Lake Maurepas: A Story Too Painful to Ignore

Lake Maurepas is more than a body of water. She is a living thread in Louisiana’s story — shallow, quiet, and sacred. Families fish her waters, hunt her swamps, and pass down traditions rooted in her shores.

But today, she stands on the edge of a crisis.

A multi-billion-dollar corporation has set its sights on using Lake Maurepas as a dumping ground for carbon dioxide. Their plan: drill wells beneath her fragile floor and inject millions of tons of pressurized CO₂ every year. To get there, they’ve already sent seismic blasts across the lake, dragged drilling barges into her waters, and begun preparing a pipeline through the Maurepas Swamp Wildlife Management Area — land the public was promised would remain protected.

As if that weren’t enough, a university scientist uncovered dangerous levels of toxic metals — arsenic, lead, and cadmium — in the lake’s waters and sediments. Instead of celebrating the discovery, the university abruptly removed her from the project. For many, it was a chilling sign that truth-telling around Lake Maurepas comes at a cost.

And yet, the people are not silent. State Representative Kim Coates has stepped into the fight, pressing for an Environmental Impact Study, filing motions, and challenging the state’s handling of this project. Local families have packed parish meetings, flooded agencies with comments, and joined hands with environmental advocates. Their message is simple: Lake Maurepas is not for sale.

Covering this story has been one of the hardest things we’ve done at CO₂ Chronicles. It isn’t just about policy or science — it’s about people, home, and the heartbreaking possibility of losing a lake that holds their memories, their livelihoods, and their hope for the future.

That’s why we’ve prepared a three-part exposé series that will take you inside this struggle:

• Part 1 – How the project began in secrecy, and how ordinary people rose to defend their lake.
  
  
• Part 2 – The turning points: seismic tests, toxic findings, and political battles that shook the community.
  
  
• Part 3 – Where the lawsuit stands today, and what the fight for Lake Maurepas means for Louisiana’s future.
  
  

We invite you to read, share, and support this work. Because the people fighting for Lake Maurepas are fighting for something larger than themselves: the right to protect their waters, their heritage, and their children’s tomorrow.

🎶 Below you will find a song written about Lake Maurepas — a voice of love, loss, and resistance carried on Louisiana’s waters. We dedicate this song to State Representative Kim Coates.

✊ Support Independent Journalism
 The fight for Lake Maurepas is about more than one lake — it’s about Louisiana’s right to protect its people, its waters, and its future. Stories like this aren’t told by mainstream outlets. They’re uncovered by independent journalists working alongside the people on the front lines.

If you believe Louisiana deserves the truth, become a member of CO₂ Chronicles today. Your support makes this work possible — and fuels the movement to hold industry and government accountable.