DENHAM SPRINGS • LIVINGSTON • WALKER • WATSON • AMITE • HAMMOND
ADVOCATE THE LIVINGSTON -TANGIPAHOA
T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M
Darlene Denstorff
|
W e d n e s d ay, Au g u s t 27, 2025
1GN
Plans to build reservoir halted
AROUND LIVINGSTON
Chamber plans 30th annual golf tourney The Livingston Parish Chamber of Commerce is planning its 30 annual Golf Outing on Oct. 17 at Carter Plantation in Springfield. Registration is underway for sponsors and teams. Visit https://business.livingstonparishchamber.org/events/ details/30th-annual-golf-outing-8609 for information.
Conference speakers set Journalist Kiran Chawla and motivational speaker Jen Gomez are the main speakers for the Livingston Parish Chamber of Commerce’s Women’s Leadership Conference and Expo. Registration is underway for the event, set for 10:45 a.m. Sept. 18 at Abundant Life Outreach Center in Denham Springs. The event brings together women from across the region for a day of connection, inspiration and growth with a variety of vendors showcasing products and services tailored to women. Speakers cover topics like personal development, wellness and leadership. For information, visit tinyurl. com/3tznu7ha.
ä See AROUND, page 3G
Wedding gifts stolen, GPS scooter tracks thieves to Denham Springs trailer park BY AIDAN MCCAHILL
Staff writer
A newlywed couple’s joy quickly soured after discovering their wedding gifts and other belongings had been stolen from a Walker storage unit. Among the missing items was an electric scooter equipped with a GPS tracker—a detail that led investigators to a nearby trailer park and the arrest of a duo renting the storage unit next door. According to a release from Walker Police, the couple had been storing their gifts at a facility on Walker South Road for about a month. When they discovered the property, including the electric scooter, missing on Aug. 2, officers and Livingston Parish Sheriff’s detectives traced the scooter’s GPS signal to a trailer park on Walker South Road in Denham Springs. Investigators questioned the resident at the location, but found no sign of the stolen items. Several days later, authorities learned that Torrie D. Lacey, 44, who lived next to where the scooter was last tracked, had rented a storage unit at the same facility the couple has used. On Aug. 12, Walker Police and LPSO detectives returned to the Walker South trailer park and began questioning Lacey. They also found Jason Rex, 40, of Denham Springs, at Lacey’s residence. Rex told investigators he had successfully bid on an abandoned storage unit at the Walker South facility, where he found a scooter and other property. Authorities then executed a search warrant for Lacey’s residence, and Rex’s residence on
ä See GIFTS, page 4G
STAFF PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK
Darling Creek flows beneath Otis and Willie Matthews Road in Darlington. Portions of this creek, which flows into the Amite River downstream, would be temporarily flooded if a proposed U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dam were built south of this area in St. Helena Parish.
Proposal again faces stiff opposition BY DAVID J. MITCHELL
MISSISSIPPI
Staff writer
Troy
LOUISIANA
Plans for a huge reservoir north of Baton Rouge to help keep the Amite River from flooding densely populated neighborhoods downstream have been sidelined by opposition from people who live in the countryside where it would be built. Instead, the agency that revived the decades-old reservoir idea will focus on restoring curves in the Amite and keeping sediment out of the river, measures that could help scale down disasters like the widespread August 2016 flood, which damaged nearly 65,500 homes and thousands of businesses in East Baton Rouge, Livingston and Ascension parishes alone. The agency, the Amite River Basin Commission, hasn’t formally opposed the big reservoir in East Feliciana and St. Helena parishes. But it has now agreed to add the East Feliciana Parish government’s latest objection to the idea in the commission’s new master plan, which includes the reservoir. Paul Sawyer, executive director of the commission, said the action means the agency will be “laser focused” on other projects that it has money and support for, two elements he called “essential ingredients.” He said the reservoir idea has neither, even though research shows it would reduce flooding. “What we have been saying even
Woodland
432
Felixville
Chipola
Maximum flood potential of dam 10
EAST FELICIANA PARISH
38
Coleman Town Darlington
67
Clinton
KEY:
Darling Creek
960
Expected inundation area in 25-year event (15,860 acres with dam)
448
Hatchersville
Comite River 37
Proposed Darlington Dam
Amite River
EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH
Baywood
37
before this became a household topic in East Feliciana and St. Helena is that we can’t do a project like this without the support and partnership of residents of East Feliciana and St. Helena,” Sawyer said. “They have to be on board with this.” The commission will proceed with $100 million in Amite projects funded through the Louisiana Watershed Initiative, the state-run, federally funded program prompted by the 2016 flood, as well as with a plan to restore parts of the Amite
Expected inundation area in “maximum” event (26,000 acres)
ST. HELENA PARISH
16
Staff map
to reduce downstream flooding. It already has a deal in the works to buy more than 200 acres in St. Helena for the river restoration and hopes to finalize it soon. The idea is to rehabilitate former gravel mining pits to restore natural curves along the middle and upper Amite and to find ways to prevent sediment from washing into the river. A straighter river with heavier sediment loads is believed to worsen flooding downstream. Gaining political momentum after the historic floods of 1983 — and
then again in 2016 — the idea of a big reservoir has long been floated for the rural, hilly area north of Baton Rouge. The preferred location has been a section of the Amite River in East Feliciana and St. Helena just west of the community of Darlington, which gave the concept its name. Repeated analyses by the state and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have shown that the rolling topography there can be used to store water, reducing flooding by several feet in more populated, low-lying areas downstream. Building the storage area, however, would also mean permanently flooding tens of thousands of acres or greatly reducing their use, displacing people and potentially affecting businesses that rely on the land and the river. Chrissie O’Quin, the East Feliciana Police Jury vice president, delivered the parish government’s resolution of opposition to the reservoir to the Amite commission last month. She said people don’t want to be forced to give up their land, particularly for a project they fear may bring unwelcome changes to a rural area. “They enjoy that peaceful life up there,” she said. Opponents have appeared at several meetings in recent months, including one at a church that drew
Chicken chain opens its first restaurant in Livingston Parish
Band director Jeff Seighman, left, looks at the marching drill chart while assistant director Eddie Hirst yells commands to the band during practice at Walker High School on July 29.
BY MADDIE SCOTT Staff writer
Bojangles, a chain restaurant known for its fried chicken and biscuits, has opened a location in Livingston Parish. The North Carolina-born chain was founded in 1977 and has grown to over 840 company and franchise-owned locations across the country, with a majority concentrated in the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia and Tennessee. At 28509 La. 43, just off Interstate 12, a new Bojangles location is taking on Albany in Livingston Parish. The company also has other restaurants in Duson, Monroe, West Monroe and Ruston. With 95 employees and 3,200 square feet, the new Albany location is open 5 a.m. to
ä See CHAIN, page 3G
ä See RESERVOIR, page 3G
STAFF PHOTO BY JAVIER GALLEGOS
Marching through sunshine and rain: High school band finds its rhythm BY ROBIN MILLER
This final run-through marks the end of outdoor band camp — and what band kid wouldn’t A collective cheer rises from cheer for that? No more standing at attention the yard lines to the top of the tower where Jeff Seighman in the early morning August and Eddie Hirst stand with sun. No more sweat-soaked shorts and T-shirts. No more their megaphones.
Staff writer
counting the minutes between water breaks. Then again, none of the 165 members of the Walker High Band of Legacy are complaining — or moving slowly, though
ä See BAND, page 2G