Fight Bac
Layne Langley, of the LSU Agriculture Center, will lead Fight Bac, an interactive session on hand hygiene at 11 a.m., Wednesday June 16, at the Clinton Branch of the Audubon Regional Library Children will learn why hand washing matters, how to prevent food borne illness, and proper hand washing techniques.
Other summer library events
West Feliciana: The West Feliciana Parish Library 2025 Summer Reading Program, runs through July Readers of all ages can log reading hours for a chance to earn prizes. The final day to log reading is July 31, with prize winners announced Aug. 7. The library will host free events designed for children, teens and adults. At 11 a.m. July 16, the children’s performer will be The Noiseguy The next art workshop for ages 8-12 is Clementine Hinter flowers at 10 a.m. July 17. Registration is required for the art class. Ages 11-17 are meeting every Tuesday from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m
Upcoming adult workshops (ages 16+) are at 6 p.m. July 11 is Painted Record Art Workshop and July 25 is Upcycled Magazine Bowl Workshop. Registration is required. Information and registration can be found at www.wfplibrary.org/summer
East Feliciana: East Feliciana Parish Library branches include Clinton, 11023 Bank St., (225) 683-8753; Jackson, Jackson Square Plaza, 2637 La. 10, (225) 634-7408; and Greensburg, 6108 La. 10, (225) 435-7135.
n July 25: Dr Magic’s Summer Fun Magic Show features magic, family friendly comedy, audience participation and prizes. There are no loud noises nor sharp objects. Live animals are used. 10 a.m., Jackson; noon, Clinton; 2 p.m., Greensburg n Tuesdays at 10 a.m.: Storytime at Audubon Regional Library, Clinton and St. Helena branches. This will include a mix of themed stories, songs and rhymes, and a craft at the end. All ages are welcome.
Event highlights:
n Children’s performances (ages 6-10) No registration required All programs begin at 11 a.m.
July 23: Harvey Rabbit & Friends
July 30: Dinosaur Experience n Kids art workshops (ages 8-12) Registration required. All programs run 10 a.m. to noon
July 17: Clementine Hunter Flowers
July 24: Watercolor Landscapes
July 31: Blue Dog by George Rodrigue
n Teen nights (ages 11-17)
No registration required
5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. every Tuesday
Vacation Bible school set
Jackson United Methodist Church will have Vacation Bible School from 9 a.m. to noon
July 14-18. Children ages 4-12 are invited to “Road Trip” on the go with God at 1727 Sycamore St
4-H day camp set
The East Feliciana Summer Day Camp is from 8:30 a.m to 3:30 p.m. July 18 at Redwood Baptist Church, 5182 La. 412, in Slaughter Activities include yoga, cooking, nutrition, outdoor adventures, arts and crafts, STEM, gardening and line dancing. Registration is open and costs
$52 a camper This include lunch and a T-shirt. Register at tinyurl.com/3a7zje4t or email Kayla Banta at kbanta@agcenter.lsu.edu. Call (225) 683-3101. Flag football coming West Feliciana Parish Parks and Recreation has opened registration for flag football.
ä See AROUND, page 2G
Board to charge for zoning applications
BY JAMES MINTON Contributing writer
Eying the town’s bottom line, the St. Francisville Board of Aldermen agreed July 8 to begin charging fees for handling applications for zoning and subdivision changes.
The move follows last month’s adoption of a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, in which Mayor Andy D’Aquilla trimmed
expenses to avoid deficit spending.
In the past, the town has not charged for following through on zoning and subdivision applications, other than passing on third-party expenses such as publishing required public notices.
The board’s fee schedule includes $250 for Planned Unit Development
conceptual, preliminary and final plan applications, as well as $150 for rezoning, variance and conditional use permit requests and major subdivision applications.
To develop a major subdivision, the developer would be charged a $200 application fee, plus $25 per lot.
Other fees in the schedule are $75 for reconnecting any utility, $50 for a property zoning verification and $100 for a minor subdivision application.
artist Clay Parker leads a
Songbirds sing, jam, fly all over town
Lynn ‘Mama Bird’ Wood overlooks a joint jam session at the Songbird Music School weekend. Wood is a longtime organizer of the Songbird event and the Arts for All council.
BY DAVID J MITCHELL Staff writer
Entergy Corp.’s three nuclear power plants in southern Louisiana and Mississippi had some of the most safety and security issues among plants of their type in the nation over the past three years, but most, if not all, were in the lowest risk category, an environmental group says.
The group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, reached that conclusion in an analysis of federal data as part of a broader critique of nuclear regulators’ color-coded inspection rating system. The group contends the system may miss or under-represent emerging risks by failing to account appropriately for high numbers of the lowest-level “findings,” or issues raised in inspections.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which issues the findings, called the group’s methodology flawed and not in line with how it operates Entergy dismissed the report as inaccurate and not “in good faith.”
