An Iberia Parish grassroots group that for years has been fighting to do just what its name entails — Save Lake Peigneur — is still at it in its David and Goliath style battle against an Atlanta-based energy company’s plans to carve new natural gas caverns under the scenic lake.
AGL Resources already operates two natural gas storage caverns under Lake Peigneur, the banks of which house Rip Van Winkle Gardens. The company’s goal of building two additional caverns will require dredging the lake and siphoning unprecedented amounts of groundwater from the Chicot Aquifer. The lake is also the site of an extraordinary drilling accident in 1980 and home to “unexplained bubbling.”
The project scope, particularly the use of an aquifer that supplies drinking water to more than 20 parishes, has faced enough opposition and legal red tape to delay AGL’s plans for the past five years. Thursday night, more than a dozen state lawmakers who serve on the Senate Environmental Quality or House Natural Resources and Environment committees will convene at the Sliman Theater in downtown New Iberia for a 6 p.m. public meeting to discuss the concerns over the issuance of state permits. Legislators from Acadiana are also expected to attend.
Save Lake Peigneur member Geri Frederick says a standing-room only crowd opposing the project at a May 17 Senate committee hearing prompted state Sen. J.P. Morrell, a New Orleans Democrat who chairs the Senate environmental committee, to bring the discussion closer to home.
“In all our years fighting this, I can’t ever remember two committees coming to New Iberia to hear our concerns,” Frederick says.
Reps from AGL Resources will also be on hand to give an update and presentation before Save Lake Peigneur takes the stage.
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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