March 2018 GSMCB Forum

THE GILLESPIE-SENTER MEMORIAL COMMUNITY BREAKFAST

March 2018 Keynote Presentation:

Out-of-Control Corporations

(with the help of 

Government officials):

 

 

The Cases of the New Orleans East Gas Plant 

and the Bayou Bridge Pipeline

Robert Demarais Sullivan

Environmental Justice Team Leader, First Unitarian Universalist Church

Core Member, 350 New Orleans

SATURDAY MARCH 10, 2018

11:00am to 12:00pm

First Unitarian Universalist Church

5212 South Claiborne Av., New Orleans

(Enter via CELSJR or the Soniat Street entrances; inside large classroom)

Coffee will be served beginning at 10:30am

 Attender brief introductions 10:50am to 10:58am
Keynote Presentation and Discussion: 11:00am to 12:00pm

Progressive Social Justice Community announcements follow

 

Robert Desmarais Sullivan, leader of the Environmental Justice Team at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans and core member of 350NewOrleans, will present current information on two major projects in South Louisiana that directly affect New Orleans: Energy Transfer Partner’s Bayou Bridge Pipeline and Entergy’s gas-fueled power plant in New Orleans East.

Both projects are susceptible to public pressure, so the involvement of citizens will determine the outcome. Most people are unaware of them or do not believe their views matter. We have discovered that though it is not easy, David can in fact defeat Goliath.

Energy Transfer Partners, Phillips 66, Entergy, USBank and DNS Bank all continue to construct devastating these fossil-fuel based projects with support from New Orleans and Louisiana officials despite popular opposition and in defiance of normal environmental regulations.

Entergy, New Orleans’ private utility company, has presented the City Council with two expensive, highly polluting gas-fueled power plant “options”. The New Orleans City Council regulates Entergy and has the final say on New Orleans’ energy future. It is for the people to demand that City Councilmembers exercise their legitimate authority to move New Orleans forward with efficient renewable 21^st-century solutions, instead of relying on early 20^th-century fossil-fuel power.

In New Orleans, Entergy is planning to construct its power plant in the East. The majority of the residents are opposed to it, citing serious subsidence issues, excessive extraction of local water and pollution of the air. Entergy has yet to demonstrate a need for the plant, given that the power outages it offers as evidence are actually due to Entergy’s poor maintenance of the power-distribution grid. It has been demonstrated in many other cities that solar and wind, using off-shore rigs adapted to this purpose, could satisfy increased demand.

The vote by the lame-duck Council on this 30-year mortgage, scheduled to be paid off with rate increases, will be Thursday, March 8, 2018, in the City Council |Chamber at City Hall.

Energy Transfer Partners is fresh from the debacle with the Dakota Access Pipeline through Sioux Territory in North Dakota and the Rover Pipeline in Ohio. Both pipelines have already leaked hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into waterways and wetlands. The Bayou Bridge Pipeline is designed to cross almost 150 miles of South Louisiana, crossing through the cypress groves of the Atchafalaya Basin and Bayous Lafourche and Teche. These bodies of water are sources of drinking water for about 400 000 people.

The Pipeline's construction will require the felling of hundred-year-old cypress trees. A federal judge has prohibited construction within the Atchafalaya Basin for that reason, but it is up to us to stop the construction altogether.

Former Senator Mary Landrieu is registered to lobby for the Louisiana Protection and Restoration Authority, from which ETP is required to obtain approval. However, Landrieu is also working as a consultant for ETP. Conflict of interest is obvious but ignored.

Many South Louisianians, including New Orleanians, are currently incorporating themselves as “Water Protectors” and constantly monitoring the Bayou Bridge construction projects. Three Water Protectors have been arrested for trespassing, but arrest has become a badge of honor for opponents of the Pipeline.

Usually held every second Saturday of each month, the Gillespie Memorial Community Breakfast has been a project of the First Unitarian Universalist Church Social Justice Committee since May 1983. 

See our website: http://www.thecommunitybreakfast.org/  

See our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/148632715831115/