BY FRANCES Y. SPENCER Contributing writer
Participants in the annual Songbird Music School weekend proved one can’t have enough nests as the flock returned to the Birdman Cafe, 3D Tourist Courts, and flew to the newly-opened Art House July 10-13.
The Arts for All event brings together musicians from levels ‘singing in the shower” to recording artists. The only requirement was a commitment to having a good time and sharing the mutual melody of music, arts and magic.
A songwriting mini course started the event Thursday and Friday led by Eric Schmitt and Heather Feierabend.
The weekend musical buffet included voice with Feierabend;
See JAM, page 3G
Any costs incurred by the town, such as public notice charges or third-party consultant fees, will be passed on to the applicant.
Town engineer Bianca Hillhouse reported that bids will be opened in time for the board’s August meeting on a project to control erosion
BY JAMES MINTON Contributing
Facing
of Jackson, who represents jury President Louis Kent on the Amite River Basin Drainage and Water Conservation Commission. Kent abstained from the vote to replace Parker, while Juror Richard Oliveaux of Port Hudson voted against the resolution.
Residents who were opposed to two master plan proposals for reservoirs straddling East Feliciana and St. Helena parishes packed the jury’s small meeting room and what appeared to be an equal number waited outside the building. Others left when they found they could not get inside.
The two proposals in the master plan drawing fire are “Upper Amite Detention (Major) Site 2” and another labeled “Upper Amite Detention and Retention (Major) Site 3.” Site 2 would include a 3-mile
The raw tallies of NRC safety findings from 2022-2024 made the plants along the Mississippi River the first- and second-most-cited single-unit plants in the nation over the three-year period, it said. Waterford 3 in New Orleans had the fifth most findings But the NRC says all three Entergy plants remain in the regulator’s “highest performance catego-
ry in safety and security” after the agency applies its “action matrix” that accounts for a variety of factors, not just safety and security findings.
“The NRC uses multiple inputs to assess performance, including inspector findings and objective performance indicators showing how well a plant is performing when measured against estab-
lished thresholds,” Victor Dricks, NRC spokesman, said in a statement.
“The assessment process allows NRC to integrate various information sources relevant to plant safety performance, make objective conclusions regarding their significance, take actions based on these conclusions in a predictable manner, and effectively communicate these results to licensees and the public.”
Questioning the system
The Union of Concerned Scientists used a relatively new NRC database to generate the tallies. Most, if not all, of the findings the group uncovered were rated “green,” the lowest risk category that doesn’t trigger extra levels of scrutiny from the nuclear agency “Green” findings have “very low safety significance,” the NRC says. But the group faults this colorcoding system and created its own metric to try to assess what a large number of “green” findings
ä See NUCLEAR, page 3G
PHOTOS BY FRANCES Y. SPENCER
Recording
selection Saturday after also guiding the guitar course of the Songbird Music School.
ADVOCATE FILE PHOTO BY RICHARD ALAN HANNON Aerial view of the River Bend Nuclear Station near St. Francisville
long, 90-foot-high dam west of Darlington to intercept rainfall runoff from approximately 700 square miles of upstream watershed Site 3 would require a 3.25-mile long, 112-foot-high dam near La. 432 in East Feliciana to hold flood discharges up to the 100-year flood stage before engaging a spillway A “wet pool” would extend into Amite County, Mississippi.
But July 8 before the Amite commission, some residents who are opposed to a large permanent reservoir offered a potential compromise from what the river panel had envisioned by creating areas that could temporarily detain flood water over a smaller footprint — a few hundred to a few thousand acres from willing landowners.
“I think the citizens of East Feliciana will work with you if you look at (temporary storage) versus a land grab, and we see (the master plan proposals) as a way to basically confiscate the real estate that our families have owned since the 16- or 1700s in some places,” Felixville resident Jeffrey Devall told the commission on July 8. At that meeting, East Feliciana Police Juror Chrissie O’Quin appeared and presented the jury’s resolution opposing the plan’s permanent reservoirs idea accompanied with a contingent of East Feliciana and St Helena residents that included Devall.
John Clark, president of the Amite basin commission, told residents and O’Quin that the panel would take up consideration of the police jury’s resolution next month. He also backed away somewhat from permanent reservoir proposals that have stirred opposition, suggesting they were mentioned in the plan as part of a previous legislative mandate to consider storm water retention ideas in the upper Amite River Basin Clark left open the possibility for other ideas. “So, it ain’t over until it’s over, so
BOARD
Continued from page 1G
Street. Engineers also are looking at 10 sites in town for other erosion control measures that could could be addressed with approximately $2 million in funds allocated by the state Legislature.
