Louisiana
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Engineers plan underwater dome to contain Gulf oil spill
They’re trying a dome because the robots didn’t work. No, really. Damage control for the oil-rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is sounding like a bad science-fiction movie: Engineers are crafting a giant underwater dome to help to contain an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico after attempts to shut off the leak […]
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Burning oil rig sinks into Gulf of Mexico
This is bad: The oil rig that has been burning in the Gulf of Mexico since an explosion on Tuesday has sunk, CNN reports. The human cost: 17 workers injured (3 critically) and 11 missing. The Coast Guard is searching for them. The ecological cost: Crude oil is leaking from at a rate of about […]
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Gulf oil rig in danger of tipping after explosion [UPDATED]
The Deepwater Horizon rig, pre-explosion and pre-tipping.Photo: TransoceanReuters is reporting that the 11 workers missing after an explosion on a Gulf Coast oil rig have been found safe. Update: 11 workers are still missing and 17 are injured after a large explosion on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the AP, […]
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Louisiana environmental racism case gets hearing from Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
For the first time in history, an international human rights body has agreed to review a case involving allegations of environmental racism in the United States. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) will hear a complaint filed by the New Orleans-based Advocates for Environmental Human Rights (AEHR) on behalf of the people of Mossville, […]
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Trouble mounts for Entergy following radioactive leaks at Vermont nuclear plant
New Orleans-based power giant Entergy is in hot water following revelations that its Vermont Yankee nuclear plant has leaked radioactive contamination to the environment — and its trouble isn’t limited to Vermont. The Mississippi State Attorney General is also taking aim at the company, questioning Entergy’s recent transfer of more than $1 billion from its […]
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As the land disappears, an Indian tribe plans to abandon its ancestral Louisiana home
For at least 170 years, Isle de Jean Charles — a narrow ridge of land lying between Bayou Terrebonne and Bayou Pointe-aux-Chene in southeastern Louisiana’s Terrebonne Parish — has been home to members of the Biloxi-Chitimacha tribe, native people related to the Choctaw and part of a larger confederation of Muskogees. But the tribe’s history […]
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White House announces Gulf restoration task force amid criticism of Army Corps
In response to criticism that the Army Corps of Engineers has failed to take needed action, President Obama is creating a federal task force to overhaul management of coastal restoration efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi. White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley made the announcement this week in an interview with Bloomberg News. […]
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Army Corps urged to honor Obama’s priority of restoring New Orleans area wetlands
Louisiana’s threatened wetlands provide a critical barrier to hurricanes and flooding.With the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approaching, a coalition of 17 advocacy groups called on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to promptly honor President Obama’s pledge “to restore nature’s barriers — the wetlands, marshes and barrier islands that can take the first blows and […]
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Sen. Landrieu’s plan to export Louisiana’s coastal destruction to Florida
While Louisiana struggles to restore coastal wetlands ravaged in large part by decades of oil and gas drilling, its senior senator is leading the effort to lift the ban on drilling off Florida’s Panhandle. U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) is the lone co-sponsor of legislation sponsored by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to open up new […]