Louisiana

New head of coastal protection intends to use rocks to protect Louisiana’s Gulf coast

Published

5 months ago

February 2, 2024

New head of coastal protection intends to use rocks to protect Louisiana’s Gulf coast

The new coastal protection chairman is a familiar face in Terrebonne, and he plans to use breakwater rocks to defend Louisiana’s coast.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry appointed former Terrebonne Parish President Gordy Dove chairman of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. Former Terrebonne Levee Conservation District Board President Tony Alford was appointed chairman of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection on Jan. 31.

The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, also known as CPRA, creates an annual master plan for Louisiana’s coast, as well as a five-year plan, which is then submitted to the Louisiana Legislature. Dove recently termed out as Parish President. For more than a year he would say he was intending to retire and spend time with his grandchildren. He said the political animal in him won out, and he couldn’t turn down an opportunity to defend the coast.

“You know, my children and their grandchildren are going to live in Louisiana,” he said. “I’m going to make sure they don’t walk under water.”

Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District Director Reggie Dupree, who also served with Dove as a state Representative, said it’s good for Lafourche and Terrebonne that the two Houma natives are in positions to directly protect the coast.

“I think it’s a very very good move for the people of the bayou region,” Dupree said. “If you look at the big scale, what we’ve done in Terrebonne and Lafourche is multiple lines of defense strategy… Now, I think you are going to see it practiced more on the statewide basis.”

Dove said one of his major goals for the coast involved putting segmented breakwater rocks throughout the entire Louisiana coast. According to Dove, these rocks have proven effective on Raccoon Island and Grand Isle. The project would cost about $1 billion, he said, and likely take a year-and-a-half before the first rock is put down.

Scientists say breakwater rocks come with both pros and cons. In the short term, they say, the rocks are proven to rebuild landmass by breaking the waves and currents and depositing the sands carried by the water flow nearby. Areas like Racoon Island have proven this aspect out.

The cons are that they can generate undertows dangerous to swimmers, and that they are not natural to the coast. The coast is made up of sand, deposited by the Mississippi River, and the islands tend to naturally move – a phenomena known as “littoral drift.” Islands, such as Racoon Island, are supposed to migrate as tidal waters move the sands from one side to the other, biologist Gary LaFleur said.

“An island like Racoon Island, it’s supposed to migrate in a certain direction,” he said. “If you had a hotel or parking lot on there, that’s a big inconvenience, but it’s kind of like the way Mother Nature made barrier islands – that’s what they are supposed to do.”

More: Governor Jeff Landry names team to restore and protect Louisiana’s disappearing coastline

More: Lawsuit seeks to overturn Louisiana’s new majority Black congressional district

Senior Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program Scientist Andrew Barron said breakwater rocks as a solution are a bit of a “mixed bag.” He said it definitely can rebuild terrain in the short term, but instances like Wine Island are a cautionary tale. The island was encircled with rocks to protect it, but battered by Hurricane Issac, the shoal moved from within the rocks, to outside of it. The island ceased to be, but the rocks remained, posing a hazard for boat captains.

Both scientists said the coast needs aid, and couldn’t say whether it would be the right or wrong solution. LaFleur compared using the breakwater rocks to medicine, it could be used the way a cast is used for a broken arm, something unnatural used for a short time to repair something natural. With the coastline rapidly diminishing, he said action is needed to protect the people that live there sooner rather than later.

“In a place like Grand Isle, you can’t do something academic like I’m talking about, ” he said. “Grand Isle has to be saved right now for the people that live there.”

Source link

Click to comment

Louisiana

Are unemployment rates declining in Louisiana?

Published

7 hours ago

June 27, 2024

Press Room

Are unemployment rates declining in Louisiana?

BATON ROUGE, La. (KALB) – A report released by the Louisiana Workforce Commission on June 25 revealed how unemployment rates changed in Louisiana in May.

According to the LWC report, with data directly sourced from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the 2024 unemployment rate in Louisiana decreased to 4.1% from April to May.

