Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us because together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is a historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.

Hi.

I'm Christina Jensen, and I'm Johnny Atkinson.

This week on summer, why we're looking at Louisiana's path forward.

Leaders are working to balance economic growth with community concerns, to diversify our energy infrastructure and to protect our coastline.

Well, let's start with carbon capture and sequestration.

Projects are expanding across Louisiana, but many communities are pushing back.

Supporters see economic opportunity, but opponents worry about safety, property rights and the impact on their communities.

Do the potential benefits outweigh the concerns.

In the heart of Louisiana?

The marshes stretch for miles, quiet, wild and seemingly untouched.

But beneath the surface, a new frontier of industry is taking shape.

Carbon capture and sequestration, supporters say, could help reduce emissions and bring billions in investment.

Critics warning may also create new risks for local communities.

Nationwide, more than 270 carbon capture projects are being proposed.

That's according to the Environmental Integrity Project.

Louisiana leads the nation with at least 65 proposals, followed by Texas with 48, in October of 2025.

Governor Jeff Landry issued a moratorium on new CO2 injection permits while the state reviews regulations.

Existing projects, however, are still moving forward.

Most of the proposed projects are concentrated in Cameron Parish, with 11 in Ascension Parish with 1030.

Projects would pull carbon dioxide directly from the air, while 35 would injected deep underground.

11 CO2 pipelines are also proposed, along with one above ground storage terminal combined.

The projects aim to capture at least 33 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, and store more than 135 million tons underground.

Supporters say the technology could help Louisiana's heavy industries cut emissions while remaining competitive.

But some environmental groups say the rapid expansion is raising serious questions.

Abel Russ is director of law and policy for the Environmental Integrity Project, the nonprofit that tracked these projects nationwide.

It makes me a little nervous, because I don't think Louisiana regulators necessarily are equipped to deal with this onslaught of pretty high tech stuff.

There are a lot of questions that are very hard to answer, that even the federal government has a hard time struggling with.

So we're worried about the ability of a state agency that's probably underfunded and understaffed to handle all these applications.

Russ says one of his biggest concerns is whether state regulators have the resources to review the growing number of projects.

He also says the pace of approvals may be outpacing the science.

Most of the carbon dioxide that's pumped underground is for enhanced oil recovery, and that basically just means you pump the carbon dioxide to push the fossil fuels back out.

Alternatively, they could be using new carbon dioxide that they were generating from an industrial facility to pump underground to get the fossil fuels out.

To which I would say in response, you could just not be extracting the fossil fuels at all.

And that would probably be the best climate solution.

Supporters of the industry, however, say carbon capture could provide major economic benefits.

Philip de Villiers, speaker of the Louisiana House, says the technology could help the state attract new industry while protecting existing energy jobs.

That support carbon capture.

It's no secret.

I think it's something that we need to learn as much as we can about and make sure that it's done safely in Louisiana.

I've even been to sites where they do it in Texas and doing it successfully there, and they're doing it safely there.

For Louisiana to be a global competitor and for the industries that are here today and the new ones that are coming in for us to support them and to make sure that they're successful.

It's something that we certainly need to keep an open and open ear to and open eyes to, and just an open door policy, too.

But community advocates say residents aren't always being fully informed about projects near their homes.

The bucket brigade is now calling for greater oversight, especially as new projects are proposed in Ascension Parish.

The plan is for.

This pipeline from the ammonia plant, from C.F.

Ammonia Plant to run from West Ascension Parish over to East Ascension Parish and then into Livingston Parish.

So there's a huge population that that is exposed to this danger.

And what we fear is with this expansion that's proposed with the help of carbon capture, that Ascension Parish would basically turn into Ammonia Parish.

Critics also point to safety concerns if CO2 pipelines were to fail.

In 2020, a pipeline rupture in Mississippi sent 45 people to the hospital in force.

Of the first responders.

The fire trucks actually were ground to a halt and couldn't even respond and protect people.

Those are the sorts of scenarios that we are absolutely not prepared for there, which is fine particles in the air associated with ammonia pollution.

