Backup S&WB turbine blamed for oily sheen over west Carrollton homes; relief may be a year away

 Posted by at 11:35 am  city government, environment, Featured, health, neighborhood groups
Apr 192013
 

This power plant on Spruce Street houses a backup turbine that is the source of gear oil in a mist-like form that has covered neighbors’ homes and cars, Sewerage and Water Board officials say. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)

West Carrollton residents beset by an oily sheen over their homes, cars and gardens are bearing the brunt of providing drinking water to the rest of the city from a century-old facility hobbled by emergency measures taken after Hurricane Katrina, officials said, and it may be another year before repairs progress enough to make a difference in the problem. Continue reading »

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Patagonia founder keynotes Tulane environmental law summit

 Posted by at 10:29 am  colleges, environment
Feb 222013
 

The two-day Tulane Summit on Environmental Law & Policy, which runs today (Friday) and Saturday, will feature panel discussions on topics of local interest such as fracking, coal export terminals, Hurricane Sandy aftermath, water management in New Orleans, Louisiana’s scenic rivers, lessons from the BP spill, sea levels in South Louisiana, the Gulf Dead Zone and a keynote presentation by Yvon Chouinard, founder of the Patagonia outdoor clothing company. Continue reading »

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Owen Courreges: After Sandy, should New York City be moved inland?

 Posted by at 11:04 am  business, city government, environment, opinion, politics, public safety, recovery, weather
Nov 052012
 

Owen Courreges

The word of the day is “Schadenfreude,” a loanword of Germanic origin that refers to satisfaction received from the misfortunes of others.

Oh, I should use it in a sentence?  OK. “I felt a warm feeling of Schadenfreude when the man who stole my bicycle was struck by lightning, died in intense pain, and then a swarm of rats appeared and urinated on his remains.”  (Note to readers: I really hate bike thieves).

Following Hurricane Sandy, regrettably if understandably, many New Orleanians felt a whiff of Schadenfreude.  We had been told so many times by so many people after Hurricane Katrina that we were poor, stupid, and our city had been built in the wrong place.  People asked if we should bother rebuilding New Orleans, as if we were all just going to pack up our bags and move. Continue reading »

Pythons, a peacock, parakeets and a mysterious Magazine Street marsupial: Uptown abounds with odd animal sightings

 Posted by at 11:22 am  environment, neighborhood groups, public safety
Aug 242012
 

Ted Argote and his daughter, Kate, check in on the jungle carpet python (at bottom right) that has recently taken up residence in liriope in front of their Panola Street home. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)

Shortly after 9 a.m. Friday morning, Ted Argote returned home from dropping his wife at work, parked in front of his Panola Street home and, as he walked out the door, called out a greeting to the paisley-patterned python that has recently begun sunning itself every morning in the front yard.

“Good morning, Indiana!” Argote said, using a nickname picked in homage to Harrison Ford’s famously snake-averse archaeologist.

While the sudden appearance of the exotic jungle carpet python on Panola Street was odd, even odder still is the litany of wild animals appearing around Uptown of late, and residents’ largely nonchalant reaction to them. With a supposed boa constrictor on Burdette, parakeets in Palmer Park, a peacock on Cohn and a fashionable little kangaroo (or wallaby) spotted on upper Magazine Street, it has been hard to tell this week where the zoo stops and the neighborhoods begin. Continue reading »

Two-year project will raise levees from the Fly to Oak Street

 Posted by at 11:09 am  environment, public safety, sports and recreation
Aug 042012
 

Crowds gather at the Fly at Audubon Park to see rising water levels during the Mississippi River flood of May 2011. (UptownMessenger.com file photo by Sabree Hill)

The project to increase height of the levee by 2 feet may involve shutting down the Fly for part of the two years of construction, and will remove all trees and vegetation, reports Mark Schleifstein of The Times-Picayune. It will skip over the Army Corps of Engineers campus that sits on top of a center portion of the levee, where floodwalls will be added later, Schleifstein reports.

Untamed people and places of “Beasts of the Southern Wild” enthrall Prytania audience

 Posted by at 1:33 am  environment, events, film and television
Jul 072012
 

“Beasts of the Southern Wild” plays before a sold-out audience at the Prytania Theatre on Friday, July 6. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)

Film director Benh Zeitlin speaks to the audience at the Prytania Theatre. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)

In “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” a little girl named Hushpuppy is told of her destiny to one day be “king of the Bathtub.”

On Friday night, as her creator fielded question after question about her, it was clear that the sold-out audience at the Prytania Theatre had been conquered. Continue reading »

Benjamin Morris: In Praise of the Fly

 Posted by at 5:30 am  arts, books and music, environment, opinion, sports and recreation
Apr 222012
 

Benjamin Morris

Picture this: the sun high overhead, the sounds of the river all around you, the feel of soft grass underneath you, shade trees lining the path, and the smells of picnics and barbecues wafting in from across the pitch. Yes, it’s summertime — spring was a blip, that one week of perfect high pressure we had last month — and what better place to go and celebrate New Orleans’ official longest season than a spot that brings together so much of its natural beauty in one place?

I’m talking, of course, about the Fly.

