GOMAEEN News Archive
These stories reflect Gulf news from June 2009 forward.
 | Restoration Gulf Coast - Louisiana Flyway Video regarding the migratory bird flyway in Louisiana and the wetlands that support it. more info |
| Restoration Gulf Coast - Florida's Sea Turtles Video regarding the survival of endangered sea turtles along the Gulf coast. more info |
| Restoration Gulf Coast - Fish and Wildlife Video about the Fish and Wildlife Foundation's involvement in gulf coast recovery. more info |
| Restoration Gulf Coast - Alabama's Manatees Video showcases the observation and research for the endangered Manatees. more info |
| FLDEP: Drainage pipes across Naples beaches can stay Florida environmental regulators are poised to let the city of Naples off the hook for a plan to remove drainage pipes that cross the beach and dump runoff into the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Foundation to leave Corpus Christi in 2013 CORPUS CHRISTI — To be closer to the heart of its sponsorship market, the Gulf of Mexico Foundation will move its headquarters from Corpus Christi to Galveston next year, the foundation's president said. The nonprofit organization promotes and funds research, education, outreach and conservation programs to address challenges for businesses and communities which depend on the Gulf of Mexico's health and productivity. more info |
| Officials meet for Gulf Restoration GAUTIER, Miss. — Federal and state officials have presented plans to hold BP to its promise to make the Gulf whole in the wake of the 2010 oil-spill disaster. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico answer wins school’s geography bee title Sixth grader Max Norman is the winner of the 2012 National Geographic Bee at Forest Grove Community School, part of the Forest Grove School District in Oregon. He correctly named the Gulf of Mexico as the body of water containing the smaller Apalachicola Bay, home to a nature reserve sheltered by barrier islands. more info |
| Study examines impact of restrictions on dredging the Mississippi River The cost of clearing silt from the lower Mississippi River on a regular basis is greatly outweighed by the harmful impact to U.S. economy if dredging is not done, which could force rigid restrictions to be put in place on cargo shipped through the waterway, according to a report issued Tuesday that was commissioned by a group of maritime businesses. Dredging sediment along the fast-moving currents of the main shipping channel between the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi River is necessary to reduce the formation of sandbars, officials say. more info |
| NASA MODIS Image of the Day: January 12, 2012 - Florida Keys Heavy winds blew across the Florida Bay in early January, 2012 stirring the waters and contributing to the dazzling array of color which stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Straits of Florida, and surrounded the Florida Keys. more info |
| New Gulf of Mexico Shark Study Makes Surprising Discovery Researchers at Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama, who have been conducting a two year study focusing on the diets of Tiger Sharks in the Gulf of Mexico, have made a surprising discovery: not only are the sharks feeding on fish and other marine organisms, they are also feeding on land-based birds, such as woodpeckers, tanagers, meadowlarks, catbirds, kingbirds, and swallows. more info |
| Drought threatens flock of whooping cranes FULTON, Texas (AP) – Raising its slim, white neck out of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, one of the world's last surviving whooping cranes hungrily searches a Texas marsh for the blue crabs and berries it devours during its annual migration to the Gulf Coast. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Requests Grant Proposals RESTON, Va., Dec. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) Research Board has issued a new request for proposals, RFP-II, which will provide up to $7.5 million per year for research grants to individual investigators or small groups of researchers. more info |
| Mississippi agriculture producers to help improve health of Gulf of Mexico through USDA initiative KILN, Missississippi -- Agriculture producers in Hancock and Harrison counties are helping improve the ecological health of the Gulf of Mexico through a new U.S. Department of Agriculture initiative. more info |
| Giant shrimp invading Gulf of Mexico SOUTH PADRE ISLAND – An exotic, large species of shrimp is being found once again in the Gulf of Mexico and posing a potential threat to the $700 million Gulf shrimping industry, according to Tony Reisinger, a Texas AgriLife Extension Service agent for coastal and marine resources in South Texas. more info |
| Cornyn opposes approval of Gulf oil spill funding bills Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) is the only remaining opponent among Gulf Coast senators of a proposed bill that would funnel a portion of fines from the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster and oil spill toward ecological restoration along the coast. more info |
| Recreational fishermen say catch limits damaging fishing industry in the Southeast MADEIRA BEACH, Fla. — Travis Palladeno, a veteran charter fishing captain on Florida’s Gulf Coast, flips through his appointment book and bemoans the blank pages. Restrictions on some of the most popular — and tasty — sport fish are so strict right now, fewer people want to go out. more info |
| USDA Announces $50 Million for Gulf River Basins The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday pledged $50 million to a program designed to restore seven river basins from Florida to Texas in an attempt to show a blueprint for rebuilding the Gulf Coast's fragile ecosystem is more than just another federal report. more info |
| Buffett family donates boat to lab OCEAN SPRINGS -- Singer and songwriter Jimmy Buffett visited the USM Gulf Coast Research Lab on Monday with sisters, Lucy Buffett and Laurie Buffett McGuane, for the christening of the GCRL’s newest boat. more info |
| Gulf Coast Task Force Releases Final Ecosystem Restoration Strategy on December 5, 2011 The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force today released its final strategy for long term ecosystem restoration for the Gulf Coast, following extensive feedback from citizens throughout the region. more info |
