HAPPY MARDI GRAS! TODAY’S PARADES map, 4B
LAFAYETTE: King Gabriel’s parade, 9 a.m. l Mardi Gras Festival parade, follows
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T u e s d ay, M a r c h 4, 2025
Courir des Enfants
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Opposition to carbon capture growing Rural, conservative residents in state have concerns about leaks, property rights
BY DAVID J. MITCHELL Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By LESLIE WESTBROOK
The chase is on as children attempt to catch the chicken during the Courir des Enfants in Breaux Bridge on Monday.
Children get a chance to participate in a Cajun tradition at the annual Courir des Enfants, a Mardi Gras chicken run for children, hosted by the Teche Center for the Arts in Breaux Bridge on Monday.
MARDI GRAS 2025
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Ruby-June Newland, 7, smiles proudly after catching a chicken on Monday.
ABOVE: Joyce Valenti wears a traditional Mardi Gras costume on Monday. LEFT: Musicians lead young revelers to a field for the first chicken chase during the Courir des Enfants on Monday.
Louisiana’s emergence as a hotbed for new technology to store carbon emissions deep underground has long been opposed by environmentalists. But pushback from an unlikely source is now also gaining momentum. Rural and conservative residents in corners of the state where oil and gas tends to be a familiar and often welcomed presence are increasingly voicing their opposition to carbon-capture and sequestration projects. Industry backers, however, say the residents are being misinformed and fed scare tactics. Fueled by lucrative federal tax credits, companies are eying southwestern and western Louisiana for big projects to store hundreds of millions of tons of carbon under tens of thousands of acres of timberland, state wildlife areas and much smaller homes and farms, state permit summaries and company materials say. The companies include carbon-capture arms of Occidental Petroleum and ExxonMobil, carbon ventures CapturePoint and Trace Carbon, natural gas pipeline company DT Midstream and Aethon Energy, permit documents say. This “gold rush,” as one legislator put it, has stirred distrust in southwest Louisiana of industry and academic promises of its safety, echoing the opposition a few years ago in Livingston Parish over a carbon-capture proposal for Lake Maurepas. Residents say they have concerns over damage to underground aquifers and accidental surface leaks, fears about encroachment on their properties through pipeline expropriation and other access methods granted to companies. They have been angered that federal taxpayer dollars are behind what they view as putting a dangerous waste permanently under their feet. Critics point to a pipeline break and leak in Satartia, Mississippi, that hospitalized at least 45 people and forced 200 to evacuate from an asphyxiating gas cloud that hung along the ground, according to an investigation by the federal pipeline regulator. A pumping station that is part of the same company’s network, Denbury, had a leak April 3 in Sulphur and forced a nearly two-hour shelter-in-place order for residents living within a quartermile, according to state and federal
ä See OPPOSITION, page 4A
Hurricane forecasters had best year ever predicting storm tracks BY KASEY BUBNASH
season, predicting the tracks of storms small and large more accurately than ever Hurricane forecasters made before. big strides in reliability durThe same was not true, howing the 2024 Atlantic hurricane ever, for intensity forecasting,
Staff writer
WEATHER HIGH 75 LOW 61 PAGE 8A
an area that has long presented a challenge — particularly when the rapid intensification of storms is involved. Last week, the National Hurricane Center released prelimi-
nary highlights from its postsea- and model guidance, and 2024’s son analysis of the 2024 Atlantic full analysis will be released this hurricane season. Forecasters spring. Last year’s track forecasting at the NHC analyze every hurricane season after the fact to verä See HURRICANE, page 4A ify the accuracy of its forecasts
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100TH yEAR, NO. 247