The unemployment rate saw a total decrease of 0.2% when compared to April’s rate of 4.3%. Despite an improvement between months, the unemployment rate was lower in May 2023, sitting at 3.4%.

The number of unemployed workers in May of 2024 was 86,120 individuals, an increase of over 16,000 people since May 2023.

The industries with the highest increase in jobs between May of 2023 and 2024 were construction with 6,500 jobs, government with 3,600 and professional & business services with 1,600 jobs.

According to the LWC from May 2023 to May 2024:

Alexandria gained 600 jobs (61,900 jobs)
Baton Rouge gained 6,800 jobs (423,800 jobs)
Hammond gained 100 jobs (49,700 jobs)
Houma gained 900 jobs (85,900 jobs)
Lafayette gained 600 jobs (205,400 jobs)
Lake Charles gained 1,700 jobs (96,800 jobs)
Monroe lost 1,500 jobs (76,700 jobs)
New Orleans lost 1,700 jobs (565,700 jobs)
Shreveport lost 1,900 jobs (177,100 jobs)

All data cited from the Louisana Workforce Commission are ‘seasonally adjusted statistics’. Seasonally adjusted data are used to reflect how employment and unemployment measures change from month to month without the inclusion of season pattern influences such as holidays, agricultural harvests and school schedules.

You can view all unemployment data in Louisiana here.

Click here to report a typo. Please provide the title of the article in your email.

Source link

Louisiana

Louisiana colleges will soon see more freedom in how they set tuition and mandatory fees

Published

14 hours ago

June 26, 2024

Press Room

The following has been provided by the La Illuminator:

Louisiana Colleges will soon see more freedom in how they set tuition and mandatory fees, thanks to a bill that has now been put into law, without the governor’s signature.

House Bill 862 by Rep. Jason Hughes, D-New Orleans, would allow boards for Louisiana’s four university systems to set differential tuition for any graduate, professional or high-cost undergraduate programs. The bill would also give the boards complete control over mandatory fees.

The legislation was amended to align its effective date with a 2022 law that exempts certain graduate assistants from mandatory fees.

Differential tuition is an amount charged on top of base tuition for more expensive academic programs, such as lab-heavy curricula in science or engineering. The Board of Regents, the state oversight board for all higher education, would identify which programs are considered “high-cost.”

Louisiana requires a two-thirds of the Legislature to sign off on any tuition changes at its public colleges and universities. Most other states leave this decision up to higher education management boards.

Hughes’ bill would not allow university systems to raise fees and differential tuition more than 10% every two years. It also allows schools to lower tuition and fees without limits. The ability to lower tuition has been sought for some high-demand fields such as teaching. The bill would not have an impact on the cost of TOPS, which provides state-funded student aid to many Louisiana students, as the amount of the award is no longer directly tied to the cost of tuition.

The proposal also gives university systems control over mandatory fees for any program. Tuition and fees at Louisiana universities increased drastically during the 2010s, when the burden to finance higher education was shifted from the state to students.

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and X.

Click here to report a typo. Please provide the title of the article in your email.

Source link

Louisiana

Residents sue Louisiana to block Ten Commandments in schools

Published

21 hours ago

June 26, 2024

Press Room

Residents sue Louisiana to block Ten Commandments in schools

Schools and colleges are required to set up these displays by Jan. 1, 2025.

When reached for comment, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement provided to CNA that the government “cannot comment on a lawsuit we haven’t seen [yet].”

“It seems the ACLU only selectively cares about the First Amendment — it doesn’t care when the Biden administration censors speech or arrests pro-life protesters, but apparently it will fight to prevent posters that discuss our own legal history,” Murrill said.

The lawsuit, which represents nine families who have children in the state’s public education system, argues that the mandate violates both the establishment clause and the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

The text of the lawsuit alleges that a “state-sanctioned version of the Ten Commandments … prefers and imposes a set of distinct religious norms” on students. It further argues that the students will be “coerced into religious observance, veneration, and adoption of the state’s favored religious Scripture” by displaying the text.

It also claims that the law violates parental rights by jeopardizing their “ability to direct their children’s religious education and religious upbringing.”

Source link