| Texas Red Tide Update Matagorda and San Antonio Bays: Patches of red tide and old dead fish continue to be reported from these bays. Rockport/Port Aransas: Cell concentrations coming through the pass at Port Aransas remain in the low to moderate range. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico fish-tracking system goes full steam ahead Responding to deepening concerns about seafood mislabeling and the safety of fish caught in the Gulf of Mexico, a trade association of Gulf fishermen is tagging and credentialing each of the fish its members pull from the water. more info |
| Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Affects Development of Gulf Killifish Soon after the Deepwater Horizon rig began spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, Andrew Whitehead and his colleagues at Louisiana State University set out to determine how that oil would affect gene expression in fish along the Gulf Coast. more info |
| Seventh graders set sail aboard a floating classroom Ship ahoy! Seventh graders from A.C. Blunt Middle School sailed aboard the Karma, a converted shrimp boat, last week to get a first hand look at sea life via Texas A&M University’s Floating Classroom project. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Data Atlas r the first time in 25 years, a new Gulf of Mexico Data Atlas is now available https://gulfatlas.noaa.gov. Based on the idea of a traditional atlas but offered via the Internet by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the new Gulf of Mexico Data Atlas provides answers to questions related to the physical environment, marine resources, and economic activity in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Takes Center Stage at the State of the Gulf SUMMIT2011 The 2nd State of the Gulf of Mexico Summit brings together experts and leaders with an interest in the Gulf of Mexico. A unique feature of the SGM SUMMIT2011 is an emphasis on developing an effective “report card” that can be used by resource managers and decision makers in science and business to understand the impacts of our activity. Unprecedented cooperation has preceeded this important event. more info |
| How To Put A Value On Oil Damaged Life In The Gulf A law passed after the Exxon Valdez oil spill requires the government to assess the biological damage from big spills so fines can be fixed and damage paid for. The National Academy of Sciences has a report describing the methods and metrics of determining the "ecosystem services" that have been lost due to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Climate refugees By 2050 all will be affected to varying degrees by rising sea levels. Some land such as that bordering the northern Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea are likely to be permanently lost due to erosion and more extensive flooding whenever extreme climate events occur. more info |
| Farm to Fork Across America: What's the Dirt Who is The Land Institute's role model? The prairie. An agriculture mimicking the prairie's biodiversity would enjoy its resilience to weather vagaries, pests, and disease. Not tilling the soil allows it delicious bioactivity. With this system, many conventional agricultural catastrophes can be resolved. more info |
| 'The Big Fix' review: BP's disaster in the Gulf of Mexico The scathing documentary "The Big Fix" investigates questions of corporate negligence and political corruption surrounding last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its lingering aftereffects on the Gulf Coast. more info |
| MSU institute, NOAA continuing successful partnership A Mississippi State-led research institute and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will continue their collaborative partnership for an additional five years. more info |
| Mexico gov't reopens all Gulf of Mexico ports Mexico's government reopened all its Gulf of Mexico ports, including the three major oil-exporting ports, on Sunday. more info |
| Study Answers How Ancient Waterway Circulated A Boise State University study has shed new light on how a shallow seaway that once extended across the central part of North America circulated during one of earth’s warmest periods, about 82 to 87 million years ago. The findings could help explain why animals differ in the North and South regions. more info |
| Manatees moving into warmer water of Kings Bay Cruising the waters of Kings Bay, we caught a ride with Capt. Paul Cross from the dive shop at Plantation on Crystal River. more info |
| Artificial reefs' effect on fish populations comes under question Artificial reefs — long believed to boost fish populations — might be doing the opposite by concentrating fish and fishermen in the same places. more info |
| Can We Avoid Locking Ourselves Into Runaway Climate Change? What consequences do they mean? To start with, they warn that the window to limiting global temperature rise to 2°C -- the threshold at which catastrophic climate change may become inevitable -- is rapidly closing. more info |
| Tiger shrimp spotted in Mississippi Sound The Asian tiger shrimp has invaded the northern Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi Sound. more info |
| Tiger shrimp spotted in Mississippi Sound The Asian tiger shrimp has invaded the northern Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi Sound. more info |
| Students with disabilities touch, draw marine life Many people know the pleasures of being on the bay in the fall, when the birds are calling loudly to each other as they migrate south and the wind out of the north causes the waves to slap noisily against the beach. Now imagine that same experience without sound or vision, with only your hands and your wader-clad feet and some dedicated teachers guiding you. more info |
| Bacteria linked to deaths of bottlenose dolphins Scientists investigating the stranding of hundreds of dolphins in the northern Gulf of Mexico since early last year reported Thursday that they have identified Brucella bacteria in five of 21 tested and are trying to determine whether the deaths may be linked to last year's BP oil spill. more info |
| Gulf restoration briefing to be held Nov. 16 A briefing to discuss efforts to restore ecological and economic vitality to the Gulf of Mexico will be held on Wed., Nov. 16, and will feature a host of panelists and lawmakers from all the states affected by last year’s massive BP oil spill. more info |
| Evidence shows Gulf oil spill caused widespread ecological damage But as a few individual parts of the picture come into focus, the question remains of how much overall harm is directly related to the BP oil. more info |
