A group of environmentalists is hosting a community meeting tonight to update residents of the Riverbend subdivision and other concerned citizens about a proposed barge cleaning facility that would be located on the Mississippi River near BREC’s Farr Park Equestrian Center.
LSU’s Superfund Center Community Engagement Program and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network are co-hosting the meeting, which is being held one week before the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality holds a public hearing on the proposed facility. LEAN Communications Director Michael Orr says the purpose of holding the community meeting in advance of the DEQ hearing is to arm citizens with information and help them to be more effective when they go before state regulators.
“Most people don’t understand hearings,” Orr says. “And they don’t have an opportunity to get feedback, so tonight is an opportunity to raise awareness and help them be more informed.”
The barge cleaning facility is being proposed by Port Arthur, Texas-based Tubal Cain Marine Service and would include a dockside mooring area, two working deck barges with 10 mounted 15,000-gallon storage tanks, as well as a steam boiler, transfer pumps and piping, a truck loading station and enclosed flare. According to the company’s permit application, barges will be emptied at the facility and cleaned, and residual liquids in the barges will be pumped into storage tanks and, eventually, flared.
Residents of nearby subdivisions and BREC officials have called for more information on the project in general, as well as specifics on the kinds of chemicals that will be used at the facility and subsequent air pollution issues.
Orr says LEAN will provide experts at tonight’s meeting who will try to help the public understand exactly what the Texas company is proposing and “what it might mean for them.” He says though LEAN is not actively fighting the facility, his organization will do what it can to help residents if they oppose it.
“If they don’t want it, we don’t want it,” he says.
Tonight’s meeting will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Woods Auditorium of the Energy, Coast and Environmental Building on the LSU campus.
The DEQ hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m., July 14 in the Oliver Pollock room of the DEQ building at 602 N. Fifth St.
—Stephanie Riegel