The board also considered,
The so-called ‘bird’s foot’ reservoir proposal would be built on the Amite River in northern St. Helena and East Feliciana parishes and southern Mississippi near La. 432. Projected at more than $1 billion, the dam and reservoir would protect 13,000 downstream structures from inundation in a 100-year flood and reduce flooding for another 5,700. The proposal is one of three alternatives that the Amite River Basin Commission has proposed for an upstream dam, which has proven a controversial in the past. This alternative would have a 110-foot-high, 3.5-mile-long dam. The dark blue area shows areas covered with water in normal conditions; the light blue shows water coverage in a 100-year flood. The red line shows the dam route.
maybe we can find some middle ground,” he said moments after Devall made his offer on July 8. People opposed to the reservoirs have said, as Devall did, that they will lose property that has been
in their families for generations. Others have said they don’t think the reservoirs will do much to stop flooding.
“I’m losing land for a fishing hole, not to save people from flooding.”
Roy Schmidt told Police Jurors on July 7. These kinds of concerns were aired at the police jury and commission meetings July 7 and July 8 and a public input session for the
Amite commission that drew more than 300 people to a Bluff Creek church on June 30.
The potential for a middle path offered by some residents on July 8 didn’t ease pressure on Parker, the Amite basin commissioner in hot water for the master plan’s reservoir proposals, though he remains on the panel while the jury seeks new applicants.
A day earlier, before the Police Jury, Parker had told jurors and the audience he was against including reservoirs in the master plan. Parker said he was injured in a Joor Road automobile accident while on the way to the Amite basin meeting at which the panel voted to accept the master plan.
“I was going to oppose it. I have never been for the reservoirs since jump street,” he said.
Parker said the idea of including upper basin reservoirs in flood control plans resurfaced after state Sen. Valerie Hodges, R-Watson, sponsored a 2024 Senate concurrent resolution asking the state Department of Transportation and Development to evaluate areas of the upper basin.
The resolution asked DOTD to look at areas “with the potential capacity to detain or retain storm water runoff through a system of structures.”
Parker said he wants the commission to purchase abandoned gravel pits, including two near Denham Springs and Watson, for storing storm runoff because the land is not being used at this time.
O’Quin said a video of the Amite basin commission meeting has circulated on social media in which Clark, the commission chairman, stated he had talked with Parker and another absent member and both said they supported the master plan with permanent reservoirs.
Before the commission a day later O’Quin raised Clark’s comments with him directly Clark clarified that he didn’t say Parker supported the reservoirs but the overall plan.
David J. Mitchell contributed to this story
but decided against, authorizing D’Aquilla to approach Entergy Corp. about obtaining the emergency sirens that were maintained to warn the public about problems at the River Bend nuclear power plant.
River Bend is switching to a cell phone emergency notification system, and Bob Stogner of Precision Communications, said he is re-
moving the sirens in the area.
He said Police Chief Randy Metz asked him to delay the work until the board meeting.
Stogner said the government of Claiborne County, Mississippi, elected to use the sirens associated with Entergy’s Grand Gulf nuclear plant for use in case of weather-related warnings or other emergencies.
Officials recover body of woman near her home in East Feliciana
BY AIDAN MCCAHILL Staff writer
Deputies with the East Feliciana Parish Sheriff’s office recovered the body of a 71- year-old woman on Saturday a week after she had last been seen.
He said the sirens could be set up to broadcast prerecorded emergency messages. The aldermen eventually decided against retaining the sirens, citing the cost of
maintaining and operating them as one reason.
After the meeting, the mayor and aldermen inspected a “mini pumper” fire truck that could be used to replace one or two of the town’s 20-year-
old fire trucks. The truck would cost between $400,000 and $425,000, but would be cheaper to operate as a “first out” vehicle for medical, traffic accident and other minor calls.
Sheriff Jeff Travis said the remains of Mary M “Peggy” Wilson were found around 4 p.m. Saturday a few hundred yards from her house on Billy Goat Road in Wilson.
AROUND
Continued from page 1G
The Louisiana State Police Aviation Unit, Department of Corrections personnel, Louisiana Search and Rescue K9 dog teams, Acadian Ambulance Service and volunteers had helped conduct the day-long search for
Register online at wfprec.com by Aug. 2. Coaches and referees are also needed If interested, contact mpatten@wfparish. com or (225) 784-8447.
School water bottle policy
West Feliciana Parish schools announced a water bottle policy for the coming school
Wilson, Travis said in a news release.
Officials are investigating her death, but say foul play is not suspected. The East Feliciana Coroner’s office has yet to release the official cause of her death.
