Southeastern Louisiana University dismisses analytical chemist from lake-monitoring project

An analytical chemist has been removed from an environmental monitoring project on a Louisiana lake, but the exact reasons why remain unclear. University officials say it was a personnel decision unrelated to her research.Fereshteh Emami was a member of Southeastern Louisiana University’s Lake Maurepas Monitoring Project until the end of July, when she was reassigned to a teaching-only role. Emami remains a tenured professor at the school, where she has worked since 2017.Kyle Piller, leader of the Lake Maurepas Monitoring Project, told Emami by email about her removal from the project, according to the Louisiana Illuminator. He reportedly wrote that her involvement was no longer in the project’s “best interest.” Piller declined C&EN’s request for an interview. The monitoring project is related to plans by chemical company Air Products and Chemicals to drill beneath Lake Maurepas, a shallow tidal lake northwest of New Orleans, to store carbon dioxide that it plans to capture at regional hydrogen generation plants.A number of local groups oppose the plan, and Southeastern Louisiana University researchers, led by biologist Piller, are “serving as the independent monitoring group and will gather baseline data within the aquatic and wetland realms” before any carbon sequestration, according to the project’s website. Air Products is funding the research with a 3-year, $10 million grant.In an email to C&EN, a lawyer representing Emami, William Most, says that a follow-up letter from the university cited issues such as delays in data collection as reasons why Emami was taken off the project. “It is