WWNO’s Coastal Desk is taking a look back at the local and environmental news we produced this year. Our coastal reporters, Eva Tesfaye and Halle Parker, traveled all over Louisiana to cover environmental matters affecting the state.  We looked at the expansion of liquefied natural gas facilities and the impact it’s had on climate change and public health, we talked to crawfish farmers about their struggling industry and we explored the movement to help Native communities regain control over their ancestral lands.

Check out some of the biggest stories from the Coastal Desk this year. 

1,400 bills later, how did Louisiana’s environment fare after the 2024 legislative session?

We have a roundup of all the environmental bills state lawmakers passed this spring. This includes a law that prevents community air monitoring, a few that protect the state’s seafood industry from foreign imports and some that address the state’s emerging carbon capture and storage industry.

Crawfish prices are finally dropping, but farmers and fishers say they’re still struggling

The effects of droughts and extreme heat in the summer of 2023 trickled over to 2024’s crawfish season. Consumers faced extremely high prices, which at one point reached $9 a pound, while producers struggled to make up their input costs. Eva worked with Maya Miller at the Gulf States Newsroom to understand what crawfish fishers and farmers were going through.

Plans for controversial St. John grain elevator scrapped after years of permitting delays 

After three years of opposing a controversial grain elevator project, activists in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” celebrated a big win in St. John the Baptist Parish. Following the story closely, Halle wrote about how the project was scrapped due to permitting delays. The 11-mile stretch of land holds the longest portion of the Mississippi River that hasn’t been industrialized. Activists emphasized the history of the area in their fight against the project and it may receive a National Historic Designation.

‘Less land, more water’: Grand Bayou Indian Village builds oyster reef for protection

To cope with coastal land loss, the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha tribe partnered with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana to build an oyster reef protecting their homes. Eva traveled down to their home, Grand Bayou Indian Village in southern Plaquemines Parish, to report on the project. On the same day, the tribe also received a sacred mound in Louisiana’s first Land Back donation. Indigenous mounds made quite a bit of news this year in the state, as a few months later, the United Houma Nation received another Land Back donation of two sacred mounds.

Residents of Cancer Alley have fewer protections against environmental discrimination

Louisianans are less protected from environmental discrimination after a ruling from U.S. District Judge James David Cain of Lake Charles back in August. The ruling permanently blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from using civil rights to fight environmental injustice in Louisiana. Halle Parker was on NPR to discuss what that means for people in “Cancer Alley.”

Louisiana school board to close historic Black school next to chemical plant

This year, Halle followed another story in St. John the Baptist Parish about Fifth Ward Elementary School. In November, the school board announced it would close the school in response to a civil rights lawsuit. The suit alleged the school board violated a desegregation order by bussing Black students to the school, which sits right next to a chemical plant.

As saltwater flows up the Mississippi River for a third year, the region looks for permanent solutions

For the third year in a row, low water levels in the Mississippi allowed for saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico to flow up the river. The saltwater did not reach Orleans or Jefferson Parish, but Plaquemines Parish’s drinking water was contaminated yet again. Eva partnered with Lily Carey of Sierra Magazine to talk to researchers, local government officials and the Army Corps of Engineers about their plans for more long-term solutions.

Exporting more US gas not sustainable, federal LNG study shows

Halle has been closely following the development of the liquified natural gas (LNG) industry on the Gulf Coast (as well as around the world) as the oil and gas industry pushes the fuel as a cleaner alternative energy source to help wean the world off of fossil fuels. At the beginning of this year, the Biden administration announced a pause on LNG projects while it analysed their impacts. The study, released this month, found that exporting LNG would not be in the public’s best interest.