LSU to build nine more electric vehicle charging stations

BY CORBIN ROSS @CorbinRoss5

LSU will be adding nine new electric charging stations to campus, according to Tammy Millican, the executive director of facility services. The additions come as the electric vehicle market is projected to skyrocket in coming years.

“As we’re beginning to see the number of electric vehicle drivers increase, we are increasing the number of charging stations to meet that demand,” Millican said.

Six stations will be placed near the Howe-Russel parking lot by the Art and Design Building. Three stations, funded through a grant from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, don’t have a decided location yet.

Millican said there are currently 35 drivers signed on to Chargepoint, the company that runs the charging stations. She said students use the Chargepoint app to access the stations. That number of users has been steadily increasing over the last six months, she said.

Millican said there are currently four charging stations on campus. Each station has two ports, so there are eight ports available. The additional nine stations will add 18 ports.

Millican said that in 2011, when LSU installed the first charging station, there were no electric vehicle drivers on campus. Millican believes the number of electric vehicle owners will keep increasing.

Geography graduate student

Alicia Cerquone, a senator for the graduate school in Student Government, authored a resolution that passed last semester calling for the electric charging stations without decided locations to be made accessible to students with disabilities, which the current stations aren’t.

“None of the chargers that exist currently on LSU’s campus are in places that are accessible to students with disabilities or faculty and staff with disabilities for that matter. People with disabilities cannot access these spaces,”

Cerquone said.

According to the U.S. Access Board, for an electric vehicle charging station to be disability accessible, the charging space must be at least 11 feet wide and 20 feet long and must have an adjoining access aisle that’s 5 feet wide.

Millican said three of the new charging stations will be accessible to students with disabilities.

Cerquone said she’s run into some issues charging her vehicle on campus, saying that one of the lots was so busy that she could almost never charge her car there. She said last semester, one of the handles on a charging station broke. Depending on the type of electric vehicle students drive, they weren’t able to use that station, she said.

Millican said they’ve had electrical issues with some of the chargers in the past but that those issues have been resolved. Cerquone said the new chargers are supposed to be more effective and efficient.

Biochemistry junior Rami Ab - dalla said he’s ran into issues in the past with chargers being damaged or not running as well as they should. He said that only two of the chargers are easily accessible to students.

Abdalla said there’s also high traffic through these stations, so it’s hard to find a charger. He said he’s had difficulty getting the charger to pair with his phone, which is required to access the charger.

“There’s been a couple times

TREES, from page 3 of its tree canopy during Gustav in 2008. That shade has crept back as the public helped plant over 3,000 trees since the storm hit.

Birds, raccoons and other creatures that lived in the Burden trees were left displaced by the hurricane.

“They didn’t have much of a place to go,” Kuehny said of the local wildlife. “There was no food…Their shelter was disrupted out here.”

Gustav is far from the only storm that’s threatened Louisi-

INMATES, from page 3 state paid an estimated $850,000 to parish jails holding state inmates beyond their release dates, according to the report.

The Department of Corrections issued a statement saying the Department of Justice report was being reviewed. “Without a full review of the report’s findings and documentation supporting said findings, it would be a challenge to provide a comprehensive response at this time,” the emailed statement said. “The Department of Corrections has been cooperative for the entire duration of the investigation, and we will continue to work with DOJ throughout this process.” ana’s wildlife.

Hurricane Katrina killed more than 320 million trees, according to a 2007 analysis. A biologist with the U.S. Geological survey saw the decline of 10 Louisiana bird species after Katrina and Hurricane Rita, which struck within a month of each other.

The 2020 hurricane season was the most active Atlantic season on record. It caused unprecedented damage to forests throughout Louisiana, totaling around $1.5 billion in timber damage, according to the AgCenter.

Hurricane Laura, a Category

Wednesday’s report included “minimal” remedial measures.

Among the recommendations, it said the corrections department needs to develop a system to share documents and information electronically among courts, parish jails and prison officials to better communicate when an incarcerated person’s release date is set and any changes that might result in eligibility for earlier release.

Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the state by people incarcerated past their release dates. Last year, a panel of three 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges refused, in a 2-1 ruling, to dismiss corrections Secretary James LeBlanc and two other state prison system officials from one

4 storm that struck that year, destroyed nearly 800,000 acres of timber in Louisiana and cost $1.2 billion in timber damage, according to the AgCenter. Hurricane Delta, striking in the same season, cost around $297 million.

Forestry is the state’s most lucrative agricultural output, the Shreveport Times reported in 2018. The sector accounts for approximately $13 billion in annual output.

Though the event sought to restore the forest, attendees did more than plant. Smokey Bear wandered the crowd for pictures and fist bumps, and cables were such lawsuit filed by attorneys with the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center. The corrections officials have asked for a rehearing by the full 5th Circuit, currently with 16 judges.

Other such lawsuits are being handled by another advocacy group, the Promise of Justice Initiative. “We have known for a long time that the Louisiana DOC is deliberately indifferent to the systemic overdetention of people in its custody,” Mercedes Montagnes, Executive Director of the organization, said in a news release.

“We are grateful that the DOJ investigated this matter and we’re hopeful that DOC will finally take its constitutional obligations seriously.” set up for the adventurous to scale a tall tree.

Visitors could also try their hand at timbersports.

Meredith Owens, a natural resources ecology and management senior and president of LSU’s forestry club, stood across a log from another student, crouching down as they pulled a cross saw back and forth.

Two young boys took over the task, eventually freeing a slice of wood with a purple LSU symbol spray painted on, earning the cheers of a small crowd of families and other members of Timber Tigers, LSU’s timbersports club.

EV, from page 3 where I’ve had very pleasant experiences,” Abdalla said. “It’s a very mixed amount, but I will say my experiences have been more negative than positive.”

Over the next five years, Louisiana will receive approximately $73 million for electric vehicle infrastructure through the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, according to the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. The department plans to administer the development of more charging stations across the state.

The electric vehicle market size is expected to cross $980 billion by 2028, according to Facts and Factors, a market research company.

The club also had knife throwing set up for attendees, giving each person three blades to aim at a bullseye a few feet away.

The forestry club has participated in cleaning up damaged trees following past hurricanes, Owens said.

“I think Arbor Day is an extremely important day…I’m very pro-conservation, pro-environmentalism, and having people actually take a stake, knowing that they can come back and say ‘that’s a tree we planted, look how big it is,’ it’s a long-lasting effect that will leave impacts on families for a long time,” Owens said.

Cerquone provided a list of the number of electric vehicle charging stations at other Southeastern Conference schools:

• Texas A&M: 30

• University of Tennessee: 22

• Vanderbilt University: 19

• Auburn: 17

• Bama: 11

• University of Florida: 11

• University of Georgia: 6

• LSU: 4

• University of Mississippi: 3

• Arkansas: 2

• Mississippi State: 0

• University of Kentucky: 0

• University of Missouri: 0

• University of South Carolina: 0