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(Editor’s Note: The charges listed here and the narratives that go with them are provided by the police agencies that made the arrests. Guilt or innocence has not been determined in court.)

Assumption Parish deputies stopped a driver identified as the Morgan City man who pulled a gun on people Sunday in Amelia. They booked him on drug-related charges as well as a stolen weapon count, police reports say.

Assumption
Sheriff Leland Falcon reported these arrests:
—Nathan Earl Adams, 24, Lake Palourde Road, Morgan City, was arrested Sunday on charges of possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of methamphetamine, possession of marijuana, illegal possession of a stolen firearm, illegal carrying of a weapon in the presence of controlled dangerous substances, no driver’s license and careless operation.
The arrest followed a Sunday afternoon investigative stop near Bayou L’Ourse.
A uniformed patrol officer was contacted by the individuals who indicated that a person, identified as Adams, had pulled a gun out on them at a location in Amelia in St. Mary Parish. The two complainants provided a description of the pickup truck the suspect was driving.
Moments later, the deputy observed the suspect vehicle and initiated an investigative stop.
The deputy made contact with the driver and was able to make positive identification on the suspect as being Adams. Adams advised the deputy that he had a firearm in the vehicle. The deputy was able to obtain consent to search the vehicle.
During the search, the firearm was recovered as well as quantities of marijuana, methamphetamine and assorted drug paraphernalia.
During a computer check of the firearm, it was determined that the gun had been reported stolen by the Breaux Bridge Police Department.
Adams was arrested and booked into the Assumption Parish Detention Center with a bond set at $75,000.
—Kayleigh Faye Folse, 30, Locust Street, Thibodaux, was arrested Saturday on charges of possession of alprazolam (Xanax) and resisting an officer.
On Saturday evening, a deputy was alerted to a possible reckless driver on La. 1 near La.398 in Labadieville and initiated a traffic stop.
The deputy made contact with the driver, who did not have a valid driver’s license.
After interviewing the driver and passenger, the deputy opted to conduct a pat down search of both.
During that pat down search, the passenger was found to be in possession of doses of alprazolam (Xanax).
The driver, now identified as Michaela Frances Musco, 21, La. 1 South, Donaldsonville, was cited for no driver’s license and improper lane usage. Musco was released.
During the booking process, deputies determined that the passenger had provided a fictitious name. The passenger, now identified correctly as Folse, was booked into the Assumption Parish Detention Center with a bond set at $15,000.

Morgan City
Police Chief James F. Blair reported that over the last 24-hour period, the Morgan City Police Department responded to 41 calls for service and made these arrests:
—Sydnie Wainwright, 24, Egle Street, Morgan City, was arrested at 1:55 p.m. Monday on a warrant for failure to appear.
—Elaina Ashmore, 21, New Horizon Drive, New Iberia, was arrested at 1:58 p.m. Monday on charges of resisting an officer and possession of Schedule I drugs.
—Geondre Thomas, 28, 11th Street, Morgan City, was arrested at 4:46 p.m. Monday on warrants for theft and four counts of criminal damage to property.
—-Lej’En Lafleur, 21, Lejunie Court, Morgan City, was arrested at 8:55 p.m. Monday on warrants for failure to appear in Morgan City Court and contempt of court.
—David Elliott, 65, Franklin Street, Morgan City, was arrested at 8:57 p.m. Monday on charges of possession of marijuana (first offense), a warrant for simple battery and possession of drug paraphernalia.

St. Mary
Sheriff Blaise Smith advised that over the last 24-hour reporting period, the Sheriff’s Office responded to 37 complaints and made these arrests:
—Joshua James Folks, 42, Franklin, was arrested at 10:55 a.m. Monday on charges of communicating of false info of planned arson and threatening a public official. Bail was set at $75,000.
—Lacey Nicole Yates, 37, Patterson, was arrested at 12:46 p.m. Monday on a charge of disturbing the peace (language).  Yates was released on a summons to appear June 28.
—Matthew Ryan Trosclair, 34, Franklin, was arrested at 8:08 p.m. Monday on charge of no license plates, failure to signal turn, obstruction of justice (tampering), possession of Schedule II drugs, and second or subsequent offenses.
No bail has been set.
—Quinryan Treon Tillman, 29, Franklin, was arrested at 1:44 a.m. Tuesday on charges of improper lane usage, improper display of license plates, possession of Schedule IV drugs, possession of a firearm in the presence of a controlled dangerous substance and no driver’s license.
No bail has been set.
—Datelle Lanelle Lewis, 23, New Iberia, was arrested at 4 a.m. Tuesday on charges of threatening a public official, improper supervision of a minor by a parent or guardian, child desertion, and resisting arrest or officer.
No bail has been set.

