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BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
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T u e s d ay, au g u s T 26, 2025
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Residents can return, but pollution remains
Landry’s port plan has early success Panel works deal for supplying Hyundai Steel plant
BY ANTHONY McAULEY Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By DAVID GRUNFELD
A boom helps stop oil and residue from a Friday explosion at Smitty’s Supply from floating down the Tangipahoa River on Monday.
Amid cleanup after Tangipahoa Parish plant explosion, authorities say danger has passed BY DAVID J. MITCHELL, WILLIE SWETT and MARCO CARTOLANO Staff writers
Three days after a lubricants plant in Roseland blew up and turned into a raging fire, forcing nearly 1,000 people to flee, local officials eased a 1-mile evacuation zone as firefighters brought the blaze nearly completely under control. Crews also worked Monday to keep oily residue from Smitty’s Supply Inc. from flowing down the Tangipahoa River and into Lake Pontchartrain, with around 5,900 feet of boom deployed in total. Soot still covered areas of the town and the air smelled of oil and grease. Gov. Jeff Landry traveled to nearby Amite to meet with local officials in the aftermath of the fire, which covered around 20 acres. There have been no injuries or deaths from the incident, and the State Fire Marshal along with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will investigate the cause, which remained unclear.
Asked about health concerns from people who swim and fish in the Tangipahoa River, Landry said, “What we’ve seen so far does not indicate there is any danger or immediate danger to wildlife or human health.” While oily substances and soot still covered much of the surrounding area, life slowly began returning to normal in the small rural town in Tangipahoa Parish. Some residents who evacuated started returning home and the Roseland Montessori School planned to reopen Tuesday. The evacuation, initially extending to a mile radius, was reduced to a more Matthew Allen, executive director of compact area closest to the plant on MonNorthshore Riverwatch, collects oil from day, though sections of major highways the Tangipahoa River in Independence on through the town remained closed, inMonday. cluding U.S. 51. The blaze was 98% contained on Mon“From what I have been told, from what day, but myriad environmental concerns I can see, there really is no imminent dan- persisted. The contents of the soot were ger to any life or property, other than we being tested by environmental regulahave to clean up a big mess,” Landry said tors, but results were not yet available. at a news conference on Monday afterä See POLLUTION, page 5A noon in Amite.
Energy, natural resources chief stepping down
EBR has four dozen vacant positions
BY MEGHAN FRIEDMANN
BY CHARLES LUSSIER
Staff writer
Tyler Gray, the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Energy and Natural Resources, is stepping down on Sept. 2, state officials announced Monday. Deputy Secretary Dustin Davidson will take over as secretary. Stephen Swiber, the state’s chief resilience officer, will move from the Governor’s Office to fill the deputy secretary position, the agency said in a memo to employGray ees. “Dustin has been invaluable in his service as
A shortage of bus drivers is once again holding back East Baton Rouge Parish in its efforts to improve its much-maligned student transportation system. Superintendent LaMont Cole on Thursday persuaded the parish School Board to approve new incentives to cover the hole: n A nearly $5-per-hour increase in the rate it pays current drivers willing to run extra routes. n A finder’s fee of up to $500 for school employees who refer someone to be a bus driver, and that per-
WEATHER HIGH 94 LOW 69 PAGE 6B
ä See PORT, page 4A
Extra-route pay raise for school bus drivers OK’d
Staff writer
ä See ENERGY, page 5A
The $5.8 billion Hyundai Steel plant that’s set to rise in Ascension Parish is a key project for Gov. Jeff Landry’s administration. And to make it work, Hyundai and state officials have long known they would need a new port facility to bring raw materials in and send finished goods out to the Korean automak“What made er’s assembly plants. the deal The answer between to that logistics Port of South problem came Louisiana last month, and Baton when the Port of South Rouge that Louisiana was much easier tapped to build to accomplish and operate a is that the new $25.5 milports have lion deepwater dock. The been meeting project, how- regularly since ever, is on land late 2023.” controlled by the Port of JOE TOOMy, Baton Rouge, Louisiana Ports which in years and Waterways past may have Investment raised thorny Commission questions of control and oversight that could’ve turned into a political brawl. But under the newly established Louisiana Ports and Waterways Investment Commission, which has been tasked with directing public funds to important economic development projects, the ports hashed out an agreement. “What made the deal between Port of South Louisiana and Baton Rouge that much easier to accomplish is that the ports have been meeting regularly since late 2023,” said Joe Toomy, the shipping industry executive and former chair of the Port of New Orleans who has been overseeing the Waterways Commission’s efforts. If the Hyundai dock project is
STAFF FILE PHOTO By HILARy SCHEINUK
The East Baton Rouge Parish school system is offering incentives to combat a shortage of available bus drivers.
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son stays a while. In a letter to the board, Cole said the latest changes are needed because there is “a shortage of available drivers, leaving several routes unassigned.” Rob Howle, director of transportation, said the district is short 49 active drivers. Faced with a similar shortage this spring, the school system hired private school bus giant First Student to take over six routes. Howle said that he reached out recently to First Student about potentially re-upping the contract and said he was told the company was too tied up with finding sufficient drivers for its current clients locally. The rate for running extra routes
ä See DRIVERS, page 4A
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