The Lafourche Parish Council last week voted to sell $14.5 million in bonds from expected federal offshore revenue. The money, stemming from the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, will be used to pay for eight major projects in the parish. Selling bonds from the annual payments allows the parish to receive the $14.5 million...Read More

Jefferson Parish will build 17 rock jetties along the northern shore of Grand Isle, completing a project designed to help protect the island from storm surge and reduce coastal erosion. Using a $6.5 million grant, the parish will put the 350-foot-long breakwaters along the bay side of the island, using 62,426 tons of rock and...Read More

Moody’s Corporation has purchased a controlling stake in a firm that measures the physical risks of climate change, the latest indication that global warming can threaten the creditworthiness of governments and companies around the world. The rating agency bought a majority share in Four Twenty Seven, a California-based company that measures a range of hazards,...Read More

Several Louisiana members of Congress are leading the effort to funnel more of the federal money generated in the Gulf of Mexico to the coastal states that so much to support the offshore industry. “Louisiana is battling the largest historical, ongoing and prospective loss of coastal wetlands we’ve ever seen, and it’s a national crisis,”...Read More

As scientists each with a half-century experience in research on the deteriorating coast of our native Louisiana, we were dismayed by the federal indictment and arrest of Ehab Meselhe and Kelin Hu for allegedly stealing a computer model from The Water Institute of the Gulf in Baton Rouge. While we are retired professors from our...Read More

Do you remember the good old days when we had “12 years to save the planet”? Now it seems, there’s a growing consensus that the next 18 months will be critical in dealing with the global heating crisis, among other environmental challenges. Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that to keep...Read More

The restoration and protection of Louisiana’s coast has proudly been a unifying issue for our state. Governors, state legislators, local leaders, and members of our congressional delegation from both parties have come together time and time again to support the implementation of the Coastal Master Plan. This unity has produced important results for our coast...Read More

In late June, New Orleans artist Robert Tannen spent $6,000 to purchase a retired 30-foot lifeboat. The hazard-orange vessel was built to hold 74 crewmen, in case their freighter sank beneath them. Tannen found the boat for sale in the parking lot of a movie industry prop shop in Slidell. He plans to have the...Read More

Here are 6 things you need to know about the environmental disaster affecting the Gulf of Mexico. There’s an underwater disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico right now that’s affecting Gulf Coast wildlife, fishermen and economies. We’ve broken it down here with six things you need to know. 1. Lots of rain in the...Read More

When the Water Institute of the Gulf in Baton Rouge set out to railroad two former employees, its director and staff resorted to “actual foul play,” and “intentionally withheld exculpatory evidence during the course of the government investigation.” That according to Mike Magner, a federal-prosecutor-turned defense attorney, who represents one of the former employees, a...Read More