Email Aidan McCahill at {span}aidan.mccahill@ theadvocate.com or
year All bottles must be clear plastic with a secure lid and no visible straws. They are for water only
Farmers market at The Myrtles
The Myrtles is having a summer farmers market from 9 a.m. to noon every Saturday in July
Send news and events for East and West Feliciana parishes to extra@theadvocate. com by noon Friday or call (225) 3880731.
Leila Pitchford AROUND THE FELICIANAS
Fight Bac
Layne Langley, of the LSU Agriculture Center, will lead Fight Bac, an interactive session on hand hygiene at 11 a.m., Wednesday June 16, at the Clinton Branch of the Audubon Regional Library Children will learn why hand washing matters, how to prevent food borne illness, and proper hand washing techniques.
Other summer library events
West Feliciana: The West Feliciana Parish Library 2025 Summer Reading Program, runs through July Readers of all ages can log reading hours for a chance to earn prizes.
The final day to log reading is July 31, with prize winners announced Aug. 7. The library will host free events designed for children, teens and adults. At 11 a.m. July 16, the children’s performer will be The Noiseguy The next art workshop for ages 8-12 is Clementine Hinter flowers at 10 a.m. July 17. Registration is required for the art class. Ages 11-17 are meeting every Tuesday from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m Upcoming adult workshops (ages 16+) are at 6 p.m. July 11 is Painted Record Art Workshop and July 25 is Upcycled Magazine Bowl Workshop. Registration is required. Information and registration can be found at www.wfplibrary.org/summer
East Feliciana: East Feliciana Parish Library branches include Clinton, 11023 Bank St., (225) 683-8753; Jackson, Jackson Square Plaza, 2637 La. 10, (225) 634-7408; and Greensburg, 6108 La. 10, (225) 435-7135.
n July 25: Dr Magic’s Summer Fun Magic Show features magic, family friendly comedy, audience participation and prizes. There are no loud noises nor sharp objects. Live animals are used. 10 a.m., Jackson; noon, Clinton; 2 p.m., Greensburg n Tuesdays at 10 a.m.: Storytime at Audubon Regional Library, Clinton and St. Helena branches. This will include a mix of themed stories, songs and rhymes, and a craft at the end. All ages are welcome. Event highlights:
n Children’s performances (ages 6-10)
No registration required All programs begin at 11 a.m.
July 23: Harvey Rabbit & Friends
July 30: Dinosaur Experience n Kids art workshops (ages 8-12)
Registration required. All programs run 10 a.m. to noon
July 17: Clementine Hunter
Flowers
July 24: Watercolor Landscapes
July 31: Blue Dog by George Rodrigue
n Teen nights (ages 11-17)
No registration required
5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. every Tuesday
Vacation Bible school set
Jackson United Methodist Church will have Vacation Bible School from 9 a.m. to noon
July 14-18. Children ages 4-12 are invited to “Road Trip” on the go with God at 1727 Sycamore St
4-H day camp set
The East Feliciana Summer Day Camp is from 8:30 a.m to 3:30 p.m. July 18 at Redwood Baptist Church, 5182 La. 412, in Slaughter Activities include yoga, cooking, nutrition, outdoor adventures, arts and crafts, STEM, gardening and line dancing. Registration is open and costs
$52 a camper This include lunch and a T-shirt. Register at tinyurl.com/3a7zje4t or email Kayla Banta at kbanta@agcenter.lsu.edu. Call (225) 683-3101. Flag football coming West Feliciana Parish Parks and Recreation has opened registration for flag football.
ä See AROUND, page 2G
DEMOCRAT
Board to charge for zoning applications
BY JAMES MINTON Contributing writer
Eying the town’s bottom line, the St. Francisville Board of Aldermen agreed July 8 to begin charging fees for handling applications for zoning and subdivision changes.
The move follows last month’s adoption of a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, in which Mayor Andy D’Aquilla trimmed
expenses to avoid deficit spending.
In the past, the town has not charged for following through on zoning and subdivision applications, other than passing on third-party expenses such as publishing required public notices.
The board’s fee schedule includes $250 for Planned Unit Development
conceptual, preliminary and final plan applications, as well as $150 for rezoning, variance and conditional use permit requests and major subdivision applications.
To develop a major subdivision, the developer would be charged a $200 application fee, plus $25 per lot.
Other fees in the schedule are $75 for reconnecting any utility, $50 for a property zoning verification and $100 for a minor subdivision application.
Recording artist Clay Parker leads a selection Saturday after also guiding the
Music School.
Songbirds sing, jam, fly all over town
Lynn ‘Mama Bird’ Wood overlooks a joint jam session at the Songbird Music School weekend. Wood is a longtime organizer of the Songbird event and the Arts for All council.