| Rice lends support to Mississippi River Trail Rice is the latest Central Minnesota city to lend its support to the Mississippi River Trail, a paved recreational trail that runs about 3,000 miles from the headwaters at Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Young explorer goes on trip of a lifetime Balmoral junior secondary's Aya Anholt, 15, was one of eight students chosen from around the world to accompany extreme explorer Mike Horn on an expedition on the Gulf of Mexico aboard his boat, Pangaea, Nov. 14-Dec. 5 more info |
| Attack of the jellyfish Scientists debate the ‘rise of slime’ theory more info |
| Project Jubilee classes visit DI Sea Lab Students in Martha Montgomery’s third and fourth grade Project Jubilee classes from Daphne East Elementary School recently visited Dauphin Island Sea Lab for a field trip experience as part of their study of oceanography. more info |
| It's back to the drawing board on red snapper Now, more than ever, scientists, regulators and community leaders in states along the Gulf of Mexico have to have the most accurate data possible on which to base their conclusions and decisions. This is a vital part of monitoring the ecosystem, especially in the wake of the oil spill. more info |
| ArtBeat: Nancy Raia returns to Tuscaloosa “Since I just completed a (Gulf of Mexico Alliance) grant called ‘Squeaky Sneakers,’ the images of all the students we took to Weeks Bay to immerse (figuratively and literally) in the waters of our estuaries is flooding my mind with how much they enjoyed learning,” she says. “Plus the fact that some of these students came down here . . . to tour Dauphin Island Sea Lab. I will build on that natural curiosity and what they (saw).” more info |
| State Department expects vindication in pipeline probe The agency's Office of Inspector General (OIG) revealed it is launching a "special review" of the department's handling of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and National Interest Determination for the mammoth project. more info |
| Gulf Oysters Suffer New Blow Prolonged Algae Outbreak Delays Texas Harvest as Industry's Woes Continue . more info |
| Florida Coral Habitat Preserved by Atkins’ Scientific Divers Atkins’ scientific dive team has been chosen to oversee the removal and transplantation of more than 200 coral colonies living on a utility pipeline off the Florida coast in North America. more info |
| White House responds to Orange Park man's letter to Obama When Hailey Hatcher penned a letter asking Barack Obama to do more about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, he doubted the president would see it, much less ponder its meaning. more info |
| Mammoth ship's arrival helps revitalize New Orleans cruise industry Saturday's predawn arrival of the largest cruise ship to call New Orleans its home port signaled a revival in the city's cruise industry that is expected to bring tens of thousands of visitors here each year, tourism officials said. more info |
| State agency eases up on recommended pollution levels for Naples Bay State regulators adjusted the limit for Naples Bay after the city of Naples complained that the DEP had used data that distorted the bay's current levels of nitrogen, a component of fertilizer and animal waste that can cause damaging algae blooms. more info |
| U.S. Puts Oil Pipeline Plan In Limbo Until After 2012 Vote A final decision on building a new oil pipeline to connect Alberta, Canada, to U.S. refineries near the Gulf of Mexico will not be made until after the 2012 presidential election, the State Department said Thursday. more info |
| BP oil spill damage in Gulf to get broader review "The Gulf of Mexico is a vast, complex ecosystem that provides a wealth of important ecological services -- from seafood to tourism to flood protection through its coastal wetlands," said Larry A. Mayer, chair of the committee that wrote the report and a professor of Earth science and ocean engineering at the University of New Hampshire. "It will be a challenge to assess the full scope of impacts from this spill." more info |
| Coast Guard OKs Winding Down BP Oil Spill Cleanup NEW ORLEANS – BP will no longer be responsible for cleaning up oil that washes up on the Gulf Coast unless officials can prove it comes from the company's well that blew out in 2010, causing the worst offshore spill in U.S. history, according to a plan approved by the Coast Guard and obtained by The Associated Press. more info |
| Fund for Teachers Grants Now Available for Louisiana's PreK-12 Educators Unlike other teacher grant opportunities, Fund for Teachers puts virtually no limitations on teachers' requests. Any destination or discipline is fair game, as evidenced by the 433 teachers from across America who traveled in 116 countries on 7 continents last summer. Since 2001, 4,500 teachers leveraged $15.9 million in FFT grants into global odysseys that perpetually impact students, classrooms and communities back home. more info |
| Air Force inquiry reopens possibilities for Navarre pass Santa Rosa County Commissioner Jim Melvin said Monday that officials at Eglin Air Force Base are interested in studying the possibility of creating a pass on base property near Navarre for military and public use. more info |
| Clogged Collier Creek inlet on Marco to get dredged, sand to Hideaway shore area The Marco Island City Council adopted an emergency resolution calling for a fix, and Collier County commissioners voted last week to hire a dredging company to do the job more info |
| Coastal homes lack flood insurance because of maps The reason: The maps underlying the nation's flood insurance program do not account for direct hurricane strikes, which can cause catastrophic flooding. Instead, they rely on the average risk of flooding over a long period. more info |
| Bayou La Batre seafood workers consider new careers in wake of oil spill Funded by a portion of a $1.7 million U.S. Department of Labor emergency grant for programs in Mobile and Baldwin counties, the center offers career counseling and pays for tuition in welding, nurse’s assistant, maritime labor and truck driving courses. more info |
| Digital tools pump up tourism Indeed, some of the region's major companies have enlisted specialists who use sophisticated digital tools to blog, tweet and post - seemingly 24/7. more info |
| Gulf Oil Spill Photographs Show Man's Influence On Environment . For this series of photographs, I spent two months in the Gulf on assignment for Greenpeace photographing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. These photographs explore the tenseness of the situation in the Gulf of Mexico as the oil seeps into an already challenged and complex ocean ecosystem. Though tragic, it is a fitting example of the vast scale of transformation our world is under from man-made stresses. more info |
