Land ho!: New land is blossoming at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River in Louisiana, bucking the trend of lost ground in this Gulf state. LiveScience.com reports recent satellite imagery shows two new deltas protruding into the Gulf of Mexico, one fed by the Atchafalaya and one from the nearby Wax Lake Outlet. Similar images taken in 1984 show nothing but a few disjointed spits of sediment where there are now marshlands. “We are looking carefully at the Wax Lake and Atchafalaya deltas as models for building new land and preserving some of our coastal marshlands,” LSU coastal studies researcher Harry Roberts tells NASA’s Earth Observatory, which released the images. Read the full story.
Putting their French on it: In a new feature on a Ville Platte radio station’s effort to hold onto the French language, The New York Times calls KVPI “one of the last vestiges of French-language talk programming on Louisiana radio.” The feature focuses on 77-year-old Jim Soileau, who hosts “La Tasse de Café” (“The Cup of Coffee”). The show is “a conscious effort to sustain an iteration of French that followed its own evolutionary path here, far from the famed vigilance of the Académie Française,” the feature reads. “Many now believe Louisiana French to be endangered, even as other aspects of the state’s rural culture flourish amid the homogenizing forces of modern life.” Read the full feature.
Futures rising: Oil traded at an almost two-month high in London today amid speculation that a slowdown in U.S. drilling may curb production. Brent crude futures were little changed in London, paring an earlier increase of as much as 1.7%. U.S. drillers cut the number of rigs in service by 84 to 1,056, the lowest since August 2011. Still, the decline isn’t steep enough to sufficiently curb production and address the current excess, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Meanwhile, Libya’s National Oil Corp. says it would stop pumping crude at all its fields if attacks continue. Brent for April settlement rose as much as $1.05 to $62.57 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange, the highest since Dec. 22. U.S. markets are closed for the President’s Day holiday. Read the full story.
