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Wood pellet manufacturing leads to rural air pollution; filling gaps in Gulf Coast water quality monitoring with AI; MSY travelers share their stories

Sawdust piles up at Drax’s wood pellet mill near Urania, Louisiana. The mill presses sawdust into pellets that are burned in a former coal plant in Yorkshire, England.
Eric Shelton
/
Mississippi Today
Sawdust piles up at Drax’s wood pellet mill near Urania, Louisiana. The mill presses sawdust into pellets that are burned in a former coal plant in Yorkshire, England.

When a United Kingdom-based company promised to revive the pine lumber industry and produce green energy, three majority-Black towns in the deep South — including two in rural Louisiana — jumped at the opportunity. But residents are now thinking better of the deal after seeing massive spikes in air pollution. Verite News’ Tristan Baurick joins us to share what he’s learned about international wood pellet manufacturing.

Water quality monitoring is crucial for understanding the health of human communities and the wider ecosystems they rely upon. But water quality measurement along the Gulf Coast is resource-limited. Mariam Valladares Castellanos, a civil and environmental engineering researcher at LSU, joins us to discuss an effort to use artificial intelligence to fill the gaps in how we monitor coastal waterways.

A shortage of Transportation Security Administration agents at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans resulted in a considerable number of missed flights and anxious passengers this weekend. Some of those passengers shared their travel stories with WRKF Report for America corps member Alex Cox.

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Today’s episode of Louisiana Considered was hosted by Adam Vos. Our managing producer is Alana Schreiber. We get production support from Garrett Pittman and our assistant producer, Aubry Procell.

You can listen to Louisiana Considered Monday through Friday at noon and 7 p.m. It’s available on Spotify, the NPR App and wherever you get your podcasts.

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Adam is responsible for coordinating WRKF's programming and making sure everything you hear on the radio runs smoothly. He is Newscast Editor for the WRKF/WWNO Newsroom. Adam is also the Baton Rouge-based host for Louisiana Considered, our daily regional news program, and is frequently the local voice afternoons on All Things Considered.
Aubry is a reporter, producer and operations assistant in Baton Rouge.