Tagged: environment

Metro area residents probably know stories about consumers with big eyes and small wallets who become “house poor.” But in the years ahead they may become familiar with a new, more frightening term: “levee poor.”

Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu is calling on the Obama administration’s nominee for Interior Secretary to support a bigger share of oil and gas revenue to coastal states.

At a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Landrieu told nominee Sally Jewell that offshore drilling along the Gulf Coast accounts for three times the production onshore in western and interior states.

Testimony continues in week two of the BP oil spill trial in federal court. But one legal expert says the case could still reach a settlement.

The Coast Guard says a wellhead damaged earlier this week off Plaquemines Parish has been secured.

Ensign Tanner Stiehl says Wild Well Control crews secured the well shortly after a specialized barge arrived Thursday in Lake Grande Ecaille Bay, nine miles southwest of Port Sulphur.

The wellhead owned by Houston-based Swift Energy Co. was damaged Tuesday by one of the company's crewboats. Stiehl says skimmer boats have since collected more than 1,200 gallons of oily water. He says 4,880 feet of boom was set out to contain the spill and keep it out of marshes.