted via personal delivery, U.S. mail, email, or
fax. Comments and requests for public hearing must be received by 4:30pm CST, Monday,
August 12, 2019
Delivery may be made to the drop-box at 602 N. 5th
St., Baton Rouge, LA 70802, U.S. Mail may be sent to LDEQ, Public Participation
Group, P. O. Box 4313, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-4314. Emails may be submitted to DEQ.PUBLICNOTICES@LA.GOV and faxes
sent to (225)219-3309. Persons wishing to receive notice of the final permit
action must include a complete mailing address when submitting comments.
Inquiries or request for additional information regarding this permit action
should be directed to Anthony Randall, LDEQ, Air Permits Division, P.O. Box
4313, Baton Rouge, LA 70821-4313, phone (225)219-3494
Sunday, July 7, 2019
Libraries and Civic Trust
Our Civic Trust
PBS The Open Mind July 2019
Interview with John S. Bracken, Director Digital Public
Library of America
How Libraries and Librarians are pivotal to trust and lack of
trust in our democracy
The voices and experiences of librarians build trust as the
library differentiates between fact and fiction; particularly important in the
current disruption of online information and the overload of this digital era.
Libraries and Librarians create “a safe place, welcoming to
anyone”; a public space for information and conversation, building literacy and
providing access to digital technology.
Support your local free standing library.
Future Site of St Bernard Parish Public Library, Meraux, Louisiana