Bottom line is it's not good for your lungs and it's not good for your health.

As carbon capture projects continue to multiply in Louisiana.

Questions are mounting about the dangers, the oversight, and who is watching closely.

Do you hope that the report says Louisiana leads the nation?

Do you hope it gets back to lawmakers here?

Yes.

I mean, we're one of the one of the big concerns we have is just the pace at which this is happening.

And I don't think anyone is really going to have a chance to catch up on the science and policy until it might be a little too late.

Sometimes we have a really good back and forth with regulators.

If, you know, if they take us seriously in this context in Louisiana with C.C.S.

That hasn't happened yet, but it could.

Meanwhile, Louisiana has a long history in energy production, mainly with all and gas, but his energy demands increased.

The state is looking to diversify.

At the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Solar Energy Lab, researchers are studying new innovations that could bring thousands of new jobs and billions of dollars in investment to the state.

Solar farms are growing fast, impacting the workforce, the use of land and the US economy.

Louisiana is experiencing a rapid surge in solar farm developments now, with 111 projects totaling over 18,000MW of planned capacity.

A new study shows the expansion of new solar farms in Louisiana will deliver billions of dollars of benefits over the next decade.

It's actually.

Cheaper now to build a brand new solar facility than to continue to operate in existing coal plant, and that's why in the US, ever since 2019, we have installed more solar and wind projects into the whole United States than we have coal.

Terence Chambers is the director of the Louisiana Regional Test Center for Emerging Solar Technologies, and he was also behind the creation of the Louisiana Solar Energy Lab.

Solar energy in Louisiana is not as cost effective, is it would be in, say, Arizona or California, but it's better than Maine and New York or Alaska.

The Louisiana Solar Lab is one of the premier research and testing facilities in the country for evaluating solar technology, and Ton Hall is UL Solar Energy Lab.

And they're not just making rays, they're making history.

It's a place where engineers are able to really experiment with the latest technologies and make sure that we are optimizing how those technologies are deployed to generate the most amount of energy for a given project.

Their solar field is more than six acres, with over 4200 panels and a 40 500 square foot building dedicated to testing and research.

So what makes this specific solar plant a little different?

One of the things that's really great about this facility is that solar panels and utility scale solar facilities are something that is really going to be new for a lot of communities in Louisiana.

Solar plants not only produce power, they're also known for zero emissions water conservation and noise reduction.

They also produce jobs across the state and construction, engineering and maintenance, with nearly 10,000 jobs expected by 2035.

When it comes to economic benefits, there's the creation of jobs.

So that happens both with project development and installation to actually building the facilities.

It's a lot of construction jobs, but also some jobs in the planning side of that.

And then you have operations and maintenance jobs.

Once the solar facilities are built.

And solar energy is now the cheapest source of electricity in many regions of the country, with competitive cost and always predictable returns.

Each of them produces about 325W of power at peak conditions.

We have over 4000 of these modules here, which make up about 1.1MW of our power production.

Another unique part of these solar farms are tests for growing plants.

Some crops prefer a partial shade and wetter soil.

This is broccoli sprouting right now, and we do specialty crop rotations to test how the technology affects the plants and if the fruit produced or the vegetable produced is of the same quality, and if the plants are able to thrive in this environment.

Landscaping involves sheep grazing around the farm.

The panels provide shade during a hot Louisiana summer, and she maintained the low vegetation and they fertilize the soil.

So you think this is the future of solar farm?

It's a perfect solution for somebody who's looking to maintain their farmland, but also adds some energy production to it.

More tests performed at the UL solar farm involved Louisiana's unique weather.

If it's extra Wendy or extra sunny, is there something that changes?

Extra sunny is always good because that means more power, but it can get hot, so extra windy would help that to kind of stay cool and breeze on the back of the modules.

The UL lab also tests power storage and solar panel maintenance with drone and robot inspections, and they're testing solar technology for the home.

Solar panels have been a growing trend in the last few years, but with the new technology, they look nicer and bring in more power.

