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.
GONZALES — Waterways in Ascension and Livingston parishes will close to recreational traffic until further notice starting 6 p.m. Saturday, parish officials said.
National Weather Service forecasts for river flooding in the Baton Rouge region remained alarmingly high Saturday afternoon even as predictions of rainfall for the region fell with Hurricane Barry's path slipping farther west than expected.
GONZALES — Ascension Parish government and municipal officials urged residents Saturday not to let their guard down and remain vigilant, although Hurricane Barry hasn't yet brought the severe rain that had been predicted.
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.
As Tropical Storm Barry pushes toward landfall Saturday between Morgan City and Vermilion Bay as an expected Category 1 hurricane, local officials and tens of thousands of residents are eyeing what impact its rains will have on rivers that brought…
East Baton Rouge Parish plans to sue neighboring Iberville Parish to prevent water-inflated flood barriers known as AquaDams from be used to protect against high water on Bayou Manchac, the city-parish mayor-president said Friday.
Sherrie Mack is one of a group of people cautiously watching news updates, unsure how seriously to take the likely onslaught of a weather system that if it intensifies, will be called Hurricane Barry.
Under new air permits proposed for Formosa’s $9.4 billion plastics complex in northern St. James Parish, the planned operation could emit enough new toxic chemicals to nearly double what already is released into the rural parish’s air.
PASCAGOULA, Miss. — People and pets are being warned to stay out of the water along the entire mainland of the Mississippi Gulf Coast as toxic bacteria continue spreading eastward.
CONVENT — As Mosaic Fertilizer struggles to control nearly 1 billion gallons of acidic and radioactive process water brimming inside storage lakes at its St. James Parish complex, it has an emergency fail-safe option that could involve dumping it …
As green-blue algae swirls in the Mississippi Sound, twelve beaches across Hancock and Harrison County remain closed to the public, according to a report from the Sun Herald.
An internal push is afoot to find a new, full-time administrator for a leading regulator of the Baton Rouge region's endangered Southern Hills Aquifer, a drive the current, part-time director says is a campaign to pressure him to resign.
A Texas federal judge has found a huge Formosa plastics complex northeast of Corpus Christi to be a "serial offender" with a history of allowing plastic pellets to wash into wetlands and bays along the Gulf of Mexico, and said that the company has…
Twelve beaches across Harrison and Hancock counties are closed until further notice due to a blue-green Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB), according to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.
Nine beaches across Harrison and Hancock counties are closed until further notice due to a blue-green Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB), according to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.
GONZALES — In a rare move, the Ascension Parish Council agreed Thursday to hire its own engineering representative to vet a possible compromise on limiting the use of dirt to elevate homes as a handful of members also aired their support for a sho…
At least 279 dolphins have stranded across much of the U.S. Gulf Coast since Feb. 1, triple the usual number, and about 98 percent of them have died, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday.
PRAIRIEVILLE — Fast-growing but low-lying Ascension Parish's endless struggle to maintain clean water and improve drainage showed itself on several fronts this week, as the parish grappled with policing runoff from new home construction and took a…
The 2019 "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico could be the second largest on record because high water in the Mississippi River watershed will funnel excessive nutrients and fertilizer downstream this year.
PRAIRIEVILLE — Paul Underwood’s backyard garden has been a treasured pastime since retiring nearly 30 years ago from work at a retail store, but heavy rains and the parish’s inadequate drainage system have made keeping it up difficult.
DONALDSONVILLE — Ascension Parish President Kenny Matassa's veto of a major flood prevention package narrowly withstood an attempted override Thursday, halting a proposal two years in the making.
Two major regulatory changes that supporters and federal regulators say could lessen flood risks in Ascension Parish are on the ropes or already dead amid political pressure from builders and homeowners and under the weighty hammer of the parish p…
South Louisiana residents will see between 2 and 4 inches of rain through Saturday as a tropical disturbance strikes the coast, the National Weather Service predicts.