Continue reading »

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Tulane Environmental Law Summit panels to tackle oil pollution, local hospitals, and keynote address by ’1491′ author

 Posted by at 10:34 am  arts, books and music, colleges, environment, events, health, transportation
Mar 012012
 

The 17th Annual Tulane Environmental Law Summit will feature two days of panels on topics including pollution from the BP oil spill, the impact of the changes to New Orleans hospitals and the removal of the Claiborne elevated expressway, as well as a keynote address by the author of the acclaimed history book, 1491. Continue reading »

Costco plans receive warm reception from Hollygrove neighbors

 Posted by at 10:22 am  business, city government, environment, food and drink, neighborhood groups
Oct 202011
 

A rendering of Costco Wholesale store proposed for New Orleans by MulvannyG2 Architecture of Seattle.

Over the past six years, the Carrollton-Hollygrove Community Development Corporation has been involved in countless meetings focused on the fate of the large empty lot on South Carrollton near the interstate.

On Wednesday evening, surrounded by drawings and renderings of the Costco Wholesale store proposed for the site, CDC member Joe Sherman told store officials he has high hopes for their plans.

“You guys have addressed all of the concerns that came out,” Sherman said during a community meeting with Costco representatives and architects. “I just want to congratulate y’all on a job well done.” Continue reading »

Audubon Park’s Bird Island still missing its departed flocks

 Posted by at 2:41 pm  environment, sports and recreation
Oct 072011
 

A lone waterbird stands at the edge of the lagoon at Audubon Park earlier this week. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)

Article by Colby Wilson, for UptownMessenger.com

Nearly six months after the startling disappearance of a large population of birds from Audubon Park’s Bird Island, the rookery has yet to recover, and local birdwatchers are still feeling its loss.

“Our park patrons have a lot of personal and emotional investments in Bird Island,” said Sarah Burnette of the Audubon Institute. “The primary negative impact isn’t necessarily on the wildlife. It’s on the people.” Continue reading »

Jean-Paul Villere: Hive Talkin’

 Posted by at 5:30 am  business, colleges, environment, health, opinion
Oct 052011
 

Harvesting honey at Avital's Apiary in Ithaca, N.Y. (courtesy of Lesli Sagan)

Bees at work in a Black Pearl backyard. (photo by Jean-Paul Villere)

Ever hear of the Black Pearl Apiary?  That’s because it doesn’t exist.  Yet.  Thursday evening, ten finalists for this year’s PitchNOLA will throw down in Freeman Auditorium on Tulane’s campus competing for seed monies to jumpstart entrepreneurial innovations in the Crescent City.  Among these top 10  is a duo that’s eager to transform a little bit of the Black Pearl — that little triangle bound by St. Charles, Broadway, and Leake Ave (aka River Road) — into a sweet, sustainable proposition: an apiary.  Not an aviary, mind you, but an apiary.  The former is a sort of bird refuge, and the latter, well, it’s for bees, a collection of hives. Continue reading »

Owen Courreges: Plastic, please

 Posted by at 9:03 am  business, city government, environment, opinion
Sep 122011
 

Owen Courrèges

Of the myriad conveniences of daily life, there are many I could do without.  If tomorrow you told me that I had to use a wood burning stove instead of a microwave, I wouldn’t starve to death.  If you said AM radio was “good enough” and killed FM and Satellite radio, I could certainly make do.

However, just because you can live without something doesn’t mean you should have to.  One thing that we are constantly being urged to give up in our daily lives is simple but crucial – plastic shopping bags. Continue reading »

Lee brings isolated damage, flooding, outages to Uptown New Orleans

 Posted by at 5:34 pm  city government, environment, flood protection and drainage, neighborhood groups, public safety, weather
Sep 042011
 

A passer-by looks at a fallen oak tree Sunday on Maple Street. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)

Although New Orleans was spared Tropical Storm Lee’s worst rain and winds, Uptown neighborhoods reported isolated damage, street flooding and power outages Saturday and Sunday. Continue reading »

“Buku smoke:” #marshfire wakes up Twitter

 Posted by at 10:21 am  environment, health, public safety, weather
Aug 292011
 

A photo from Twitter user @donkalope purporting to be of smoke from the New Orleans East marsh fire, taken from http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/?subset=AERONET_Stennis

The acrid smell of the marsh fire burning in New Orleans East suddenly appeared in Uptown New Orleans around 1:30 a.m. Monday, waking up many residents and sending them online to find out what happened.

As with any late-night New Orleans conversation, this one had its twists and turns. See below for references to barbecue, zoning laws, “Inception,” secret weapons arsenals, more barbecue and respirator masks. Continue reading »

Owen Courrèges: The case for old light

 Posted by at 9:04 am  city government, environment, opinion
Jul 252011
 

Owen Courrèges

In many ways, I’m a nostalgist. I believe you have to be a bit of a nostalgist to live in New Orleans. If you don’t admire old buildings, long-standing traditions and an outlook that looks backward as much as it looks forward, you’ll become frustrated pretty quickly in New Orleans. Continue reading »

For temporary site, Audubon Charter favors Gentilly campus Hynes is leaving — if available in time

 Posted by at 3:14 pm  environment, schools
Jul 212011
 

The St. James Major campus in Gentilly, currently occupied by Hynes Charter School. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)

Many Audubon Charter School parents and teachers see the St. James Major campus in Gentilly as an attractive option for a temporary campus after Hynes Charter School moves out of it during the winter break, they told school officials after hearing about four new options at a Thursday afternoon meeting.

Before the school can begin a two-year renovation of its Broadway campus, it must find an interim location for the students who are already there, and the urgency of the search has increased since a site in the Lower Garden District was deemed unacceptable earlier this summer. The Orleans Parish School Board has asked Audubon to have an answer by Aug. 1, little more than a week away. Continue reading »

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