These products replace the shingle entirely and connect to each other through this channeling to produce power for your home.

But I think the the most effective application of solar is utility scale.

The Solar Energy Lab in Lafayette is one of five labs in the country working with U.S.

Department of Energy.

Here they test panels with high humidity, high heat, and high amounts of rain.

I think for.

Our size, we really punch above our weight class and we truly are a world class institution, especially when it comes to this kind of technology.

We are trying to figure.

Out how many microgrids we need.

We want to get back to the grid as quickly as possible.

The US Department of Energy continues testing the solar panels in different environments, but UL Lafayette is the only university in the nation selected to lead this $13.5 million initiative.

So the raging Cajuns are on top when it comes to solar energy.

And to the south, along Louisiana's coast.

The future of Grand Isle remains uncertain.

The island continues to face land loss, hurricane damage and a declining population, but local leaders say they're fighting back with several projects aimed at restoring the waterfront and attracting new residents and businesses.

When Hurricane Ida slammed into Louisiana's coast, Grand Isle took the full force of the storm.

Three years later, the island is still rebuilding and working to hold on to its community.

Here in Grand Isle, the impact of Hurricane Ida is still visible.

Some homes, like the one behind me, remain damaged, left behind from the storm.

The population also took a hit, but town leaders say they're focused on rebuilding stronger and bringing families back.

Life here has always come with risk, but Ida pushed many families to a breaking point.

Homes were destroyed, roads and power lines torn apart.

The island spent months without power.

Patrick Landry has watched these changes unfold.

He's a lifelong resident and owner of the Landry House Bed and Breakfast.

1955 after World War two.

Everybody was in a good mood and everybody was doing well.

And yeah, there's a lot of people here, in fact, that so many people that ran out and we had nightclubs all over the main street.

Oh yeah, we had a medical doctor.

We had people who had furniture stores, doctors, clothing stores.

We had two theaters.

One of them had a balcony with fancy orchestras would play for us.

But there's less people here.

Right now.

It's so expensive here with insurance and the cost of doing everything.

We hardly have any people living on Grand Isle anymore.

Right now, about 1000 people call Grand Isle home, a number that dropped after Hurricane Ida.

For those who remain, daily life looks different.

Just two full service grocery stores and no permanent medical clinic.

Life on a barrier island has never been easy.

Residents say what's changed isn't just the storms, but it's how quickly the land itself is disappearing.

Beyond hurricanes, coastal erosion continues to reshape Grand Isle.

I walked the beach with Mayor David Carbondale, who showed me how breakwaters are helping hold the shoreline in place.

To talk to me about these breakwaters.

Yes, we put this in the early 90s, and it's toward the state park.

Side, toward the eastern side of Grand Isle.

And we came in and started putting these rocks in and showing that the government and we started putting our heads together.

We needed to do.

And they finally realized, you know, that it looked like it's working.

This area, you don't have to touch it no more.

But on the other side, we got problems.

Just a few years ago, the water actually came up to where I'm standing now.

It's pulled back more than 100ft.

All this new sandy beach is thanks to those breakwaters that are out offshore.

Here on this part of the beach.

The water comes up closer than other areas.

You can see just how narrow the sandy stretches.

However, breakwaters are set to be installed before the hurricane season.

Construction on more than 30 additional breakwaters is expected to begin in June, with plans to protect the entire island.

For Mayor Carmen Del, the project has been decades in the making.

He's been fighting for funding since first taking office in 1997.

Then in April 2026, he finally got the call.

I'm breaking the news.

You breaking the news?

So it's perfect timing for you to come and do this.

You know.

You've been fighting for this.

How does it feel?

I mean, the tears out of my eyes, it was unbelievable.

You know, getting personal right now, a lot of prayers.

It works.

So working with my council and working with all the senators and all that.

God's good and made it happen.

You were here through Ida and saw people lose their homes.

No wonder you're getting it is an emotional thing.

Yeah.

It is.

I never lost a life, you know?

And like working with the chief of police, working with the council.

You know, we had to handle that.

But, you know, this is Paradise.

