Baja St. Martin

Last week the traffic coming from Bayou Pigeon way, Pierre Part and Morgan City was stopped for quite a while as a reputed explosive device found on a fence around Settoon Towing, a company on Hwy. 70 in Belle River was detonated. The whole incident has been kind of strange mostly for the lack of publicity and information. The local Pierre Part paper had no coverage of the incident because, it turns out, they get reports from State Police Troop C and this event was in St. Martin Parish, and handled by Troop I.
A Troop I public information person responded to my query and said the device was called a “hoax” device, that no press release had been issued and basically no report was made. The gossip going around Belle River, as you can imagine, is astounding and extremely creative. The Troop I guy said nobody had been detained but I’ve heard differently, so who knows the real story. I’m just amazed that the whole business wasn’t headline news in some paper or at least on TV.
Meanwhile, also last week, a fly-over by LEAN (Louisiana Environmental Action Network) reported a “sheen” on the water in the area of the F.A.S. injection wells in the Atchafalaya Basin.(This is the site where F.A.S. Environmental wants to connect to their proposed wastewater transfer site.) LEAN reported the sighting to the DEQ.
A friend up the road from me was able to take a boat ride to the area of the “sheen,” which appeared to be coming from the injection well facility. However, now we’re hearing that the Coast Guard and DEQ and F.A.S. all are claiming (tentatively) the “sheen” may not be traced to the injection wells specifically.
When I called DEQ today, I was told to call back later in the week for an official report. I was able to see the aerial photos taken by LEAN and it definitely showed something on the water in the injection location and in two adjacent bayous. It will be interesting to learn what the final, official position will be.
Back at the ranch, Stephensville Elementary will be finishing up its annual fund-raiser soon. Let’s hope they made lots of money. In the last newsletter there was a nice note from Principal Staton thanking everyone for their help and support and trust. If you have any questions, Mr. Staton urges you to email him at bryan_staton@stmartinschools.org and/or call at (985) 385-1366. Mr. Staton is also asking parents who come to pick up their children from school to please stay in their vehicles and join the car line to pick up the kids. Buses have to leave first before car riders are allowed to be picked up. Congestion in front of the school is to be avoided. One of the last newsletters from S.E.S included several activities for the kids. Writing stories, spelling ideas, math ideas.
I’m not sure how it was accomplished, but apparently different school systems have chosen to pattern themselves after different Common Core models. Assumption uses the New York model and I have recently been spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out how the whole thing works. It all does seem to stress making kids think and figure things out, which I think is good, but I feel great sympathy for the teachers and sincerely hope they had more time to absorb all this stuff than I have. I also wonder why New York is so great! Are their students so much more advanced in math than ours?
The weather remains beautiful. Cool enough to open windows and turn off A/C at night and until early afternoon before it begins to warm up. The wind continues blowing from the south keeping the spillway water level up. Not much activity at the Belle River boat landing aside from the occasional fishing club get together.

Teche News’ Lower St. Martin correspondent, Linda Cooke, can be emailed at lcooke9417@bellsouth.net.