| Potential Impacts of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill In the meantime, the production of goods and services by economic sectors located in the GOM states will be adversely affected leading to possible reduction in the levels of economic activity, employment and personal income, and tax revenues. more info |
| Cousteau family speaks at environmental conference "I see this as our generation's space race, to protect the water treasures that are not half a world away, but in our own backyards," Alexandra, Cousteau's granddaughter, said. more info |
| Vote to Help Manatees! Canterbury School students are raising baby redfish to release in Tampa Bay, growing sea vegetables to feed injured manatees being rehabilitated at Lowry Park Hospital, and helping restore coastal wetlands. more info |
| Oceanographer stresses importance of protecting world's seas "We need the ocean," she said. "The ocean delivers most of the oxygen in the atmosphere, holds the planet steady, has most of the water, most of the life. If we fail to take care of the ocean, it's ourselves, not just turtles, that are at risk." more info |
| NOAA Chief: The Climate Crisis the Media is Missing The topic was oceans, and when moderator Nancy Baron of the science education group, COMPASS asked the scientists to “Tell us how it is, really,” panelist and top NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco said that rapidly rising acidity in the ocean is a “huge challenge.” more info |
| New Study to Develop Tech to Clean Up Oil Spills Funding was provided by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, which was set up by oil company BP to administer a $500 million fund it established for independent research over 10 years to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and how to better deal with future spills. more info |
| Sea turtle, beach meet, golf tourney Shelly Yates, a spokeswoman for the Gulfarium, said the release will provide an educational opportunity for children. Gulfarium officials will be on hand to answer questions. more info |
| Goliath grouper's comeback creates conflict To help solve the conflict, scientists Christopher Koenig and Felica Coleman of Florida State University are beginning a 3-year study to document the goliath's recovery and figure out whether it makes sense to allow anglers to catch and keep them. more info |
| Run-off, emissions deliver double whammy to coastal marine creatures Their findings will be published in the November 2011 issue of Nature Geoscience. The researchers determined the combined effects of fertilizer runoff carried by the Mississippi River to the northern Gulf of Mexico and excess atmospheric carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels result in an unexpected increase in the acidity of Gulf waters. more info |
| Study: Gulf Seafood Unsafe for Pregnant Women and Children? At issue are what the FDA considers safe levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), compounds found in oil, coal and gasoline that have been linked to cancer in animals and humans. According to Miriam Rotkin-Ellman, a researcher with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the FDA accepts 100 to 10,000 times more PAH contamination in seafood than the NRDC deems safe for vulnerable populations. more info |
| Prospect.2: Leveling Out “Below Sea Level” is also a living thing, appropriate considering its subject matter. Wotjasik has shot footage of the BP oil spill and plans to integrate it into the 38-minute piece during the course of Prospect.2. The installation is respectful – perhaps to a fault – but it’s also a gently effective piece of environmental activism, reminding people what’s at stake if the Louisiana Wetlands aren’t preserved. more info |
| Researcher to present findings at this year's event Twilley will present his research and findings on this very topic at this year’s Louisiana Gulf Coast Oil Exposition in a technical presentation titled “Water and Oil Should Mix: An Alliance in Energy and Environmental Policies to reduce Risk to Oil and Gas Exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.” more info |
| What’s New from The Beaches of Fort Myers & Sanibel Also new to the center: the IMAG-TV studio, which allows guests to report from the studio or go on virtual location to film their story; and Phase I of the outdoor Watershed Wonders: Caloosahatchee Connections exhibit, a comprehensive, interactive scale model of the Lake Okeechobee, Caloosahatchee River, and Gulf of Mexico system. more info |
| Bayou La Batre seafood workers consider new careers in wake of oil spill For years, Chansaveuy Manivong picked crabs in the frigid seafood processing houses around this fishing town, a job that demanded 14-hour days starting before sunrise alongside other Laotian and Thai immigrants. more info |
| Plymouth Harbor pilot whale dies; mystery remains on why whales came north The whale was an unusual visitor, normally a denizen of waters off the southeastern United States and the Gulf of Mexico, the aquarium said. Before the strandings on Columbus Day, there had never been another documented case of the species stranding in the state more info |
| Study: FDA seafood standards flawed “We’re very confident that the steps that we have put in place to assure the safety of seafood have worked,” FDA spokesman Doug Karas said. “We put in an extensive program of sampling, at that time and since then, and the results have consistently been 100 to 1,000 times below our levels of concern.” more info |
| Miss. giving white shrimp harvest a closer look Mississippi Department of Marine Resources workers are sampling white shrimp deeper into coastal bays and estuaries than ever before, to see what remains in those nurseries, officials say. more info |
| Gulf shrimp abound. But for how long, seafood industry wonders? But there are growing fears among fish market purveyors and restaurant owners that shortages of Gulf of Mexico shrimp and, perhaps, other seafood, may be on the horizon. more info |
| Whale Shark Research in the Northern Gulf of Mexico Despite the fact that the whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is the largest fish in the ocean, little is known about their biology and ecology. Other than a few accounts of their occurrence, information is scant for whale sharks in the Gulf of Mexico region. In response to this need for information, we initiated research to understand the basic biology, behavior, and movement patterns of whale sharks in the northern Gulf. more info |
