"Americans are accustomed to things just working. Flip a switch and the lights come on. Open a tap and clean water flows from it. But, as investments in essential infrastructure have declined, problems with things like drinking water have begun to crop up more frequently. 

The problems with lead contamination of the Flint, Michigan, water system persist even as the headlines have faded. Louisiana has not been immune to these issues. The state of Louisiana rescued the St. Joseph water system from problems. Baton Rouge is plagued by salt water intrusion as ExxonMobil and Georgia Pacific continue to suck huge amounts of water from the Southern Hills Aquifer for use in their industrial processes (while other companies use river water). Water systems in several Louisiana parishes have been found to contain brain-eating amoeba (a problem that can usually be cleared up by increasing the amount of chlorine added to the system). 

Lafayette Utilities Systems' main water well field is located on what was once the north side of the town — just across the railroad tracks around Mudd Avenue and Simcoe Street. That area abuts an abandoned railroad yard that included a roundhouse and train cleaning and repair facility. For seven decades or more, solvents and chemicals of various kinds were used to degrease engines and apparatus, much of it being allowed to spill onto the ground where it was absorbed. 

Kim Goodell of WaterMark Alliance says the contamination from that now-abandoned rail yard poses an imminent threat to Lafayette's water system as traces of contaminants from the rail yard have turned up in samples taken from the nearby LUS wells. In any given day, LUS draws about 20 million gallons of water from the wells in that field. 

Two other factors add urgency to the situation. 

The first is that recent studies have found that the Chicot Aquifer (the primary groundwater resource in south Louisiana) rises very near the surface of the ground near the rail yard. In some spots, the aquifer is as little as 30 feet below the surface. That would indicate that any chemicals in the abandoned rail yard don't have far to travel before they have reached the aquifer. 

The second factor is the proposed plan to build the I-49 Connector through downtown Lafayette. An elevated segment of the road would run directly through the rail yard, resulting in hundreds of pilings being driven through the site and possibly into the aquifer, driving contamination toward the aquifer in the process. 

Beyond the public health threat, the contamination near the water well field could force LUS to relocate its wells and go through the expense of having to reconfigure the structure of the water system. 

Kim discusses the problems with the rail yard, the lack of any comprehensive study of the extent of the contamination of the site, and the kinds of threats these pose to Lafayette's drinking water."

"Abita Springs is nestled in the piney woods of St. Tammany Parish, just east of Covington and north of Mandeville. The town has a well-earned reputation for clean are and sparkling clean artesian well water. St. Tammany has a reputation for being one of the most conservative parishes in Louisiana, yet in Abita Springs the Republican mayor and town aldermen have committed to move their town to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. 

The town is one of just over 100 U.S. municipalities who have signed onto the Sierra Club’s “Ready for 100” pledge to pursue full renewable energy for their communities. The group made a splash at the recent U.S. Conference of Mayors’ meeting in Miami, where tidal flooding has become a reality even while some political leaders profess to be climate change skeptics. 

LeAnn Magee, founder of Abita Committee for Energy Sustainability, attended the Mayors’ Miami meeting with a small delegation of her co-horts. Abita Springs Mayor Greg Lemons is, it turns out, a long-time Sierra Club member and, MaGee says in the interview, enthusiastically embraced the idea of the town making the commitment to sustainable energy. 

Some of the town aldermen were skeptical but were won over when they learned that one of elements of the program was conducting an audit of public building energy usage. Helping the town reduce its cost of operating by reducing what it spends on energy had great appeal and the town was off and running. 

Magee comes by her environmentalism honestly (she’s originally from Oregon but has been a St. Tammany resident for all of this century). Others came to the cause as a result of the anti-fracking fight in St. Tammany that flared over a three-year period when Helis Oil sought to frack in the parish. 

As a result of that long fight (no fracking occurred after a test well was drilled), some in the St. Tammany anti-fracking movement were looking for something positive to get behind. They found it in the Sierra Club’s Ready for 100 movement. Abita Springs is the first Louisiana municipality to sign up for the program. 

For the naysayers out there, it’s worth noting that having a goal does not mean you’ve accomplished it, but having a goal is essential to accomplishing it. Abita has aimed high, setting a standard that other Louisiana municipalities in this climate change threatened state would do well to emulate. 

We talk about Abita’s commitment and the thrill of environmentalists advocating for positive change."

"Louisiana lost a great friend just before the Fourth of July when Ezra Boyd died. 

Ezra helped as many people and organizations as he had talents. He was a scientist with a political science degree included in the mix. He brought a heightened social awareness to the issues that he worked ranging from disaster preparation to response to recovery. He worked with public agencies, environmental groups, communities and individual citizens. 

His DisasterMap.Net provides real-time data that anyone caught in a disaster or who knows people who are caught in disasters can use to provide critical information. In the floods of August 2016, Ezra helped scores of people across south Louisiana find their way to safety or help guide them back home in those tortuous days after the rains stopped but flood waters remained. 

He brought static information to life combining his grasp of data and his skills as a cartographer and programmer. 

His passing leaves a void in our community that will be difficult to fill. He had so many skills which he used so well. 

This interview initially ran in April of this year. Ezra drove to Lafayette to be in the studio to record it. We knew each other for a few years. I had helped him with press releases about some of his projects. We considered each other friends. It was my honor to be considered his."