About Bayou Blockade
Bayou Blockade is two St. Charles Parish residents, Joseph Coco and Becca Hillburn of Destrehan, keeping track of the permits, rezonings and public money that decide what gets built next to us. It isn't a nonprofit or a formal organization.
What we do
- Read the permit applications, staff reports and modeling that agencies post for comment, and write up what they actually say.
- File public records requests when the record has gaps.
- Tell neighbors when a comment period opens or a hearing is coming, what's being decided, and what to ask for.
- Show up and speak.
Every claim on this site names the document it comes from. If you find a mistake, write to us and we'll fix it.
Who we are
Joseph Coco
Joseph has a background in data science and builds biomedical software. For Bayou Blockade he reads the permit files, models and spreadsheets and files the records requests. He has filed comments on Waterford 5 & 6, IMTT, the GNOTS barge fleet and St. Charles Clean Fuels. His family has been in Ascension Parish for generations.
Becca Hillburn
Becca grew up in Luling; her family has been in the River Parishes for over two hundred years. She minored in earth and environmental sciences at the University of New Orleans and is now an artist and teacher, so she can show young and old alike how beautiful and wonderful Louisiana is. She lost her father, a lifelong oil industry engineer, to lung cancer in 2009, and her aunt, a lifelong kindergarten teacher at Allemands, in 2022, and doesn't want to see more death from pollution. These losses galvanize her will to help Louisiana do better.
Stay in touch
We send an email when there's something to do: a comment deadline, a hearing, a vote. Join the mailing list, or write to [email protected].