| BP oil spill: Forgotten but not gone Brunner has studied how communities that are empowered to deal with environmental threats tend to make the right decisions. Examples are diverse, including preparing for floods in the Midwest and dealing with melting permafrost in the Arctic. The key is giving those who live in an ecosystem the power to care for it. more info |
| Fairhope Elementary School takes DI fieldtrip Charlotte Norris' second grade class from Fairhope Elementary enjoyed their first field trip this year to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. It was a day full of fun activities in the "hands-on" lab where the children learned many interesting facts about sea life. more info |
| Feds underestimate snapper recovery, key scientist says An estimate of how many fish in the Gulf population are more than 10 years old is critical to the calculations that determine how many pounds of snapper commercial and recreational fishermen are allowed to catch each year. More older fish means a healthier population. Too few older fish means a population is being fished too heavily. more info |
| Future of the Gulf Last month, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee overwhelmingly approved legislation that would direct 80 percent of the civil penalties from the oil spill to projects to help replenish coastal marshes, rebuild barrier islands, and repair and reverse years of man-made degradation to an immensely productive ecosystem that is also one of the world’s great fisheries. Last week, a federal-state working group released a preliminary strategy for restoration that could help organize the effort — if Congress ensures the funding is there. more info |
| Dreaded red tide spotted in Southwest Florida The FWC will continue to monitor this algae bloom and report changing conditions to the general public. Those who plan to spend time in the offshore waters of Southwest Florida should follow these developments. more info |
| E.P.A. Panel Issues Plan for Gulf Coast Restoration The strategy, which is being made available for a period of public comment before being submitted to the president, lays out several broad goals and specific means to achieve them. more info |
| South Mississippians get their hands dirty cleaning up the coast Several folks woke up early this morning to clean up a whole lot of trash that has been piling up in their communities. In Ocean Springs, Mississippi Power crews along with local volunteers worked at the Gulf Coast Research Lab Marine Education property. They bagged up plant stands, container tops and a dusty, aged bench was also in the trash pile. more info |
| Shark Fest is aimed at adults The Gulf Coast Research Lab kicked off its first Explore a Seashore Shark Fest for adults on Saturday. more info |
| X PRIZE Foundation Announces Three-Year, Multi-Million Dollar Sponsorship with Shell for Prizes Promoting Exploration of Space, Oceans and Land The X PRIZE Foundation and Shell today also launched a viral video competition designed to inspire the next generation of explorers in improving the knowledge of our planet and the universe. The "Why do YOU Explore?" competition, which runs until April 2012, challenges the public to create their own original and "mashup" videos on exploration, using assets such as interviews with great explorers of the past and present, imagery from NASA and footage from groundbreaking missions across the frontiers of space, Earth and the seas. more info |
| Who Is in Charge of What During Major Catastrophes Still Unanswered “It will be very rare — if ever — that a single entity, organization, government agency, department, or nongovernmental organization can completely solve the problems in our world today,” he said. more info |
| Study suggests FDA underestimated Gulf seafood risk The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may have underestimated the risk to pregnant women and children posed by consumption of seafood from the Gulf of Mexico, according to a new risk assessment study. more info |
| High levels of red tide found off Lee County High concentrations of the red tide organism have been detected in the Gulf of Mexico off Lee County. more info |
| US lawmakers spar over offshore drilling enforcement in wake of Macondo "The kinds of figures you're talking about are trivial to these companies," Bromwich said. "It needs to be clearly well into the six figures to be a significant deterrent to oil companies and to serve as a deterrent to the industry as a whole." more info |
| Working to reverse damage to Gulf of Mexico The restoration plan the Obama administration and the gulf states put forward this month marks an opportunity to begin reversing the ecological and economic damage to a vital national ecosystem. more info |
| Goliath grouper's comeback creates conflict As a result, fishermen — both commercial and recreational — are beginning to demand the right to harvest goliath. Conversely, conservationists want the federal government to give the goliaths further protection by putting them on the endangered species list. more info |
| Red tide bloom threatens Sarasota beaches with fish kill The toxic red tide that formed off the coast of Englewood nearly three weeks ago may now be heading north toward Sarasota County, this time with thousands of dead fish in tow. more info |
| UPDATE: Coast Guard: Deepwater Horizon Isn't Source Of Gulf Sheen . The U.S. Coast Guard said Friday the wreckage of Transocean Ltd.'s (RIG) Deepwater Horizon rig, which sank last year, isn't leaking oil and is not the source of oil sheens seen recently in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Giant Asian Tiger Prawns May Threaten Gulf Shrimp Giant tiger prawns from southeast Asia may be gaining a foothold in the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to push out prized native shrimp and spread disease. more info |
| The post-oil spill Gulf of Mexico While some aspects of the Gulf ecosystem got through the disaster relatively unscathed, others were devastated. more info |
| Pilot whales stranded in Mass. were far from normal range Short-finned pilot whales typically frequent warmer waters such as the Gulf of Mexico and the ocean off Florida and are distinctly different from long-finned pilot whales, whose range includes Massachusetts waters. more info |
| Studies delay oyster season The assessment will determine whether the health of the state’s oyster population was damaged by the BP Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010, which leaked 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Officials say they hope to glean an accurate picture of the ongoing effect oil and dispersants may have had on local ecosystems and the region’s seafood industry. more info |
