New Orleans City Business

U.S. Senate Passes Flood Insurance Reform Act

Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said the Senate has passed the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act, which they said reforms and strengthens the National Flood Insurance Program. The act passed in a 92-6 vote.

St. Tammany to Auction Surplus Equipment

St. Tammany Parish officials will hold a public auction of vehicles, machinery and miscellaneous equipment deemed as surplus at 10 a.m. June 5 at ServCorp International, 101 Magnolia St. in Slidell. All items will be sold to the highest bidder. They include Ford Crown Victorias, Ford F-250 pickups and John Deere 290D excavators.

Dillard University Symposium to Examine Gulf Coast Rebuilding Progress

Dillard University's Deep South Center for Environmental Justice is sponsoring its second national symposium in New Orleans on "Race, Place and the Environment After Katrina: Reclaiming, Rebuilding, Revitalizing" from Thursday to Saturday at the JW Marriott Hotel, 614 Canal St. The symposium will examine the progress of rebuilding in the Gulf Coast, with some emphasis on the recovery of New Orleans. It will also look at the extent to which Gulf Coast communities have been able to replace infr...

Bayou Bend Petroleum Ltd. Makes Marsh Island Discovery

Bayou Bend Petroleum Ltd. today said it has made a gas condensate discovery on its Eagle's Nest prospect in the Marsh Island project in Eugene Island Block 6 in Iberia Parish. The prospect was jointly drilled with Contango Operators Inc. through Bayou Bend's joint exploration agreement.

Health Concerns Plug Plans to Use Rainwater for Toilets in Louisiana

Global Green USA, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based environmental company, has installed a 1,000-gallon cistern system at the first of five environmentally friendly houses it is building in the Holy Cross neighborhood, but state regulations may prevent the home's future owners from ever flushing a toilet the old-fashioned way. Forty percent of the average American household's drinking water supply is literally flushed down the toilet every year, Green Program Building Associate Mike Lopez said, so...

N.O.'S First Bike Lane Completed

New Orleans has its first bike lane, a 5-foot-wide, approximately 3-mile strip on St. Claude Avenue connecting the Marigny, Bywater, Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish, the New Orleans-based Regional Planning Commission said today. While the city has bike paths, such as those atop levees, this is the first bike lane for the New Orleans area, said Dan Jatres, RPC's director of education and outreach.

Tighter Mortgage Lending Policies Crunch Prospective New Orleans Buyers

Amy Simmons' life is nearly back to its pre-Katrina status, except for one gaping hole: She doesn't own her home and won't be able to in the foreseeable future. Simmons rents a house in Kenner where she lives with her husband and three young children. She is ready to move her family into a home of their own, but because of a low credit score and no extra cash for a down payment on a house, Simmons knows her chance of getting a mortgage is slim.

Construction Begins On $6m Port of South Louisiana Shed

The Port of South Louisiana broke ground on a $6 million, 40,000- square-foot bulk-transit storage facility at its Globalplex Intermodal Terminal in Reserve Tuesday afternoon. Port officials say the shed will assist their customers, including its stevedoring partner, Associated Terminals, with handling and storing dry bulk commodities shipped in and out of the 54-mile port district. The port also anticipates the project will create more than 30 temporary construction jobs and five permanent j...