Danny Friloux

Guardians of the Land and Water
Grand Bois, LA

“This fight came to us. We been pushed around all our life. We not gonna let them push us out of our home.”

Danny Friloux lives in Grand Bois, Louisiana a small community of Native Americans and Cajuns with a history that goes back many generations. Next door to Grand Bois is a 140 acre waste treatment facility that receives millions of barrels of oil field waste including: Produced Waters, Drill Muds, E & P waste, Washout Water, Crude Oil Spill clean-up wastes and other waste. The oil field waste is labeled as non-hazardous due to a Federal exemption for certain oil and gas production wastes. Some of this waste is processed in open air pits that produce intense fumes that can be smelled along Hwy 24 which runs through the center of the facility and Grand Bois. Many of the residents feel that this facility and the waste it stores severely impacts the health of the residents on a daily basis.

Photo: Claire Bangser