| Drought causing unusual aquatic behavior in bay For more than two weeks, such algae blooms have been occurring along the Texas coast, from Galveston to South Padre Island. The result has been scattered fish kills, mostly involving forage species such as menhaden, mullet and spot but also claiming numbers of highly prized sport fish including speckled trout, redfish, pompano, snook and even snapper. more info |
| Gulf scientists swim with whale sharks, tag them i Researchers from Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi joined for the September tagging expedition. They were aided in their search by a spotter plane provided by a California-based nonprofit, On the Wings of Care. more info |
| Conservation Groups Move to Stop Sea Turtle Deaths From Shrimp Trawling The Endangered Species Act requires the Fisheries Service to ensure that its actions do not jeopardize the continued existence of endangered species and to respond to evidence of new threats to their survival. Today’s lawsuit challenges the agency’s failure to protect sea turtles in the wake of a huge increase in strandings and seeks to establish protections for the turtles, including increased enforcement and observer coverage to reduce turtle deaths from shrimp trawls; closure of sensitive areas to shrimp trawling; and broader requirements for shrimp boats to use turtle-excluder devices to allow turtles to escape drowning in all types of trawl gear. more info |
| BP oil disaster documentary rakes over big questions about the spill The Bix Fix, by Josh and Rebecca Tickell, re-opens some of the most persistent questions about last year's oil spill. How BP was able to exert so much control over the crisis as it unfolded? What were the long-term health consequences of using a toxic chemical, Corexit, to break up the oil and drive it underwater? more info |
| 4 dead dolphins wash up on Gulf Coast beaches in 5 days; deaths part of 'unusual mortality event' "We should be seeing one (death) a month at this time of year," said Ruth Carmichael, a Dauphin Island Sea Lab scientist tasked with responding to reports of dead dolphins. "We’re getting one or more a week. It’s just never slowed down." more info |
| Researcher: Northern Gulf fish show signs of disease, but link to spill uncertain But whether any of those fish were sickened by exposure to BP’s oil is a complicated question without an easy answer, said Steve Murawski, a biologist with the University of South Florida, who cautioned that his team is still in the process of examining a lot of data. more info |
| SketchBook: News 'n' notes on Gulf Coast arts Mobile Museum of Art will host “John James Audubon: American Artist and Naturalist” from Oct. 14 through Jan. 8 with a lineup of exciting programs: more info |
| Spinning Disc Skimmer Wins Oil-Spill Cleanup Challenge Today, American company Elastec was announced as the winner of the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge, a competition to build better machines to clean up oil spills at sea. more info |
| Outdoors notebook: Estuaries taking losses Along that same line, leaders of the outdoors recreational industry are reminding Congress that many of the regulations they claim "kill jobs" actually protect hundreds of thousands of jobs. Their study shows historic preservation of land, water and air generates more than $1 trillion in total economic activity and supports 9.4 million jobs each year. more info |
| NOAA awards nearly $1 million to University of Miami for coral investigation NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science has awarded $998,703 to the University of Miami to investigate how the deep coral reefs of Pulley Ridge may replenish key fish species and other organisms in the downstream reefs of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and Tortugas Ecological Preserve. more info |
| USM will conduct survey of coast since oil spill Students from the University of Southern Mississippi will be visiting more than 250 homes south of Interstate 10 on Saturday, to survey residents about their lives after the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Study: Worms show extinction recovery Researchers at University of Colorado at Boulder studied sediments laid down shortly after an asteroid crashed into the Gulf of Mexico 65.5 million years ago and caused widespread global extinctions, including the demise of big dinosaurs. They found networks of crisscrossing burrows less than 3 inches above the so-called K-T boundary layer marking the impact. more info |
| Zoomarine returns ‘extremely rare’ turtle to the Gulf of Mexico A rare turtle, affectionately named ‘Johnny Vasco’, which crossed the Atlantic Ocean and the freezing North Sea before being found and sent to the Albufeira-based marine conservation park, Zoomarine, is soon due to be returned home to the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Can Coral Nurseries Bring Reefs Back from the Brink? They rarely think of Veracruz, the bustling shipping town on the Gulf, due east of Mexico City. Caribbean reefs, however, are becoming hard to find as the region's corals have nearly disappeared. And although Veracruz might not be a snorkeling mecca, its easily accessible reefs are the perfect place for a coral nursery. more info |
| Giant shrimp invade Atlantic waters, including Southeast U.S Anytime a nonnative species is introduced into an environment, it can upset the balance of the food chain by disrupting the existing fishery. more info |
| What the Conservation Economy Means for the Mississippi River Delta While coastal degradation is a serious concern for communities throughout the country, it poses a particular threat to the ecosystem and economy of the Mississippi River Delta. Louisiana is home to 40 percent of the wetlands in the continental United States but experiences about 80 percent of all wetlands losses across the country. more info |
| Wild Dolphins", the iPad App Featuring Winter, Star of "Dolphin Tale" There is a whole educational section about dolphins: where they live in the world, their external anatomy (through a fun interactive element), and actual sound files of dolphins communicating, including a conversation between a mother and her calf. more info |
| Climate Experts Meet to Discuss Epic Texas Drought Federal and state weather forecasters and climate experts are getting together to brainstorm about the epic 2011 Texas drought and what weather trends might signal for the future. more info |
