Reader-submitted opinion
I have a big slipper-back cast iron bathtub on legs and I love to soak. I’m laying here putting more hot water in and thinking about the situation we are all in, some just don’t realize the seriousness of it but we are all in a serious fork in the road.
If our Chicot Aquifer is damaged when they inject carbon with many different toxins at an extremely high pressure of 2200 pounds of pressure per square inch under that aquifer and the water is contaminated, I won’t be enjoying soaking in my tub like I’m spoiled to. If I can’t drink it, then I sure can’t soak in that water. All my oilers know our skin is our largest organ and absorbs everything that is applied to it.
Contaminated water can’t water your flowers or vegetable gardens, livestock. It will kill everything. Do you have a plan??? I can’t even imagine what 700,000 people will do.
Allen Parish Police Jury, Beauregard Parish Police Jury, Vernon Parish Police Jury, The Village of Woodworth, have all passed similar resolutions stating no carbon sequestration or pipelines in their parish and Woodworth. I think Mayor Butler got tired of waiting on Rapides Police Jury to stop behaving like children and do the right thing, so they went ahead without them. Good for him!!!
Craig Smith, maybe you need to say Ward 11 will make their own resolution (like Woodworth) and at least protect that much of the parish. Maybe the other citizens in the other districts will convince their jurors how wrong they were and they’ll change their opinion too.
People, I may not know all the “whys” but Rapides Parish is the key to ALL of this. The governor didn’t send his people to sit there like we were watching a scene from The Godfather to these other parishes—-they were there last Monday. They have been attempting to intimidate the women this week—-it’s been ridiculous.
There was something brought to my attention today, I didn’t realize that FEMA does not help when there’s toxins involved. So your insurance isn’t going to help even though you’ve been paying them for years, the government isn’t going to help, you’ll have to pay for attorneys to sue the companies and there’s a $250,000 cap—only once can you collect on that. How much you think that lawyer will take???
Then what’s left? That’s if you survive. Dead you worth $500,000. It’s so safe they needed a cap on how much they could be sued for. Mr. Bishop will receive more than that on the sale of the property to Sungas or Beaver Lake Renewables, he has a buyers/sellers agreement on it and he’s received I believe it was $75,000 just to hold it for them—-if they buy or not, he gets to keep that.
Just things going through my mind, thinking how I will miss my long hot soaks in this tub if a bunch of politicians from The Green Greedy Party have their way. WHY??? I want to know why they aren’t voting for the people. WHY????
I want to invite all of you 700,000 people that has an interest in how the Rapides Parish Police Jury decides to go with their resolution at Monday’s meeting to come. There’s the resolution that President Craig Smith presented and read—it said just what the voters and citizens of Rapides Parish ask for. We weren’t allowed to discuss it and without following proper parliamentary procedure, Randy Wiggins went straight into reading “his” alternate resolution. It was oblivious that a secret meeting was held about his plan to hijack Smith’s plan because he read it they voted and discussions weren’t allowed. It was not in the best interest of the people. Juror Jay Scott said they had their secret meeting and he wasn’t invited, neither was Juror Parrish Giles and Jay said there was no transparency with them.
The people that attended last Monday’s meeting was assured that we would have the chance to speak before they voted on Monday. If you haven’t had a chance to talk to your police juror come and speak to him before they voted on this resolution and ask him to vote against Wiggins and to bring Smith’s back up. They should be voting what’s best for Rapides Parish, not what the governor or his lobbyist or the corporations (mostly foreign) want because they don’t care about you or your family. If they inject in Rapides and damage that aquifer then it’s contaminated for all 15 parishes and a section of Texas. Do you think Texas won’t sue Rapides for that?!?? Do you think the other parishes won’t sue Rapides if they contaminate their groundwater?!???
Come, exercise your freedom while we still have it. It’s questionable in this land of the free, how much freedom we have in our parish, maybe our state.
-Gladys Carmouche
Monday, December 8, 2025 at 3 PM
Rapides Parish Courthouse – Second Floor
701 Murray Street
Alexandria, La 71301