You know, the end of the day, our benefit really, truly should be measured by people, protected homes that are not being flooded, communities that can withstand the natural forces that are out there.

With support from the governor and the state's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, more than $60 million is now being invested to protect Grand Isle Shoreline.

We didn't think it was going to happen after Ida because it was devastated.

These rocks behind us helped save this portion of the island.

There was very little damage, but where there were no rocks, it was total devastation.

I have some neighbors that still hadn't found their home.

Those rocks help protect homes.

And for residents, protecting the community itself has become just as critical.

If the population drops too low.

Grand Isle could be reclassified as a village, losing its police and fire departments.

To prevent that, the mayor is pushing new housing for workers hoping to attract families back.

The Island school has already seen enrollment dropped sharply since the storm, and some have questioned whether it can stay open.

I'm going to tell you right now in front of the cameras right now.

I'm not going to let that happen.

I'm not going to close that school, and I'm not going to send no kid 24, 30 miles away.

So between me and the priest and working with the council and our residents, we need workforce housing here.

And by doing that, I can bring this island back together.

For the people here.

Grand Isle is more than a place on a map.

It's home, it's livelihood, it's community.

I want people to know that Grand Isle is a great place to live, and we like to get the population back.

So we'd like for people to come and check out this place to retire.

Grand Isle has always lived at the edge where land meets the Gulf, and for the people who call it home, leaving isn't an option.

The future of Grand Isle is a balancing act between the power of nature and the resilience of the people, with ongoing restoration efforts in a community that refuses to give up.

Residents here hope this barrier island can weather what's ahead.

The struggle to rebuild Louisiana's barrier islands and protect our coastline is the focus of our next Louisiana Spotlight series, Building Barriers, that airs later this month.

Here's a preview.

For decades, large scale sediment diversions were considered a cornerstone of Louisiana's coastal restoration strategy.

But after years of debate, political opposition and the cancellation of the area sediment diversion, the state's restoration priorities have begun to shift.

I'm your host, Oscar Tickell.

In this Louisiana Spotlight documentary, we traveled across southeast Louisiana to explore what that means for the future of the coast, from the impacts of Monte Gras Pass and point out a hash.

The cycles of the fish changed, and people stopped coming.

To restoration projects on Raccoon Island and the Chandelier Island chain.

They're both really.

Isolated islands.

Building barriers examines the science, politics, and people behind Louisiana's evolving approach to restoration, as the state places greater emphasis on barrier islands, marsh creation and shoreline protection, this Louisiana spotlight explores the challenges and trade offs shaping the next chapter of coastal restoration.

In Saint Mary Parish, there's a tribe whose story is woven, quite literally, meant to a river cane of south Louisiana.

The Chinamasa tribe is the only native Louisiana tribe still living on their ancestral land.

LA 64.

Karen LeBlanc shows us how women of the tribe wove exquisite baskets to pay off debts and save their homeland.

John Paul Dardenne and his wife, Scarlett, are among a handful of basket weavers, and they're teaching their granddaughter in hopes she'll carry on the craft the weave with local river cane.

It's a variety of bamboo, and, as John puts it, if you can't peel the cane, you can't weave the basket.

The peeling technique is done with both hands and teeth, the.

Third hand to.

Hold it, because really, it takes.

That bend.

You got to have that twist, that.

Bend to it to get it to separate, otherwise it will separate.

So second.

Peeling I. Have.

To use just my teeth.

But that's the first time it's been peeled.

Okay.

It takes 2 to 3 peelings to make the cane pliable, to weave it.

John weaves using numerical sequences from memory to create ancient tribal patterns that carry names like Red wing, Blackbird Eye, Fishbone, bull's Eye, and Alligator intestine.

Why river pain?

That's what's always been used and is something that's common in the area.

So.

And it's very it lasts forever.

I've got some of these baskets that's over 100 years old in there.

So legend has it that these baskets are woven so tightly that they hold water.

Is that true?

Our double weaves are woven.

There's two layers of basket.

So we we the double weave is what we used to weave to keep things fresh.