| Gulf Killifish Shows Adverse Effects of BP Oil Spill Disaster A report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America says that animal species in the Gulf of Mexico will continue to be subject to negative effects of the BP Oil Spill disaster of 2010. more info |
| Ocean Conservancy Launches Trash Free Seas Alliance as 2011 Commitment to Action at Clinton Global Initiative Ocean Conservancy today announced the creation of a Trash Free Seas Alliance as their 2011 Commitment to Action at the Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City. The Alliance will unite industry, science and conservation leaders who share a common goal for a healthy ocean free of trash. more info |
| 10 given Heinz awards for work on environment Nancy Rabalais of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Chauvin, La., for research on severe oxygen depletion in the Gulf of Mexico and ways to reduce water pollution through education and public policy. more info |
| Divers the key to taming lionfish To see how widespread lionfish have become, go online to nas.er.usgs.gov/taxgroup/fish/Lionfishanimation.gif. From a few fish in South Florida, the species has spread up the Atlantic coast to New England, throughout the Caribbean and into the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| NOAA Releases First National Bycatch Report A new NOAA report of data collected in 2005 will help the agency’s scientists better monitor progress in reducing bycatch – the non-target fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds caught incidentally in fishing. more info |
| Study enlightens on the amount of oil and gas from Deepwater oil spill The new study represents a comprehensive look at the data and findings of the flow rate investigations, focusing on the quality and accuracy of the on-the-fly, under-pressure measurements last summer. 'It provides a rigorous assessment of the statistical and systematic uncertainty in our earlier findings,' said WHOI scientist Richard Camilli, lead author of the PNAS paper. more info |
| Texas Authorities Find Massive Shark Kill This past weekend, wildlife officials in Texas came across a huge illegal fishing operation. They found about 3,000 dead sharks, tangled in miles of nets off the coast. Michele Norris talks with Sgt. James Dunks with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department who found the sharks. more info |
| Economy, environment, politics figure in Keystone fight But making those investments pay off - and getting that Canadian crude to Gulf Coast refineries - depends on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project that is in the final stages of a broad, three-year government review. more info |
| Researchers try solve the puzzle of the MJO Long leads the AMIE team, one of three groups studying a weather disturbance known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation, or MJO. The MJO initiates every 30 to 90 days and affects regional weather phenomenon such as the Asian and Australian monsoons. Farther away, it can enhance hurricane activity in the northeast Pacific and Gulf of Mexico, trigger torrential rainfall at the west coast of North America. more info |
| Big sand tiger shark joins Aquarium of Americas' Gulf of Mexico exhibit Meet the newest shark at join the Gulf of Mexico exhibit at the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas. Dubbed Smooth, the sand tiger shark weighs more than 200 pounds and measures 7 feet, 9 inches. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Ocean Floor Still Polluted by BP Oil Crozier said remnants of the spill are "economically toxic" for tourism, but he doubts there is much of an environmental threat. The oil lingering on the seabed is of a consistency and chemical composition somewhere between crude oil and tar, he said. more info |
| Coast Guard: Sheen in Gulf not from capped BP well A statement issued Tuesday by the Coast Guard says the sheens could have come from the sunken rig's riser pipe or from other underwater debris. The Coast Guard says recent video footage shows no evidence of a leak from the blown-out well that was capped last year. more info |
| Food for thought – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly The Good is the many benefits we as a society have reaped from the modern food system including cheaper food in terms of time, economic, and resource inputs. The negative environmental effects of resource intensive food production are represented by The Bad. And The Ugly is the paradox resulting from the good and bad tradeoffs in the food system exemplified here in food waste, which is only one example of the ambiguous outcomes of the modern food system. Through this narrative I hope to show that the food system is a complex web of tradeoffs that must be taken into consideration when proposing sustainable changes to food and agriculture. more info |
| Strange fishing sightings bring about a familiar response It all had to do with the simultaneous leaping of several hundred tarpon, and the sighting of a whale shark in Lake Pontchartrain. more info |
| Federal Oil Spill Probe Finds U.S. Regulations Lacking An ongoing federal investigation into last year's massive rig explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has found that a particularly lax U.S. regulatory regime was a significant factor in the events leading up to the disaster. more info |
| Florida tries new approach to answer lingering misperceptions about Gulf seafood Now, the Florida Department of Agriculture is starting an online training program for restaurant workers, so when they get questions about the safety of Gulf seafood, they can offer answers based on the evidence. more info |
| Revenge of the Tarballs Up the beach, to my west, dozens of BP workers combed the sand for a fresh crop of tarballs that had come in with Tropical Storm Lee and a thunderstorm that had hit earlier that day. more info |
| Drought takes toll on water allotment for Rio Bosque Wetlands Park The park is among a few surviving examples of the varied river ecosystem that stretched from New Mexico to the Gulf of Mexico. The first question people ask when they get out here is, 'Where's the water?'" Sproul said. more info |
| Galveston: The Mother of All U.S. Natural Disasters It was in September that this barrier island on the Gulf of Mexico attempted to tango with two of the biggest storms in hurricane history: Ike in 2008, Carla in 1961. In different ways, both threatened to blow down and wash away much of what has sustained this place for nearly 200 years -- the history and culture, even the tired grit. more info |