Franklin
Police Chief Morris Beverly reported that the Franklin Police Department responded to 11 complaints over the past 24 hours and made these arrests:
—Bryan Louis, 21, of Maple Street, Franklin, was arrested at 9:36 p.m. Monday on a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile. Louis was booked, processed and released on a $1,000 bond.
—Jason Mack Jr., 21, St. Joseph Street, Franklin, was arrested at 8:39 p.m. Monday on a warrant dated Sunday for monetary instrument abuse.
Mack was additionally arrested on the charge of illegal carrying of a weapon. Mack was booked, processed and held with no bond set.

St. Martin
Sheriff Becket Breaux reported these arrests:
--Jassmine Journet, 30. Delano Street, Lafayette, was arrested Monday on a warrant for aggravated second-degree battery.
—Travis Latiolais, 31, Lefreniere Road, St. Martinville, was arrested Monday on a charge of possession of Schedule I drugs.
--Justin Williams, 29, Semere Street, Breaux Bridge, was arrested Monday by the Breaux Bridge Police Department on charges of domestic abuse battery, simple criminal damage to property and domestic abuse (child endangerment).
—Jason Wilson, 29, Crip Lane, Duson, was arrested Monday by the Breaux Bridge Police Department on a charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

The board and staff of the Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival are making plans to have Morgan City's biggest entertainment event this year, according a statement Tuesday from the festival.

COVID-19 and the restrictions imposed to fight the pandemic led to the cancellation of 2020 festival.

Here's the statement from the festival's board of directors:

"After months of deliberation, we would like to announce that we will be moving forward with the planning of the 86th Festival, while we continue to monitor the guidelines of COVID-19.

"The festival will be held as scheduled on Labor Day Weekend, beginning on Thursday, September 2, 2021 and continuing through Monday, September 6, 2021. For more details and updates within the coming months, please follow us on social media as well as our website.

"We would like to thank all of our sponsors, members, friends, and attendees for all of their support during these unprecedented times. We are all looking forward to the celebration of our 86th Festival and for all of the festivities and traditions that come along with it."

As Louisiana pushes to get people vaccinated against COVID-19, St. Mary is lagging behind the rest of the state in coronavirus inoculations.
Meanwhile, Gov. John Bel Edwards was scheduled to take part in what is being called a health summit followed by a press conference Tuesday afternoon, the day before the current COVID mitigation rules are set to expire. There’s speculation that the next rules may be changed to combat a leveling-off of progress in fighting the disease’s spread.
The latest Louisiana Office of Public Health report says COVID shots have been administered to 12.72% of St. Mary people.
About 1.2 million people statewide have received at least one shot, or about 25% of Louisiana’s population.
The vaccination rate in Assumption is 12.62%. In St. Martin, it’s 9.94%.
The rate for Department of Health Region 3, which stretches east from St. Mary and Assumption to St. John the Baptist, is 13.8%, third-lowest among the nine regions.
The reason why St. Mary people aren’t getting vaccinated at a higher rate isn’t clear to Coroner Eric Melancon.
“There’s just not a lot of people getting it,” Melancon said Monday.
Supply isn’t the problem.
“They called me and asked if I wanted 100 doses this week and then another 100 doses next week,” Melancon said. “I said sure.”
The Parish Health Unit has administered 362 first doses and 177 second doses.
Melancon thinks the difference in efficacy rates among the vaccines may be discouraging some people being vaccinated.
The two available memory RNA vaccines, from Moderna and Pfizer, require two shots. Pfizer shots are administered 21 days apart, and Moderna shots are given 28 days apart. The protection is reported to be full in effect 14 days after the second shot.
The one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine is also available locally.
The Yale Medical School says the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are both near 95% effective under ideal conditions, and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is 74% effective generally and 86% effective in preventing serious illness.
Melancon said that because of the difference in effectiveness, he wouldn’t recommend waiting for a Johnson & Johnson shot if Moderna or Pfizer vaccine is available
Louisiana’s COVID statistics have improved dramatically since the third wave of coronavirus infections of the winter. The number of COVID hospitalizations in Louisiana topped 2,000 in early January, the highest level of the pandemic.
But for a week more, the hospitalization total was between 350 and 400. Edwards has warned that in the past, a plateau has been a sign that another surge is coming.
Louisiana moved into Phase 3 of coronavirus restrictions March 3. The new rules, which are due to be renewed Wednesday, raised customer capacity limits at many businesses and allowed the return of live musical performances with COVID mitigation measures.
The Office of Public Health’s color-coded map of parishes and their COVID positivity rates shows St. Mary as a high-risk parish with a rate of more than 10%. But Melancon said the state reporting is sometimes behind the available statistics, and that the latest information is that the positivity rate here is near 6%.

