Local News &c.

EDIT: I can't make the end of this post a visible font color for some reason. Just highlight over it and it's readable.

I'm from here (here meaning New Orleans Louisiana, unequivocally the most most uberfantastic and ultraspectacular city in the world-as-we-know-it), and ridiculously proud of it, in case I hadn't made that clear.

I'm also from Lakewood, a minuscule section of New Orleans which can be traversed in roughly twenty minutes, if you take the scenic route. It's entirely residential and about as close to the suburbs as you can get without moving to Metairie. I generally don't make this information public. I'm much more at home in the Quarter (during the day), and also Uptown, which is why I live here now.

I couldn't find any information about the Lakewood environment because with the exception of that one time the city flooded nothing ever happens there.

I found a lot of information on the oil spill being capped, but really, anyone who hasn't heard about that by now hasn't been paying any attention to anything.

I found more interesting the conflict between the people who want to erect berms to prevent the oil from reaching the shore and the people who point out that to erect the berms one would have to dredge the sea, thereby killing turtles and things.

'The National Marine Fisheries Service pointed out that when the state used hopper dredges to mine sand from the Hewes Point area north of the northernmost Chandeleur island at the beginning of the construction project, the dredging contractors were reported to have killed at least six turtles. Three turtles were killed in trawlers used to corral them away from the dredging area and three were killed by the hopper dredges. They also had to relocate 191 turtles.

'"Sea turtle abundance in the areas is not just high, but extraordinarily high," the NMFS comment said. It warned that the state's plan to switch to a different kind of dredging was still likely to injure or kill turtles.'

Honestly no idea where I fall on this issue. I'm generally against killing turtles unless delicious soup is involved, but these are extenuating circumstances.

More info here: http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/09/barrier_berm_advocates_not_det.html