BY DAVID J MITCHELL Staff writer
Entergy Corp.’s three nuclear power plants in southern Louisiana and Mississippi had some of the most safety and security issues among plants of their type in the nation over the past three years, but most, if not all, were in the lowest risk category, an environmental group says.
The group, the Union of Concerned Scientists, reached that conclusion in an analysis of federal data as part of a broader critique of nuclear regulators’ color-coded inspection rating system. The group contends the system may miss or under-represent emerging risks by failing to account appropriately for high numbers of the lowest-level “findings,” or issues raised in inspections.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which issues the findings, called the group’s methodology flawed and not in line with how it operates Entergy dismissed the report as inaccurate and not “in good faith.”
BY FRANCES Y. SPENCER Contributing writer
Participants in the annual Songbird Music School weekend proved one can’t have enough nests as the flock returned to the Birdman Cafe, 3D Tourist Courts, and flew to the newly-opened Art House July 10-13.
The Arts for All event brings together musicians from levels ‘singing in the shower” to recording artists. The only requirement was a commitment to having a good time and sharing the mutual melody of music, arts and magic.
A songwriting mini course started the event Thursday and Friday led by Eric Schmitt and Heather Feierabend.
The weekend musical buffet included voice with Feierabend;
The raw tallies of NRC safety findings from 2022-2024 made the plants along the Mississippi River the first- and second-most-cited single-unit plants in the nation over the three-year period, it said. Waterford 3 in New Orleans had the fifth most findings
But the NRC says all three Entergy plants remain in the regulator’s “highest performance catego-
ry in safety and security” after the agency applies its “action matrix” that accounts for a variety of factors, not just safety and security findings.
“The NRC uses multiple inputs to assess performance, including inspector findings and objective performance indicators showing how well a plant is performing when measured against estab-
Any costs incurred by the town, such as public notice charges or third-party consultant fees, will be passed on to the applicant.
Town engineer Bianca Hillhouse reported that bids will be opened in time for the board’s August
BY JAMES MINTON
who were opposed to two master plan proposals for reservoirs straddling East Feliciana and St. Helena parishes packed the jury’s small meeting room and what appeared to be an equal number waited outside the building. Others left when they found they could not get inside.
The two proposals in the master plan drawing fire are “Upper Amite Detention (Major) Site 2” and another labeled “Upper Amite Detention and Retention (Major) Site 3.” Site 2 would include a 3-mile
lished thresholds,” Victor Dricks, NRC spokesman, said in a statement.
“The assessment process allows NRC to integrate various information sources relevant to plant safety performance, make objective conclusions regarding their significance, take actions based on these conclusions in a predictable manner, and effectively communicate these results to licensees and the public.”
Questioning the system
The Union of Concerned Scientists used a relatively new NRC database to generate the tallies. Most, if not all, of the findings the group uncovered were rated “green,” the lowest risk category that doesn’t trigger extra levels of scrutiny from the nuclear agency “Green” findings have “very low safety significance,” the NRC says. But the group faults this colorcoding system and created its own metric to try to assess what a large number of “green” findings
PHOTOS BY FRANCES Y. SPENCER
guitar course of the Songbird
ADVOCATE FILE PHOTO BY RICHARD ALAN HANNON Aerial view of the River Bend Nuclear Station near St. Francisville
long, 90-foot-high dam west of Darlington to intercept rainfall runoff from approximately 700 square miles of upstream watershed Site 3 would require a 3.25-mile long, 112-foot-high dam near La. 432 in East Feliciana to hold flood discharges up to the 100-year flood stage before engaging a spillway A “wet pool” would extend into Amite County, Mississippi.
But July 8 before the Amite commission, some residents who are opposed to a large permanent reservoir offered a potential compromise from what the river panel had envisioned by creating areas that could temporarily detain flood water over a smaller footprint — a few hundred to a few thousand acres from willing landowners.
“I think the citizens of East Feliciana will work with you if you look at (temporary storage) versus a land grab, and we see (the master plan proposals) as a way to basically confiscate the real estate that our families have owned since the 16- or 1700s in some places,” Felixville resident Jeffrey Devall told the commission on July 8. At that meeting, East Feliciana Police Juror Chrissie O’Quin appeared and presented the jury’s resolution opposing the plan’s permanent reservoirs idea accompanied with a contingent of East Feliciana and St Helena residents that included Devall.
John Clark, president of the Amite basin commission, told residents and O’Quin that the panel would take up consideration of the police jury’s resolution next month.
