A bill to aid environmental group Save Lake Peigneur in their fight to stop Atlanta based AGL Resources from building two compressed natural gas storage chambers in the salt dome beneath the lake has won final passage of the House, 56-34, and is on its way to the governor’s desk. The land owners from around the lake have done battle to stop industrial development since 1994, complaining that the area has suffered enough from out-of-state companies exploiting local natural resources at the expense of Louisiana residents. Senate Bill 754, by Iberia Parish Senator Troy Hebert restricts the amount of water that can be withdrawn daily from the Chicot Aquifer, in effect hamstringing AGL’s plans to use at least three million gallons of fresh water a day to scour out storage chambers in the salt dome. The resulting brine would have been injected deep into strata below the sands of the aquifer. “We’ve been shot down so many times,” says Save Lake Peigneur vice-president Nara Crowley, “we were hopeful, but didn’t know what was going to happen. There were at least 10 lobbyists there opposing us. We had to fight very hard. This morning, we’re ecstatic.”
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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