Conflict in Cajun Country: Will the Bayou Bridge Pipeline Become Louisiana's Standing Rock?

About the Series

At the far end of the controversial Dakota Access pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners is proposing to build the Bayou Bridge pipeline to carry fracked oil from North Dakota to the Gulf Coast. Cutting through the heart of Louisiana’s Cajun Country, the pipeline would traverse the Atchafalaya Basin, a national heritage area which is already criss-crossed by hundreds of pipelines and littered with thousands of abandoned wells. 

The pipeline’s supporters tout the economic benefits and relative safety of moving oil by pipeline. Meanwhile, its opponents cite concerns about the threat of an oil spill and further damage to the Atchafalaya Basin, and warn that the Bayou Bridge battle could escalate to the levels against the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock.

In This Series

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A Louisiana state appeals court has ruled that the Bayou Bridge Pipeline Company illegally “trampled” on the rights of landowners by starting pipeline construction without the landowners’ permissio...
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Since October 2018, the Mississippi River has been running high, thanks in part to heavier-than-usual rainfall across its northern and central stretches. And when the water flows high on the most ...
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On December 27, a state* appeals court ordered a Louisiana’s sheriff’s department and its sheriff to release information about its officers’ trip to North Dakota during the heated protests against ...
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After three landowners filed a legal challenge against Bayou Bridge Pipeline, LLC’s right to build a pipeline on their land — which it did without their permission — the case concluded this week wi...
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High water in Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin and direct actions against the Bayou Bridge pipeline threaten to further delay work on the pipeline. However, it likely will be finished before the compa...
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Karen Savage, an award-winning investigative reporter, did not expect to be arrested as she covered Energy Transfer Partners’ controversial construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline through Louisia...
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A day before a federal court reaffirmed Bayou Bridge LLC could keep building an oil pipeline through Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin, I stood on a cypress tree stump there, viewing the destroyed tree...
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Melinda Tillies learned about the controversial Bayou Bridge pipeline the day its construction began next to her home a couple months ago. As workers prepared the site for the pipeline, the activit...
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Today, residents of St. James, Louisiana, and groups opposing the Bayou Bridge pipeline petitioned a state court to halt construction on the oil pipeline along its final 18 miles. This segment fall...
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Construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline has continued in and around the Louisiana town of St. James despite a judge’s ruling that a state agency wrongly issued a permit allowing this oil pipeline...
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A Louisiana judge ruled that state regulators violated guidelines when they issued a coastal use permit to build the Bayou Bridge pipeline in the town of St. James. The judge’s decision, made on Ap...
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Hope Rosinski kept watch over the construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline as one of its segments was installed on her land in Arcadia Parish, Louisiana. While she had signed an agreement allowing...
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On Thursday, April 5, opponents of the Bayou Bridge pipeline attempted to shut down its construction by blocking an industrial supply company’s facility in Iowa, Louisiana, just outside of Lake Cha...
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The private security firm TigerSwan, known for its controversial military-style tactics against Dakota Access pipeline protesters, is appealing the decision to deny its application for a license to...
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Today the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a federal judge’s temporary injunction halting work on the Bayou Bridge pipeline within Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin. In a 2-1 vote the higher cou...
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Opponents of the Bayou Bridge pipeline accused Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards of meeting with representative of the oil and gas industry while refusing to meet with activists and communities a...
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A federal judge’s recent order stopping construction of the Bayou Bridge pipeline — though only in Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin — has successfully prevented further sections of the National Herita...
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There was an eerie stillness along the route of the Bayou Bridge pipeline in Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Basin the day after a federal judge halted work on the pipeline. A temporary injunction was gran...
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Less than a week after construction began on the controversial Bayou Bridge pipeline in Louisiana, a coalition of crawfishers and environmental groups took legal steps to immediately shut down the ...
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Though Energy Transfer Partners has all the permits and permissions it needs to start work on the Bayou Bridge pipeline, the project still faces multiple legal challenges.  The 162-mile pipeline, ...
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On December 16 anti-pipeline activists calling themselves water protectors gathered in Rayne, Louisiana, on land located along the proposed route of the Bayou Bridge pipeline. The gathering occurre...
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A broad base of advocacy groups opposed to Energy Transfer Partners’ (ETP) proposed Bayou Bridge pipeline continue to pressure officials in Louisiana to deny the remaining permissions the company n...
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Pastor Harry Joseph of the Mount Triumph Baptist Church in St. James, Louisiana, is taking legal action to prevent the Bayou Bridge pipeline from being built in his community, roughly 50 miles west...
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By Steve Horn and Curtis Waltman On June 19, Louisiana’s Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards signed a bill into law which will enter his state into the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EM...
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On March 30, heavy rain didn’t stop dozens of people in New Orleans from marching to the offices of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR), where they delivered a letter to the agency ...
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This is a guest op-ed by Steve Wilkerson, a U.S. Army Veteran from Louisiana. On February 8th, 2017, a retired Major General by the name of James “Spider” Marks spoke at a public hearing in Napole...
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On February 13 environmental advocates urged Louisiana agencies to deny permits for the Bayou Bridge pipeline at a press conference in front of the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) office ...
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At a permit hearing for the Bayou Bridge pipeline held January 12 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, opponents warned that if a permit is granted, the battle to stop the pipeline could turn the Atchafalaya...
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On November 15, over 150 people protested against the Dakota Access Pipeline in New Orleans outside the US Army Corp of Engineers headquarters in a show of solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux t...