Trespassing protesters block Bayou Bridge Pipeline site

Two women from New Orleans on Thursday morning dressed up as crawfish and chained themselves inside barrels parked in front of a Bayou Bridge project supply site about 200 miles from their homes. An active and a retired teacher and two accomplices were facing criminal counts for attempting to block construction of the 163-mile project across south Louisiana.

The site is a staging yard for timbers used to create stable platforms for heavy equipment to access soggy terrain along the pipeline construction route. A total of about 20 protesters blocked access to the site for more than three hours in the early morning. All but two obeyed police orders to disperse. A few trucks trapped inside managed to leave once deputies removed the first barrel-chained, crawfish-festooned protester. Perhaps the stunt provided a fun photo-op for the protesters’ social media pages, but it also created new entries into their police records.