More than half of the hazardous waste facilities with state-ordered plans to clean up old spills in Louisiana haven't yet shown how they intend for pay for that work, even though, on average, their clean-up proposals are nearly 6½ years old, a new…
Oyster shells will be used in the construction.
GONZALES — A proposed 30-year deal to finance, build and run a $215 million regional sewer system is structured in a way that ensures cost overruns are born by ratepayers but offers no clear way also to share savings with them, a financial analyst…
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The city-parish will be hosting the Household Hazardous Materials Collection Day at a new location this upcoming weekend.
GONZALES — An Ascension Parish Council panel that for years has been investigating how to bring a consolidated, public sewer system to the eastern side of the parish will consider on Tuesday night whether to recommend a 30-year deal with a private…
The road to Cat Island is closed … again.
An explosion at the Dow Chemical plant that rumbled across the Baton Rouge region and rattled homes in Plaquemine on Sunday came after workers were rebooting the facility's systems following an overnight power outage, an Iberville Parish official …
This article was produced in partnership with the ProPublica Local Reporting Network, of which The Times-Picayune and The Advocate are members.
Calling a Port Allen industrial recycling plant's modified air permit a "colossal bait-and-switch," a lawyer for environmentalists asked a Baton Rouge judge Wednesday to vacate the permit and send it back to a state regulatory agency for more study.
GONZALES — A New Orleans-based nonprofit is asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to require the developer of a 103-acre mixed-use community in Gonzales to provide more information about its plans for drainage on the site, a portion of which is …
POINT COMFORT, Texas — Formosa Plastics Corp. has agreed to have tighter wastewater discharge standards and to pay $50 million to settle allegations that a company plant in Texas chronically spilled tons of pellets into waterways near the Gulf of Mexico.
Environmental groups allege the builders of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline left a mess across a swath of the Atchafalaya Swamp, as sections of pipeline remain poorly covered, mounds of dredged earth are piled up across the land, and a series of sloughs…
A state commission under fire over its management of groundwater in the Baton Rouge region agreed Wednesday to find a new full-time executive director and retain its existing part-time director in an advisory role.
With new pumps funded to increase flow on Bayou Lafourche, district poised to remove weir downstream
Officials behind a series of multi-million dollar projects to enhance the flow of Mississippi River water down Bayou Lafourche say they are closing in on the removal a 50-year-old low-water dam across the bayou, possibly sometime next year.
A proposed 283-mile pipeline that would cross 14 parishes from Richland to Plaquemines to feed a planned natural gas export facility has raised concerns from more than 120 residents and one Indian tribe.
WATSON — The Army Corps of Engineers and the Kansas City Southern Railroad have reached an agreement in principle on long-term maintenance for a new railroad bridge planned over the future Comite River Diversion Canal, a Corps project manager said…
PLAQUEMINE — A retired appellate judge appointed to hear a longstanding oil field legacy lawsuit involving the Spanish Lake swamp breathed new life into the landowners' damage claims this week when he granted them new hearings that keep Shell Oil …
Claire Delaune and Pam Sepeda love watching the hummingbirds that gather on the feeders outside their Baton Rouge homes — so much so that the neighbors often find their conversations revolving around how many and which kinds of hummingbirds they’v…
Ella Armstrong has battled flood water that's poured into her New Roads home more times than she can count. She and her neighbors in Pecan Acres, a quaint community in Pointe Coupee Parish, have had to contend with the neighborhood flooding 17 tim…
WASHINGTON — Louisiana’s status as a leading domestic energy producer played a crucial role Wednesday when the U.S. House spent hours debating whether offshore oil and gas drilling should be permanently banned nearly everywhere else.
Mosaic Co. is idling its Louisiana phosphate operations, including a once troubled complex near Convent, for the next three months to cut production and reduce an oversupply of agricultural fertilizer in the North American market.
A recent poll found that 71% of Louisiana's voters believe in climate change and 50% say they're seeing its effects today, leading pollster Bernie Pinsonat to conclude that opinions in Louisiana are changing on the subject.
DONALDSONVILLE — More than three years removed from the August 2016 flood, Ascension Parish has taken an important step to limit the potential for future flooding connected with new development. In so doing, it sought to balance the concerns of an…
An environmental group that has questioned the management of Baton Rouge's drinking water aquifer has launched a campaign to encourage major industries to end their use of the region's groundwater while demanding that Baton Rouge Water Co. detail …
Officials behind a $1.25 billion chemical plant proposed for St. James Parish say they are taking a step back to review the scale and location of the new facility.
Financing deal moves along new fresh water pumps for Bayou Lafourche, thirsty downstream communities
Officials signed an agreement Wednesday laying out the financing plan for a $65 million expansion of the pumps that supply fresh water to Bayou Lafourche and the more than 300,000 people who rely on it for drinking water.
