1. 89th year, No. 207
THURSDAYJANUARY 23, 2014
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BREATHEEASY
Baton Rouge residents are
breathing cleaner air as the
five-parish area around the city
has met the federal standard for
ozone levels two years ahead of
schedule.
However, some environmen-
tal groups contend the federal
standard for ozone, set by the
U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, doesn’t go far enough to
protect the health of people. They
say stricter standards should be
imposed.
Meeting the ozone pollution
standard has been a long road
for the Baton Rouge area, which
has struggled for years to meet
previous federal standards by en-
acting new regulations, including
requiring yearly car inspections.
Those requirements will re-
main because the Clean Air Act
doesn’t allow taking away air
regulations once they’ve been
BY AMY WOLD
awold@theadvocate.com
Baton Rouge meets ozone regulations two years early
129PARTS
PERBILLION
IN1981
75PARTS
PERBILLION
IN2013
75PARTS
PERBILLION
0.0
12.5
25.0
37.5
50.0
62.5
75.0
87.5
100.0 parts per billion
Advocate graphicSource: Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality
Federal ozone
standard
CapitolPort
Allen
PridePlaquemineCarvilleDutchtownLSU French
Settlement
Baton Rouge area meets ozone standard
Numbers show the calculated value of each air monitor in the
five-parish area as of Dec. 31.
What it is
Ozone isn’t a pollutant released into the air,
but instead forms when nitrogen oxides and
hydrocarbons from industrial activities, car
exhaust and other sources combine in the
air during hot and sunny days. When there
isn’t much wind, ozone can accumulate in an
area and cause breathing and other health
problems.
Advocate staff photo by HEATHER MCCLELLAND
Baton Rouge, shown Wednesday at the levee in Port Allen, met federal guidelines to reduce ozone levels two years ahead of requirements.
äSee OZONE, page 4A
Gov. Bobby Jindal said Wednesday
that he backs making medical marijua-
na available in Louisiana as long as it is
tightly controlled.
“I continue to be opposed to legalization
of marijuana. When it comes to medical
marijuana ... if there is a legitimate medi-
cal need, I’d certainly be open to making
it available under very strict supervi-
sion for patients that would benefit from
that,” Jindal said while fielding media
questions at the Pennington Biomedical
Research Center.
Although his comments were brief,
the governor offered a few details on
BY MICHELLE MILLHOLLON
and MARK BALLARD
mmillhollon@theadvocate.com
mballard@theadvocate.com
Governor sets bar high
for medical marijuana laws
Jindal wants ‘very strict supervision’ on availability
äSee JINDAL, page 5A
Records
reveal
details
in home
invasions
New details surfaced Wednesday in the
recent string of home invasions gripping
Baton Rouge, as detectives offered graph-
ic accounts of two sexual attacks in court
records that differed from earlier police
statements.
Meanwhile, prosecutors sought a higher
bail amount for Vorris Mouton, the sus-
pect arrested in two of the break-ins af-
ter DNA linked him to the crime scenes.
Authorities are still investigating wheth-
er Mouton, 35, of New
Iberia, is responsible for
several other home inva-
sions that generally tar-
geted elderly women in
East Baton Rouge Parish.
Last week, as news
of the break-ins spread
and a troubling pattern
emerged, police said none
of the victims had reported their assailant
carrying a weapon.
But a search warrant filed Wednes-
day, outlining a Jan. 12 home invasion in
Glen Oaks that remains unsolved, says a
34-year-old woman saw an intruder hold-
ing “what appeared to be a firearm” after
he walked through her carport door.
The attacker dragged the woman out
of her bed by her ankle, pushed her to
BY JIM MUSTIAN
jmustian@theadvocate.com
Assaults,thefts during
break-ins described
as investigation continues
Mouton
äSee INVASIONS, page 4A
New clinic
to study
childhood
obesity
Over the next three months, research-
ers with LSU’s Pennington Biomedical
Research Center are going to be doing
everything they can to get south Louisi-
ana teenage girls to sweat.
The 40 young women they invite onto
campus will spend about three hours a
week huffing and puffing along to work-
out routines disguised as Xbox video
games.
With nearly half of all Louisiana chil-
dren classified as either overweight or
obese, the girls in this particular 12-week
study figure to be just one of the earliest
groups invited to Pennington over the
next several years to study what causes
childhood obesity and how it can be cur-
tailed.
BY KORAN ADDO
kaddo@theadvocate.com
äSee OBESITY, page 4A
BY MICHELLE MILLHOLLON
and MARSHA SHULER
mmillhollon@theadvocate.com
mshuler@theadvocate.com
Merit pay increase in
state budget proposal
The Jindal administra-
tion announced Wednesday
that its proposed budget
includes more than $60 mil-
lion to fund pay raises for
state employees in the fiscal
year that begins July 1.
The move affects nearly
40,000 Civil Service employ-
ees.
It marks the first pay raise
in several years for thou-
sands of employees whose
agencies have not had the
funds to cover the 4 percent
raise that can be given annu-
ally based on their job per-
formance.
“In order for state govern-
ment to run efficiently, pub-
lic servants dedicate their
äSee PAY, page 4A