He also backed away somewhat from permanent reservoir proposals that have stirred opposition, suggesting they were mentioned in the plan as part of a previous legislative mandate to consider storm water retention ideas in the upper Amite River Basin Clark left open the possibility for other ideas.
“So, it ain’t over until it’s over, so
BOARD
Continued from page 1G
Street. Engineers also are looking at 10 sites in town for other erosion control measures that could could be addressed with approximately $2 million in funds allocated by the state Legislature.
The board also considered,
The so-called ‘bird’s foot’ reservoir proposal would be built on the Amite River in northern St. Helena and East Feliciana parishes and southern Mississippi near La. 432. Projected at more than $1 billion, the dam and reservoir would protect 13,000 downstream structures from inundation in a 100-year flood and reduce flooding for another 5,700. The proposal is one of three alternatives that the Amite River Basin Commission has proposed for an upstream dam, which has proven a controversial in the past. This alternative would have a 110-foot-high, 3.5-mile-long dam. The dark blue area shows areas covered with water in normal conditions; the light blue shows water coverage in a 100-year flood. The red line shows the dam route.
Amite commission that drew more than 300 people to a Bluff Creek church on June 30.
The potential for a middle path offered by some residents on July 8 didn’t ease pressure on Parker, the Amite basin commissioner in hot water for the master plan’s reservoir proposals, though he remains on the panel while the jury seeks new applicants.
A day earlier, before the Police Jury, Parker had told jurors and the audience he was against including reservoirs in the master plan. Parker said he was injured in a Joor Road automobile accident while on the way to the Amite basin meeting at which the panel voted to accept the master plan.
“I was going to oppose it. I have never been for the reservoirs since jump street,” he said.
Parker said the idea of including upper basin reservoirs in flood control plans resurfaced after state Sen. Valerie Hodges, R-Watson, sponsored a 2024 Senate concurrent resolution asking the state Department of Transportation and Development to evaluate areas of the upper basin.
The resolution asked DOTD to look at areas “with the potential capacity to detain or retain storm water runoff through a system of structures.”
Parker said he wants the commission to purchase abandoned gravel pits, including two near Denham Springs and Watson, for storing storm runoff because the land is not being used at this time.
O’Quin said a video of the Amite basin commission meeting has circulated on social media in which Clark, the commission chairman, stated he had talked with Parker and another absent member and both said they supported the master plan with permanent reservoirs.
maybe we can find some middle ground,” he said moments after Devall made his offer on July 8. People opposed to the reservoirs have said, as Devall did, that they will lose property that has been in their families for generations. Others have said they don’t think the reservoirs will do much to stop flooding.
but decided against, authorizing D’Aquilla to approach Entergy Corp. about obtaining the emergency sirens that were maintained to warn the public about problems at the River Bend nuclear power plant.
River Bend is switching to a cell phone emergency notification system, and Bob Stogner of Precision Communications, said he is re-
“I’m losing land for a fishing hole, not to save people from flooding.”
moving the sirens in the area.
He said Police Chief Randy Metz asked him to delay the work until the board meeting.
Stogner said the government of Claiborne County, Mississippi, elected to use the sirens associated with Entergy’s Grand Gulf nuclear plant for use in case of weather-related warnings or other emergencies.
Officials recover body of woman near her home in East Feliciana
BY AIDAN MCCAHILL Staff writer
Deputies with the East Feliciana Parish Sheriff’s office recovered the body of a 71- year-old woman on Saturday a week after she had last been seen.
Roy Schmidt told Police Jurors on July 7. These kinds of concerns were aired at the police jury and commission meetings July 7 and July 8 and a public input session for the
He said the sirens could be set up to broadcast prerecorded emergency messages. The aldermen eventually decided against retaining the sirens, citing the cost of
Before the commission a day later O’Quin raised Clark’s comments with him directly Clark clarified that he didn’t say Parker supported the reservoirs but the overall plan.
David J. Mitchell contributed to this story
maintaining and operating them as one reason.
After the meeting, the mayor and aldermen inspected a “mini pumper” fire truck that could be used to replace one or two of the town’s 20-year-
old fire trucks. The truck would cost between $400,000 and $425,000, but would be cheaper to operate as a “first out” vehicle for medical, traffic accident and other minor calls.
Sheriff Jeff Travis said the remains of Mary M “Peggy” Wilson were found around 4 p.m. Saturday a few hundred yards from her house on Billy Goat Road in Wilson.
AROUND
Continued from page 1G
The Louisiana State Police Aviation Unit, Department of Corrections personnel, Louisiana Search and Rescue K9 dog teams, Acadian Ambulance Service and volunteers had helped conduct the day-long search for
Register online at wfprec.com by Aug. 2. Coaches and referees are also needed If interested, contact mpatten@wfparish. com or (225) 784-8447.