The double woven basket is the crown jewel of the tribe today.

Chinamasa baskets are prized as collectible items for their craftsmanship and rarity.

Years ago, the baskets saved the tribal land.

That story leads me to the Chinamasa Museum.

When the land was threatened for taxes.

It was through the efforts of Sarah Avery McElhinney, the heiress did the plantation of the Tabasco plantation.

She used her influence to assist us, allowing women of the tribe to weave baskets and sell through her, paying the taxes, ultimately saving the land.

Which is why we still have a portion of our Aboriginal land.

And today, are these baskets collectors items?

Absolutely.

We have seven weavers remaining in the tribe, four of our our what we like to call our more established weavers.

So they do sell their baskets.

As you can imagine, the waitlist for a basket is relatively lengthy.

This basket, as a matter of fact, was it's one of our older weavers, and it is the only basket of its kind in existence.

The Chinamasa is one of four federally recognized tribes in the state, and the only one still living on a portion of its aboriginal land.

It was once the most powerful tribe on the Gulf Coast before it dwindled to only 90 surviving members.

Prior to the war with the French, we had 15 villages that spread across what is now 23 parishes of south of.

What is the tribal population today?

Currently, we have just under 1800 enrolled members who live across the nation.

Currently, we have roughly 340 tribal members who actually reside on trust lands.

Their cultural success story lives on in the only Native American public school in Louisiana, where students at the tribal school follow the state curriculum alongside daily cultural classes, learning their history and the language reclaimed after the last native speakers passed away.

This is a picture of Ben, Paul and Delphine stuff.

These were our last two native speakers for the tribe.

These are the two individuals who sat with the ethnographers for the Endangered Language Program when they sent ethnographers out to document endangered languages, and they sat with these two individuals for what we're told is an unprecedented amount of time.

It was over 200 hours of them documenting and speaking the language on wax cylinders.

And of course, the tribe never knew that any of this information even existed until 1986, when all the work from that project was disseminated to tribes.

And we received this package saying, this is your language.

We have a little recording if you'd like to hear some of it.

What?

Some who.

I know with that.

It's very nasally.

No, no.

It's said that unless you're Chinamasa, you can't speak the language because only we have the nasal capacity for it.

Back at the Darden home, as John and Scarlett share with me their life's work, weaving baskets and patterns of their ancestors.

John and Scarlett are modern day culture keepers, preserving a way of life woven into ancestral designs that tell the story of survival, resilience and creativity.

Part of our history, part of our heritage.

But also if you it kind of comes when you make a basket, it's a part of you.

So and it's always that feeling that, you know, it's you made that and it's a part of you.

But it's also the same connection with our ancestors that have been making me since the beginning of time.

That was just one of the stories that Karen highlighted in her LA 64 episode from Saint Mary Parish.

You can see the full episode at LPB 64.

Here's a sneak peek.

Saint Mary Parish sits along Louisiana's Gulf Coast, where water shapes the land.

Livelihood and culture.

In this episode of LA 64, I follow the chapel River from the lamppost lined main street of Franklin to the ancestral home of the Chinamasa tribe.

Head deep into the Chapel Basin where swamp legends live, and then cross into Morgan City to climb aboard a towering oil rig and end along a sandy shoreline.

One of the best spots in Louisiana to watch sunsets.

We're going to wrap up our travels throughout Saint Mary Parish with I Send off Serenade by country musician, Louisiana native and American Idol winner Lane Hardy.

Is rolling over them fields and praying that we get a little racing and come in handy down wheels, knocking them 49 beers back by the train tracks, thinking that I'd better this this place when I got home.

Well, that's your show for this week, remember?

You can watch anything LPB anytime, wherever you are with our LPB app.

And you can catch LPB news and public affairs shows, as well as other Louisiana programs that you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook and Instagram.

For everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting, I'm Christina Jensen.

And I'm Johnny Atkinson.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state, where reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us because together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum.

Located in Jennings City Hall, the museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is a historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and by Visit Baton Rouge and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.