Acy Cooper is a proud native son of Venice, LA, a storm-battered fishing and oil service town at the end of the bayou south of New Orleans. Acy calls this "God's country," home base for some of the best shrimping and fishing in the country. This is where he cut his teeth as a commercial fisherman, just as his father did before him. But after the BP oil disaster spewed nearly 200 million gallons of crude into his fishing grounds, Acy isn't so sure what the future will bring.
In November we reported on a new program to help low-income Mississippi residents rebuild homes damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The program was the result of a settlement reached between a number of local housing advocates and their public-interest lawyers, the U.S.
This video is of the beginning of projects intended to restore coastal Alabama marshes by creating new oyster reefs to protect them from the daily wave action which causes the loss of several feet a year.
Drive down this short stretch of St. Bernard Avenue, and you will see signs of a struggling neighborhood in despair. Bars, blighted homes, metal-grated storefronts, and the still-shuttered Circle Food Store tell the story of this strip. Here in New Orleans’ 7th ward, hope and sustenance have been drained by Katrina’s floodwaters, and by decades of racism’s insidious trend of sapping vital resources from a community.
More than a 100 residents from across the state filled the hearing room at the [Mississippi] State Capitol as the discussion devoted to airing longstanding grievances over deadly chemical wastes – particularly creosote – left for decades in unsuspecting residential neighborhoods by large manufacturers like Kerr-McGee that have either packed up and gone or changed their names and continue to do business as usua
Crossposted from 
In November 
Drive down this short stretch of St. Bernard Avenue, and you will see signs of a struggling neighborhood in despair. Bars, blighted homes, metal-grated storefronts, and the still-shuttered Circle Food Store tell the story of this strip. Here in New Orleans’ 7th ward, hope and sustenance have been drained by Katrina’s floodwaters, and by decades of racism’s insidious trend of sapping vital resources from a community.
More than a 100 residents from across the state filled the hearing room at the [Mississippi] State Capitol as the discussion devoted to airing longstanding grievances over deadly chemical wastes – particularly creosote – left for decades in unsuspecting residential neighborhoods by large manufacturers like Kerr-McGee that have either packed up and gone or changed their names and continue to do business as usua