Let It Flow, Let It Flow, Let It Flow: Nature-based solutions for Mississippi River flooding
Guest Blog by Rebecca Malpass, Healthy Gulf Intern
Advance Climate Justice
The GI Construction and Conservation Training Program
Jumpstart your career by joining the green solution! Louisiana Green Corps (LAGC) provides environmental education and career building opportunities via construction and conservation job training programs. The Green Infrastructure (GI) Construction and Conservation training program is open to adults 18 years or older with an interest in working in construction and green infrastructure work. The …
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Saving Lincoln Beach
New Orleans for Lincoln Beach has been working with the city to reopen the historic Lincoln Beach in New Orleans East. Lincoln Beach served as a haven for black families in New Orleans when they were not allowed at the white-only Ponchartrain Beach amusement park during the segregated Jim Crow era. Although smaller, secluded and …
North Gulfport Residents Defend their Wetlands and Community Health Against Port Project
Citizens from North Gulfport oppose wetland filling that would allow the State Port to build a rail/truck transfer facility next to their neighborhoods. Environmental Justice issues are contained in the appeal. Residents who live adjacent to the project site are concerned that soil and water pollution contained there will be mobilized with development and affect their health, property and quality of life. A 70 year old brownfield site – a closed fertilizer plant – has left soil and groundwater tainted by arsenic, lead and carcinogens that could find their way to the surface if the site is developed. The evidentiary hearing on the Mississippi State Port Authority’s Clean Water Act State water quality certification began this week at the MDEQ Commission Room in Jackson, but is continued until May.
We Need a Mississippi River Restoration and Resilience Initiative
This blog was written by Rebecca Malpass, Healthy Gulf’s Policy Intern.
SOUL Tree Initiative
The Sustaining Our Urban Landscape (SOUL) launched an initiative to plant 700 native trees in the historic, low-lying Pontchartrain Park with a goal to plant one in front of every home by March 2022. Trees are helpful when mitigating stormwater runoff, help clean the air, in addition to providing shade and beauty to communities. By …
Healthy Gulf Joins Conservation Groups in Yazoo Pumps Suit againt EPA
Healthy Gulf joined American Rivers, National Audubon Society and Sierra Club in a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency, asking a federal judge to rule on whether EPA’s 2008 Clean Water Act veto of the Yazoo Backwater Pump project still applies to a 2020 Army Corps of Engineers re-do. The project’s pumping capacity and purpose remain the same as the earlier project which was vetoed during the George W. Bush Administration. The project’s impacts to wetlands and habitats remain significant in the 2020 re-do version, and the Conservation Groups maintain that the veto still prohibits the pumps. EPA has used a Clean Water Act veto on a development project 13 times since 1972. The agency has slightly modified some vetoes after-the-fact, but has never completely revoked one.
Green Infrastructure: A Solution
Since New Orleans was settled by the French in 1718, New Orleanians have been learning to adapt to and live with water. The city is a series of basins surrounded by Lake Pontchartrain and nestled along the mighty Mississippi. Grey infrastructure in the form of pipes, pumps, and drains combine to make our drainage system. …
Yazoo Pumps (Again)
The controversial Yazoo Backwater Area pump project in the lower Mississippi Delta is again being advanced by the Army Corps of Engineers and the State of Mississippi. Much weight is given to a single new piece of Corps-sponsored research on soil moisture that the agency uses to conclude that a large pumping plant will not cause present wetland areas to change to non-wetland classification. The Corps’s justification of the pumps on these wetland effects is presented in a new Supplemental EIS that could open the door for the Environmental Protection Agency to revisit and rescind its 2008 veto of the project under the Clean Water Act.
Stormwater Incentives: Permeable Pavement
Living in a city below sea level means living in a city often inundated with water and its effects. Stormwater incentive mechanisms are easy to implement and afford community members the flexibility and creativity to reduce the impacts of flooding and runoff in our communities. Across the US, communities have employed successful incentive models such …