Thousands of years ago, the Mississippi River Delta was formed from sediment deposited from the river. Layers upon layers of sand, silt and clay make up the land that millions of people live and work on today.
But in the past 100 years, Louisiana has lost over 2,000 square miles of land. That’s about the size of Delaware, or the total combined landmass of St. Charles, St. John, St. James, Ascension, East Baton Rouge and East Feliciana parishes.
Man-made levees protect South Louisiana from devastating flooding, but they also prevent the river from depositing sediment to maintain the marshes. Without major action, Louisiana would lose 4,200 square miles of land over the next 50 years, endangering communities and increasing storm surge.
But efforts to halt the erosion are entering a promising new phase over the next four years—one in which the state expects, for the first time since the losses began in the 1930s, to see more land created than it loses. That will come as the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) shifts from planning massive new dredging and sediment-diversion projects to executing them.
“This is the moment in time in the coastal program that we have been waiting on,” said Chip Kline, the authority’s chairman. “We actually have the political will and the funding necessary to implement these projects that we’ve envisioned for years.”
The biggest is the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project, which will help re-create marshes that will provide storm protection to Plaquemines, Jefferson, Orleans and Lafourche parishes.
The project will replace portions of the Mississippi River levee on the West Bank with large concrete gates that can be opened to allow sediment to flow from the river into depleting wetlands, creating tens of thousands of acres of new land.
The sediment from the river also will help sustain land that the CPRA is creating through dredging projects and extend the benefit from the dredging for 60 to 70 years.
“The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project is the cornerstone project within the coastal master plan on the restoration side,” Kline said. “It gives us a fighting chance to win this battle. It puts us in the ball game to save the Barataria Basin and portions of Southeast Louisiana because that project is designed to mimic the natural process that built this state to begin with.”
The project will eventually cost $1.4 billion, and much of it will be paid for from money provided by the BP oil company to cover damages from its oil spill in 2010.
Even though the project will harm some areas for harvesting oysters and brown shrimp, it also could provide a model for future sediment diversions along the Atchafalaya River and other points of the Mississippi.
Since the CPRA was formed in 2007 to centralize the state’s coastal environment efforts, it has secured over $21.4 billion for protection and restoration projects in 20 parishes. It has built or improved over 300 miles of levees and 60 miles of barrier islands and dredged over 150 million cubic yards of material, creating nearly 50,000 acres of new land.
Each year, the authority presents a plan to the Legislature outlining project timelines, anticipated costs and funding sources. The fiscal year 2022 plan includes 110 active projects, including nine in Southwest Louisiana, 35 in South Central Louisiana, and 66 in Southeast Louisiana. The authority anticipates over $887 million in investments in the coming year, with 90% of total expenditures going toward project construction and maintenance.
These projects fall into two basic groups— hurricane protection or risk reduction projects and restoration projects.
On the restoration side, the overwhelming majority are dredging projects in which material is taken from the Mississippi River or the continental shelf and pumped into depleted marshes.
The authority anticipates that these projects will create about 15,000 acres of new land.
Other projects include flood gates, surge protection, pump stations and barrier island restoration.
“With the model, we're trying to help the state understand how the sand moves down the river year to year, decade to decade,” said Willson. “Then the state can think about how much sand is going to be available that they can either dredge and pump for marsh creation projects or how much sand will be available when they open the river sediment diversion gates.”
Kline said the model was “a game changer for us” in designing the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project.
“It’s an impressive structure, and its value cannot be put into words,” Kline said.
“Going into the future,” he added, “we plan on using that model to help inform the operations of that structure—when do we need to turn that structure on to capture the most sediment? What kind of flow do we need to operate the diversion?”
The work at the river studies center and the hundreds of coastal protection and restoration projects employed by the state all share a common goal—protect Louisiana residents, conserve the state’s coast and preserve Southern Louisiana’s cultural heritage.
As the marshland sinks, scientists project that sea levels will rise as a result of climate change, further complicating the task of saving the state’s coastline.
“I’m never going to say, ‘I’m just going to walk away because this is a losing battle,’” Kline said. “This is a battle that has got to be fought, now and into the future, to make sure that we continue to live and work in the place that is so unique known as South Louisiana.”
The coastal authority’s annual plan awaits approval from the House and Senate Natural Resources committees and the House and Senate Transportation, Highways and Public Works committees before a vote by the full House and Senate.