Local Issues

What can you do? Your help -- right now -- is vital to affecting these issues and safeguarding our environment. If you're not already a member, join us. Come to our next meeting. Click here for schedules. We're circulating a petition to Governor Blanco that calls for her to step in on behalf of our endangered cypress trees. Click here to to download a copy. Sign up your friends and send it in!

Household Hazardous-Waste Before and after The Hurricane, disposal of hazardous-household materials is a real problem! Here's a solution: Click here for more on household hazardous waste -- and here or here for information on St. Tammany's First Household Hazardous-Waste Collection Days organized by the Honey Island Group and the St. Tammany Parish Department of Environmental Services.

Want some help with where to take your recycling? Click here for help finding Northshore recyclers.

Here is some very brief information on just a few of the pending threats to our environment on the Northshore.

Remember: Our environment is more than 'just wilderness'. It's also our quality of life and the most important legacy for our children.

Help Save Our Cypress! Please click here to read about our efforts to stop the irretrievable loss of our cypress to the garden-mulch industry.

Proposed reservoir for private gain and public loss

The issue took us all by surprise because the bill establishing the Reservoir Commission was passed without any fanfare on the last day of the 2004 session. Community leaders in the Varnado area began to organize against the issue. They made phone calls and wrote letters to their elected officials, held community meetings, and put up signs. "No Reservoir" signs were a common sight in their neighborhoods. The Varnado activists attended the statewide LEAN Conference and asked for help from statewide organizations. The Sierra Club Delta Chapter Executive Committee passed a resolution against the reservoirs on October 17th, 2005. The text of the resolution and the bill that created the Reservoir Commission are available on the Chapter Website.

The Reservoir activists were sure that the Varnado location was the Reservoir Commission's first choice for a site, so then were very surprised when the consultant for the Commission announced that a site near Franklinton was the first choice. Site two -- or as it has been renamed: the Oak Grove Community -- had been meeting from the beginning of the publicity surrounding the reservoir, but their focus had been to support the Varnado community. Now the shoe was on the other foot. The Oak Grove Community is actively working on stopping the reservoir, and the Varnado community is supporting their efforts.

A group of women who call themselves "Ladies in Pink Shirts" borrowed a slogan from a past presidential campaign: "Read my Lips, No Reservoir." Members of the group include senior citizens that are faced with losing their homes, a woman whose 200-year-old family home is in danger, and activists from Washington and St. Tammany Parishes. The group has been attending parish and city council meetings to try to educate elected officials and voters about the issues. They are looking for all of the support they can get from men and women. No gender bias here.

What you can do: Contact your State Senators and Representatives and let them know of your opposition to this funneling of state funds into a project that benefits the well-connected at the expense of us all.

Proposed highway will spread sprawl and flooding into Central and Eastern St. Tammany Parish

Environmentalists and planners from across the region are opposing this project, though fighting entrenched mindsets is an uphill struggle. We need your help!

What you can do: Contact your Parish Representative. Tell him how opposed you are to sprawl and unplanned development.

Click here to learn more on this project.

Please check back here frequently for more!!