School water bottle policy
Wilson, Travis said in a news release.
Officials are investigating her death, but say foul play is not suspected. The East Feliciana Coroner’s office has yet to release the official cause of her death.
Email Aidan McCahill at {span}aidan.mccahill@ theadvocate.com or
Farmers market at The Myrtles
The Myrtles is having a summer farmers market from 9 a.m. to noon every Saturday in July
Send news and events for East and West Feliciana parishes to extra@theadvocate. com by noon Friday or call (225) 3880731.
West Feliciana Parish schools announced a water bottle policy for the coming school year All bottles must be clear plastic with a secure lid and no visible straws. They are for water only
DEMOCRAT
JAM
Continued from page 1G
NUCLEAR
from page 1G
might mean for plant safety. It equated five “green” findings to one “white” finding and weighted the results.
A “white” finding, the next risk category up from “green,” represents “low to moderate safety significance,” the NRC says White and other worse findings spark additional NRC oversight.
Using the Union of Concerned Scientists’ metric, the group ranked the three Entergy plants first, second and third on its ”Terrible Thirteen” nationwide listing for single-unit reactors.
In the three-year period analyzed, Waterford 3 had 32 “green” findings and four “white” ones; River Bend in St. Francisville had 60 “green” findings and two “white” findings; Grand Gulf in Port Gibson Mississippi had 58 “green” findings, including 27 in 2024, but no “white” findings.
“River Bend and Grand Gulf are by far the worst violators,” the report says. “This does not come as a surprise, as accusations of financial problems and mismanagement of its nuclear fleet have swirled around Entergy for decades.”
Entergy also has a dual nuclear reactor plant in central Arkansas.
The report pointed out that the Louisiana Public Service Commission and other officials filed a complaint in 2021 against Entergy The state officials alleged to the Federal Electric Regulatory Commission that “safety and reliability problems caused “sub-par” performance of the Grand Gulf nuclear plant and excessive costs for ratepayers.
The report added that Entergy’s performance should be kept in mind as the utility plans to increase the power output of its nuclear fleet and, therefore work reactors harder It is also considering building a new reactor at the Grand Gulf site.
Entergy disputes report
The report also comes as Entergy and Cleco face renewed scrutiny over reliability following a forced blackout in the New Orleans area in May triggered by a downed interstate transmission line and large, unplanned plant outages that included a fiveday shutdown of Entergy’s River Bend following a leak.
Michael Bowling, a spokesman for Entergy’s nuclear operations, countered the criticisms in the environmental group’s report, also noting that NRC’s online oversight pag-
es show the plants remain in the agency’s best safety and performance category
“We are proud of the nearly 3,000 nuclear professionals who work 24-7, 365 to ensure we safely produce clean power for our customers,” he said. “We do not consider this blog report accurate or in good faith.”
In a statement, NRC officials pointed out that “green” and “white” findings can’t be equated because they represent different magnitudes of safety and security risk.
Simply adding up green findings also isn’t how NRC evaluates plants, the agency said.
Union of Concerned Scientists pointed out in its report, however that NRC once produced its own watchlists based on safety performance but the lists went away in the late 1990s when Congress changed the agency’s safety assessments to the current, color-coded one.
The group contends the current system could fail to address patterns that might emerge from a series of the lowest level “green” problems.
“Associating higher-risk violations with increased oversight does seem like a reasonable thing to do. However, it violates common sense to argue that the total number of violations, and their cumulative impact on risk, should not be also considered,” wrote Edwin Lyman, UCS’s nuclear expert
and the author of the report. The report noted that even with that number of findings in 2024, Grand Gulf remained in the NRC’s highest performance category along with a facility that had two findings in that year
In an interview, Lyman argued that green findings can be serious, representing “sometimes years or decades of negligence.” In his report, he pointed out that Entergy received a “green” finding for its failure to implement a program at Waterford 3 to address more than 2,500 corrosion issues Some of the problems had been identified “as far back as 2011, with around 200 classified as severe and affecting critical safetyrelated systems,” the report noted.
Lyman also alleged that NRC inspectors may face pressure from industry to keep border-line findings “green” and avoid more higher rated findings with more serious regulatory consequences.
He argued some “green” findings count on backup systems implemented since the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan in 2011 that don’t have the same reliability demands as other equipment. “So there are a lot of uncertainties in there, and I think ‘green’ may not be as benign in many cases as the NRC claims it is,” Lyman said.
Continued
guitar with Clay Parker; Cabin Orchestra (string instruments) with David Hinson; percussion with Melissa Wilson; choir with Margaret Fowler Milam; and Jam Camp with Adrian Percy, Nancy Roppolo, Robert Hartner and Michael Holmes.