Bayou Chene was reopened to maritime traffic Tuesday following removal of a barge that was deliberately sunk on the waterway southeast of Morgan City to prevent backwater flooding from the Atchafalaya River, authorities said.
Members of a commission struggling to create a 50-year strategic plan for managing the region's aquifer tossed around a lot of ideas at a recent meeting for preserving the vital resource but endorsed no specific measures.
Neighboring parishes downstream from Baton Rouge have cast a wary eye on a $255 million Army Corps of Engineers project to clear out East Baton Rouge's waterways using federal dollars coming to the region after the August 2016 flood.
Gaseous hydrochloric acid leaked from a pipe at Westlake Chemical's vinyl chloride monomer unit in Ascension Parish, creating a visible haze Wednesday afternoon to the north of the plant across a highway, company officials said Thursday.
State health officials are warning residents to limit their exposure to mosquitoes after confirming nine cases of West Nile Virus in people — the first registered infections this year — including a handful of severe cases in the Baton Rouge area a…
Sizable majorities of likely voters in Louisiana believe in climate change, say weather is becoming more extreme and that it will affect future generations, according to a new survey.
Three protesters of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline challenged a Louisiana law aimed and protecting "critical infrastructure," saying in a lawsuit filed Friday that they were arrested in violation of their free speech and other civil rights.
Ascension Parish says $60 M loan for sewer at risk if Parish Council fails to act; some want to wait
GONZALES — In January 2009, Cedric Grant, at that time the Ascension Parish chief administrative officer, announced parish government would seek millions of dollars in federal loans through the state Department of Environmental Quality for a new r…
With the Mississippi River falling below flood stage after months of high water, Baton Rouge city-parish workers on Thursday began power-washing the downtown levee front and pier of river silt and other debris.
GONZALES — An outgoing Ascension Parish councilman and chief advocate of beefing up and extending a controversial flood protection levee in the St. Amant area says it's time to end negotiations with Livingston Parish and go back to court to resol…
The Mississippi River's record run in flood stage at Baton Rouge hit 211 days before ending Sunday afternoon, blowing past the former, 92-year-old record by 76 days.
U.S. Geological Survey facilitator Michael Runge took to the drawing board after nearly an hour and a half of discussion by regional groundwater commissioners about long-term objectives for the Southern Hills aquifer.
State environmental regulators won't allow Mosaic Fertilizer to use an abbreviated review process as it seeks to install 12 high-powered fans to evaporate hundreds of millions of gallons of radioactive and acidic water laced with heavy metals from…
DONALDSONVILLE — Revisions to a major land use ordinance that could affect how thousands of Ascension Parish landowners use their property remained a work in progress and one firmly behind closed doors Thursday.
After a critical state audit, an ethics complaint and charges from environmentalists that the "foxes are guarding the hen house," the Capital Area groundwater commission will kick off a lengthy strategic planning process Thursday to answer its mos…
As Hurricane Barry bore down on the Louisiana coast, a unique scenario presented itself: a tropical storm with surge and severe rain threatened the state during a record period of high water in the Mississippi River.
VACHERIE — Wanhua Chemical's bid to build a $1.25 billion chemical plant in Convent hit delays Wednesday after the company's plans to seek exemptions to federal trade tariffs recently came to light and temporarily clouded the previously assumed lo…
GONZALES — Three-term Ascension Parish Councilman Randy Clouatre showed up Tuesday at an open house for the public to review a $200 million plan to bring regional sewer service to his parish with a nearly 18-year-old newspaper article tucked in a …
GONZALES — Ascension Parish government took a combined $5.1 million in losses for its sewer, water and Lamar-Dixon Expo Center operations in 2018 before past savings, grants, transfers from other government funds and other sources covered the shor…
After brush with scary Comite River forecasts during Barry, interest in diversion canal remains high
PORT HUDSON — The contractor flipped down his protective mask and set off a shower of sparks as he welded a seam across a long pipe set up in a pasture along the highway near here.
Two environmental groups and two St. James Parish residents claim the Parish Council and Planning Commission violated state open meetings law when they held secret meetings concerning the $1.25 billion Wanhua chemical plant proposed for the Convent area.
Iberville Parish will be taking down the inflatable flood barriers that were installed along Bayou Manchac Friday as Hurricane Barry was bearing down on the state and appeared to pose an imminent flooding threat to the region, an attorney for the …
Update: 9:45 a.m.: A lawyer representing Iberville Parish government said Saturday morning that the parish president took no actions to install water-inflated flood barriers along Bayou Manchac after a federal judge ordered a halt to the dams earl…
GONZALES — The Lamar-Dixon Expo Center will open 8 p.m. Friday as a temporary shelter for Ascension Parish residents who fear they will be "at risk" as Tropical Storm Barry passes by the Baton Rouge region this weekend, parish officials said.
ST. GABRIEL — About 20 trusties at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center were manning two partially automated sandbagging machines late Friday morning at the rear of the huge state prison complex in Iberville Parish ahead of Tropical Storm Barry.