Water-weary Louisiana entered the 2019 hurricane season Saturday already dealing with record-high floodwaters and eyeing a potential tropical system near the Yucatan Peninsula, but historically the state doesn't see the season's impact until late summer.
Motorists using the Sunshine Bridge in Donaldsonville and the Interstate 10 Mississippi River bridge in Baton Rouge this weekend won’t have to share those spans with environmental protesters.
La. Highway 70 in Assumption Parish was closed as of Thursday morning due to damaged aquadams that are holding back rising waters.
The section of La. Highway 1 that crosses the Morganza Spillway will be closed Sunday as officials prepare to open the structure.
MORGAN CITY – Morgan City-area residents Wednesday saw their first ray of hope in what’s been a historic flood season: the worst is likely behind them even though the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is still days away from opening the Morganza Spillway.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Environmentalists are seeking a court order allowing them to march on two southeast Louisiana bridges to protest pollution by petrochemical companies.
A Louisiana state judge is best positioned to hear arguments about whether oil and gas companies have damaged the state’s coast, a federal judge has decided.
MORGAN CITY — Lee Dragna was born in 1973, the first time the Army Corps of Engineers opened the Morganza Spillway control structure to alleviate flooding on the Mississippi River.
Authorities will speak to and hear concerns from stakeholders along the Atchafalaya River Tuesday and Wednesday ahead of the Morganza Spillway's June 2 opening.
Upstream floodwaters flowing toward a swollen Mississippi River will require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to open its rarely used Morganza Spillway on Sunday and funnel part of the river's flow into the Atchafalaya Basin for at least a couple weeks.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal appeals court has ruled that the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers is not entitled to damages from BP for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Baton Rouge's air quality may now be compliant with federal standards, but that doesn't mean it doesn't still pose health risks for residents as the summer season approaches.
As local officials, agricultural producers and residents prepare for the potential opening of the Morganza Spillway in June, conservationists and scientists are voicing concerns about how the wildlife population of the Atchafalaya Basin and surrou…
CONVENT — Mosaic Fertilizer wants to remove 300 million gallons of hazardous, contaminated water from its operations at the company's St. James Parish complex by Sept. 30 as regulators voice concerns that it's nearing the limits of containing the …
Environmentalists have filed an ethics complaint against the Baton Rouge-area groundwater commission, which they allege is being run inappropriately because regulated businesses have seats on its board.
Authorities began taking steps Friday to sink a barge in Bayou Chene with the hope it will mean Iberville and nearby parishes are spared from devastating backwater flooding if the Morganza Spillway is opened as expected.
BATCHELOR — Teaspoons clamor against ceramic coffee mugs, loose gravel crunches under the weight of slowing truck tires, and there’s an unspoken but shared anticipation when they shake hands and ask the question: "How’s that spillway going to get you?”
BAYOU PIGEON - Crawfish farmers at Randazzo’s Bayou Pigeon Seafood hauled, sprayed and packed their bugs into trucks Thursday afternoon, surrounded by an already-creeping line of water that could soon rise to spell either a flourish or death of th…
The rarely used Morganza Spillway may be opened soon as the Mississippi River continues to swell.
Federal meteorologists are predicting an average 2019 hurricane season, which begins June 1 and runs through November.
State and federal officials said Thursday it was appearing more likely that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would need to open the Morganza Spillway next month — for only the third time ever — to stave off what one likened to a “foreign disaster”…
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is warning stakeholders along the Morganza Spillway that it could be forced to open some of the structure's gates early next month because, based on current forecasts, the Mississippi River would overtop the spillw…
A contractor working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected to start clearing land next month for the long-planned 18.5-mile West Shore levee project headed through St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes and part of St. James.
Jane and Sonny Bates sit on their side-by-side wooden rockers overlooking their serene back yard every day at 3 a.m., a time when most are still sound asleep.
The last time the Mississippi River was this high for this long, it prompted the federal government to build the modern levee system.