Songbird Music School participant Katie Love uses her turn at the mic to lead Wagon Wheel. She was joined by vocalists and a wide variety of instruments following her lead.
Nancy ‘Keys’ Roppolo leads, follows and accompanies impromptu selections Saturday during a jam session at the Songbird Music School weekend.
PHOTOS BY FRANCES Y. SPENCER
Jam Camp instructor Adrian Percy and voice and songwriting instructor Heather Feierabend heat up the beginning of a mass jam session at the Songbird Music School weekend.
Call (225) 6839862 to schedule a transportation appointment.
Work is complete on the silvery dome atop the spruced-up Jackson Town Hall. The dome has been called a “Hershey kiss” sitting on top of the building by some of Jackson’s children. Circa 1904, the structure is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Jackson’s large historic district.
Feliciana schools transportation chief named head of region for state group Kelly
er not just for our district, but for the entire region and state,” said Superintendent Keisha L. Netterville.
JULY
Jackson Town Hall gets summer cleaning
PHOTOS BY MELINDA RAWLS HOWELL
The finished product, the newly-painted, shining silvery dome atop the spruced-up Jackson Town Hall.
FRANKS, BAILEY ELIZA‐BETH FREEMAN, TARIK DA SHAWN GALLEGO, MARCEL JOSEPH GAMMILL, MARGARET B GANES MAKAYLA CLOTEAL GILFOIL, ADRIAN LONG GILMORE JOHN FITZGER‐ALD GILMORE, ROBERT JR GIROIR, ANNA KATHARINE GOSSERAND, KELSEY KING GOSSERAND MATTHEW SHANE GRAY, ROSHAWNA LEIGH GRAY, WILLIE GREER, SARAH LYNN GREZAFFI LORIE MIX GUERRA MEGAN MCDO‐NOUGH GUILLORY CHERYL LYNN JENKINS GUILLORY, CYNTHIA GWINN CAROLYN WASH‐INGTON HAILE, ANGELA F HAMMER, LEE JAMES HARGROVE, MARILYN BANKS HARP, JEFFERY P HARRIS, CAPRICE M HARVEY, ANITA FONTENOT HASHAGEN, KATHERINE MCNABB SUE HERNDON, MATTHEW HINTON, MARBLE ANN HOLLINGSWORTH, JOHN BARRETT HORN, DARREN W HORST, CHERYL B HOSFORD, KARRY WALKER HOUSE, JOHN ROY III HOUSE, KARI LYNA HOWARD CLAYTON HUGHES, KERRY VAN HUGHES, REBEKAH ELISE IRVINE, TYRONE JACKSON, JENNIFER CARTER JACKSON, RYANE JAMES, TICO SHERMAINE JOHNSON, KEVIN DOU‐GLAS JOINER, JAMES CODY JONES, BARBARA GENE JONES, GEORGIA ANN
HAROLD LEE JR POLLET, LLOYD JOSEPH POLLET, MADISON NOEL PONSON, JEANETTE K POOL, MARY ALICE PRIDE, LULA HEBERT RACHAL, SARAH D RANATZA SHERYL WIL‐SON REAMES, LEANNE NICOLE ROBINSON JEANNE LEV‐EQUE ROGERS, FLOYD BARNETT ROGERS, JANNA DENAY ROGERS, JOEL SCOTT ROSE, JOHN MARTIN ROSENBACH, KEITH JOSEPH RUSSELL, ADLISSA JANELLA SCURRIA, STEPHEN T SHOEMAKE JAMES MERLE SIMPSON, MORGAN REEVES SMITH, KENDRIEN WAYNE SMITH, LILLIAN DENISE SMITH, PAUL A SOILEAU DEDRAIN SHANTELL STELLY, LUKE ALEXANDER I STONE, HEATHER B STRICKLAND JESSICA KATHLEEN SULLIVAN, DENISE SUMMERS, JAMES STEVEN JR SYKES, JUNE VIDRINE TEMPLETON, GREGORY H TEMPLETON THOMAS BENJAMIN TESFAY, HAILE THERIOT, MELISSA PRA‐DOS THOMAS, RANDALL W THORLA, BRIDGETTE SA‐MONE TONEY, EVAN WADE VESSELL, ROY MILTON VIDRINE, JODY WALKER, DAWN LEATRIE WALTERS, MARK STEVEN WARD, BRENDA C WARE, JOSEPH O WASHINGTON, SARANNH ROSCHELL WEBB, ALI NIGIL WEBB, NOLDEN WELSH, JAMES HUBERT WHETSTONE, DARYL WHITAKER DELVIN DAN‐TONTIE JR WHITAKER, ERWIN LOUIS
