coastal desk

Two older cypress trees stand side-by-side on the edge of the Blind River on Friday, Feb. 3, 2023, draped with spanish moss.

A proposed pipeline would cut through Maurepas Swamp. This environmental group thinks its illegal

Halle Parker

The pipeline would carry carbon dioxide for a controversial underground carbon-storage project. A new lawsuit argues it violates state law.

Louisiana’s ambitious plan to save and restore its coastline is stalled amid lawsuits seeking to halt the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project. And now Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has voiced his own concerns about the project which environmental advocates fear could stall the project indefinitely.

Coastal Desk

Uncertainty looms over plan to save coastal Louisiana

Terry L. Jones (Floodlight)

Federal leaders and Gov. Jeff Landry clash over the state’s projected spending for the $3 billion project.

Adler Stelly on his boat in Abbeville, Louisiana on March 15, 2024. Stelly has been farming crawfish his entire life and said he's been hit hard by the drought.

Coastal Desk

The Coastal Desk's biggest news stories from 2024

Eva Tesfaye

WWNO’s Coastal Desk is taking a look back at the local and environmental news we produced this year.

A liquefied natural gas tanker docks at Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass LNG, an export facility that started operating last year on the coast of Cameron Parish, Louisiana.

Coastal Desk

Exporting more US gas not sustainable, federal LNG study shows

Halle Parker

“The main takeaway is that a business-as-usual approach is neither sustainable nor advisable,” said U.S. Energy Sec. Jennifer Granholm during a press call on Tuesday.

United Houma Nation Chief Lora Ann Chaisson (left), attorney Derrick Prentice and landowner Michael Heck sign an Act of Donation that returns sacred mounds back to the tribe on December 13, 2024.

Coastal Desk

United Houma Nation gets 2 sacred mounds as Land Back movement gains traction in Louisiana

Eva Tesfaye

Property owners in Dulac, La. have returned sacred land to the United Houma Nation.

Louisiana leaders broke ground on the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project on Aug. 10, 2023, but construction on the project has been delayed. Two separate lawsuits are challenging the impacts it could have on the state’s coastline. Louisiana is in danger of losing the more than $2 billion allocated for the project if it doesn’t commit to seeing it through.

Coastal Desk

Louisiana could be out billions of dollars if controversial coastal restoration stalls

Terry L. Jones (Floodlight)

The feds threaten to withhold $2.2 billion from the massive effort to save and restore the state’s diminishing coastline if leaders don’t act soon.

An aerial view of broken wetlands in Plaquemines Parish. Projections by Climate Central indicate that the parish could lose another 100,000 acres of wetlands by the end of the century.

Coastal Desk

Louisiana voters want federal money from offshore wind to go toward coastal restoration

Eva Tesfaye

Louisiana’s coastal restoration fund could get a boost from offshore wind revenues.

The most recent expansion of U.S. nuclear generation, at Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle, cost $35 billion and took 15 years to build.

Coastal Desk

Nuclear power could solve US electricity needs. But at what cost?

Kristi E. Swartz (Floodlight)

As Three Mile Island and a Michigan reactor aim to restart, critics question whether the cost of nuclear power makes sense.

St. James Parish activists and residents Barbara Washington, Gail Lebouef and Shamyra Lavigne (left to right) hold a fist up after their groups filed a lawsuit against their local government on Tuesday, March 21, 2023 outside of the U.S. District Court of Eastern Louisiana in New Orleans.

Coastal Desk

'Cancer alley' residents ask federal court to revive lawsuit over new chemical plants

Halle Parker

Federal appeals court considers lawsuit aimed at pausing new chemical plants in St. James Parish.

The Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a man-made navigational channel connecting the Gulf of Mexico to New Orleans, is deemed a critical protection asset for the greater New Orleans area, and in 2017 was added to the list of restoration projects identified by the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

Coastal Desk

As funding dries up for Louisiana’s coastal restoration program, advocates are strategizing to sustain it

Terry L. Jones (Floodlight)

A coalition of environmental groups is pushing 18 projects to protect Gulf Coast communities from land loss and storm damage.