[StBernard] Letter to the Editor:

[Westley Annis]

Letter to the Editor:
Regarding Our Residential Neighborhoods Around Murphy Oil Meraux Refinery

We are for a balance between Residential Neighborhoods and heavy industry.
We have the opportunity to achieve and maintain that balance by preserving
the crude oil spill settlement which ordered a buyout to create a buffer. We
are also for the modernization of Murphy's refinery with any expansion.

We need designated greenspace (conservation easements on the land titles) on
LRA properties on the four 'buyout' streets (LRA properties that are not
sold to domiciled neighbors or made available for residential
redevelopment).  We need the same designated greenspace on properties the
parish now owns on the buyout streets due to adjudication and on our own
Jacob Drive Firestation property (should it be taken out of service or
sold). We need to maintain the existing fenceline and the neighborhood
commercial, residential zoning.

We need sidewalks for our children.  We need  a buffer, not more industrial
traffic and transient workers on our neighborhood streets; not more
industrial development beyond the existing fenceline.  A bigger refinery
brings bigger catastrophic events which call for a greater protection of the
residents, not a lower buffer.

We need to keep our library funding and plans to construct a new larger
library (separate from the public school library).  We should not
accommodate this ambitious refinery expansion by consolidating the public
library with the high school library.  This would facilitate the move of
Murphy's structures from the existing refinery to our library land in
Mearux.  This would assist the refinery in making room for more processing
units.

Before we make any decisions, we need the total refinery expansion plan, so
we can decide if St Bernard Parish is ready to become the next large
refinery town in the region.
a concerned recovery citizen of St Bernard Parish, Louisiana