LOCAL\n\n<h1>Southeastern Louisiana University sidelines scientist who exposed toxic metals in Lake Maurepas</h1>\n\nDr. Fereshteh Emami, a lead researcher on the Air Products Lake Maurepas Monitoring Project, was removed from the project.\n\nEmami's research revealed high levels of heavy metals and other pollutants in Lake Maurepas, potentially linked to industrial and agricultural activities.\n\nSoutheastern Louisiana University claimed the personnel change was routine, unrelated to Emami's research findings.\n\nThe Southeastern Louisiana University scientist who discovered alarming levels of toxic chemicals in Lake Maurepas was abruptly removed from her research position without explanation.\n\nFereshteh Emami, an analytical chemistry professor who served as a <a>principal investigator</a> on the Air Products Lake Maurepas Monitoring Project, was officially removed from the project July 31 but is still employed by the university. SELU’s chemistry department has moved Emami into a full-time teaching role and will not allow her to continue the research she has been doing for the past three years, she said.\n\nEmami said she received a vague email earlier in the week from Kyle Piller, a biology professor and director of the Lake Maurepas research effort, saying he “terminated” her from the project. He did not include any explanation for the decision and gave a similarly vague response when she asked why, according to emails Emami shared with the Illuminator. \n\n“Your continued involvement is no longer in the best interest of the Air Products Lake Maurepas Monitoring Project,” Piller’s email stated.\n\nPiller gave virtually the same statement in response to a reporter’s request for comment, adding that he could not comment on personnel matters.\n\nFor the past three years, Emami led a team of researchers who analyzed 400 water and sediment samples collected from multiple locations and depths in the lake from June through December 2023.\n\nThe results, which were recently <a>published</a> in two scientific journals, set off alarm bells in communities around Lake Maurepas. The samples showed dangerously high levels of heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, cadmium, nickel, copper and manganese. The researchers also detected high levels of nitrogen and phosphorus, both major components of fertilizers.\n\nEmami developed new methodologies that traced many of the pollutants to industrial and agricultural activities along the Blind, Tickfaw and Amite rivers that feed into Lake Maurepas. The heavy metal concentrations found in the lake are similar to those <a>detected</a> after breaks in the waste containment levees at the Atlantic Alumina (Atalco) facility in Gramercy last year. Atalco’s toxic metals — which also included arsenic, cadmium and lead, among others — ended up in drainage ditches that flow into the Blind River Swamp of Lake Maurepas. \n\nRight after the Illuminator<a>published an article</a> about Emami’s work in June, she said Southeastern’s communication officials told her to check with them before speaking with journalists in the future. On Monday, just before she learned of her removal from the research project, Emami said a campus media crew was scheduled to film her work for a university-sponsored documentary. The Lake Maurepas project director canceled the shoot, she said. \n\n“This documentary was supposed to be about our results from the past three years ago,” Emami said. “It’s like they are wiping me out of the picture.” \n\nUniversity administrators say Emami’s removal from the Lake Maurepas research work was a routine adjustment.\n\n“While we do not comment on issues related to specific individual personnel matters, changes such as these are common,” spokesman Mike Rivault said. “In order to manage the breadth and timeliness of our vast research projects associated with our new Center for Environmental Research, shifts in those conducting given projects are to be expected.”\n\nFollowing the publication of this article, Rivault issued an updated statement that made clear the university’s decision to remove Emami had nothing to do with her research or any research being conducted on Lake Maurepas.\n\n“All research done by Southeastern is independent and available to the public via our 24/7 data reporting website and/or the publishing of research reports and findings,” Rivault said. “Our current research will continue, and effectively increase in output, as we work to ensure the results are available to the public.\n\n“The decision to make personnel changes on the Lake Maurepas project had nothing to do with the quality of, or results from, Dr. Emami’s work which was recently published in a prestigious peer-reviewed American Chemical Society journal. We stand by all results that have emerged from this independent study. As we increase the work done in this project, we look forward to continued dissemination of results from all aspects of the study.”\n\nAs the university’s only analytical chemist, Emami’s removal from the Lake Maurepas project could disrupt or delay a new phase of research that involved analyzing fish and crab tissue samples for toxins. Emami said her team was on track to finish that analysis and publish their work in the coming months. Another research team, led by SLU biologist Chris Murray, trapped crabs that <a>showed physiological signs</a> of heavy metal poisoning. Chemical analysis would be required to actually confirm those symptoms.\n\nIt’s unclear when or if Piller, the project director, plans to pick someone to replace Emami on the research team. Emami has worked at Southeastern for eight years. Born in Iran, she left the country more than a decade ago to escape persecution and threats from religious authorities there. \n\n“That was motivation for me to come to the United States,” Emami said.\n\nAfter working as a research scholar at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and then as a post-doctoral researcher at Clarkson University in New York, Emami became an American citizen through an immigration program for high-achieving individuals who work in fields of national interest. \n\nSoutheastern <a>has been monitoring</a> Lake Maurepas since the proposal of a carbon sequestration project by Air Products &amp; Chemicals. The company plans to use carbon capture technology to trap emissions from its $8 billion hydrogen manufacturing complex in Ascension Parish and take them by pipeline to Lake Maurepas. Air Products will have the capacity to inject an estimated 5 million tons of carbon dioxide per year about a mile below the lakebed. \n\nIn the first half of 2023, Air Products performed seismic testing to map the geological formations under the lake. In August of that year, the company moved a large <a>temporary drilling rig</a> into Lake Maurepas that served as a test well for the collection of core and fluid data, which ended in early 2024.\n\nEmami’s team initially suspected but were ultimately unable to link any chemical pollutants to Air Products’ activity in the lake. Aside from providing a multi-million dollar funding grant, the company played no role in any aspects of the study, its design or the decision to publish the results. \n\nAir Products did not respond to a request for comment as of July 31.

Southeastern Louisiana University sidelines scientist who exposed toxic metals in Lake Maurepas

Dr. Fereshteh Emami, a lead researcher at Southeastern Louisiana University, was removed from her project on Lake Maurepas after discovering high levels of toxic metals linked to industrial and agricultural activities. The university stated the decision was routine, unrelated to her findings, which were published in scientific journals. The research highlights environmental concerns and potential regulatory implications.