| Dr. Valentine's Sea Lab love affair On Saturday, Valentine officially took the reins as director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, an honor he called daunting and exciting. His main goal: Grow the lab into one of the premier research institutions in the world. more info |
| Kitchener biologist studying effects of Gulf oil spill Galvez, a Kitchener native and graduate of the former St. Jerome’s high school, was part of a team of scientists whose research was published online Tuesday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the journal for the National Academy of Sciences based in Washington, D.C. more info |
| Mayor: Tests link tar balls on Ala beaches to BP Tests show the wave of tar balls that hit Alabama's beaches after Tropical Storm Lee was from last year's BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a coastal mayor said Tuesday. more info |
| Tiny hummingbirds undertake a long flight Ruby-throated hummingbirds will soon be on their way to Central America. Those that live in eastern states may fly to Texas before embarking on the long journey across the Gulf of Mexico to Yucatan and beyond. Some may make rest stops on oil rigs or passing ships. more info |
| Real trouble could be ahead for Gulf fish, wildlife, researcher warns Has the canary in Louisiana’s coastal ecosystem started coughing? That question echoed across the Gulf last week after the release of a study led by LSU revealed that the Gulf killifish, a lowly marsh minnow known locally as a “cocahoe,” showed signs of the hydrocarbon poisoning that was a precursor to the collapse of some fish and wildlife populations in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill. more info |
| Researchers find impact of oil spill in marsh fish species The study, funded in part by the National Science Foundation, or NSF, and the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative is being published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS. Their study shows that, despite very low to non-detectable concentrations of oil constituents in the water and in fish tissues, biological effects in fish indicate dramatic responses that are indicative of exposures to the toxic components of oil. more info |
| Jellyfish Swarm in the South As for what to do with the piles of jellyfish on the beaches, the species is actually edible. The chef Angelo Sosa has a green apple tea and chili-spiced jellyfish recipe online more info |
| Cap and Trade for Nutrients Coming to Ohio River Valley Idea is to help local farmers, businesses plus Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Is Florida in the clear for hurricane season? It feels like fall right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s time to forget about the possibility of a tropical storm or hurricane. October is generally the second-busiest month of the hurricane season for Southwest Florida, next to September. more info |
| Why our Cuba embargo could lead to another Gulf oil disaster Our trade embargo on Cuba not only prevents us from doing business with our neighbor but it also bars us from sending equipment and expertise to help even in a crisis. So, if there is an explosion, we will watch while the waters of the Gulf Coast get polluted. Now, this is obviously a worst case hypothetical, but it's precisely the kind of danger we should plan for and one we can easily protect against if we were allowed to have any dealings with Cuba. more info |
| Research Team Wins Gulf Grant UCSB Marine Science Institute’s research professor of oceanography Uta Passow and her team received a $22.5 million grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative to continue research on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill for another three years more info |
| Federal agencies try to save Ship Island The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the project is expected to last into 2014 and culminate with filling the Camille Cut with 13 million cubic yards of sand excavated from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| One Good ‘Tern’ Deserves Another: Comedy Film ‘The Big Year’ Suggests a Cardinal Reality to Birding While the film is based on the book “The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature and Fowl Obsession,” by Mark Obmascik, the reality is that thousands of birders every year embark on “Big Days” – friendly, sporting contests to find the most bird species in a given location at a given time frame. more info |
| Little Preparation Under Way for Climate Change at World's Seaports Mike Savonis, a former adviser to the U.S. Department of Transportation now working at the private consultancy ICF International, says his 2003 to 2008 study of the Gulf of Mexico coast made it clear just how serious the threat is. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico oil spill response should address overall ecosystem needs, scientists say The report, sponsored by the Pew Environment Group, lists 15 recommendations to address threats posed by the Deepwater Horizon spill and other “stressors” that have caused problems for the Gulf and the communities that rely on it. more info |
| Coast Guard puts Transocean on notice for recent slick in Gulf of Mexico Citing the possibility the expanding sheen may be originating from equipment that sunk to the sea floor last year, the U.S. Coast Guard Captain of the Port for Morgan City, La., issued a Notice of Federal Interest (NOFI) to Transocean Holdings, LLC. more info |
| Panama City Beach to Undergo Beach Renourishment Lisa Armbruster, a spokeswoman for Sustainable Beaches, says a large, barge-like vessel will pick the sand up from the Gulf of Mexico's floor and take it to an area close to the beach. From there, it will be piped onto the beach. She says the project will take about three months. more info |
| Community gets lessons on sustainable seafood at Ocean Commotion 2011 Saturday's Ocean Commotion event at Edison State College was all about encouraging visitors to think about how to take steps to make seafood more sustainable and to raise awareness for keeping the oceans healthy. more info |
| Public Opinion Research Points to Americans'Interest in Being "Green" and the Importance of Engaging Youth Latest Results from Largest-Ever Research Initiative Point to New Ways for Aquariums, Zoos, and Museums to Increase Conservation Action more info |
| New coral dating method hints at possible future sea-level changes By calculating more accurate ages for the coral samples than previously possible, they found that sea levels were considerably less stable than earlier believed--oscillating up and down by 4 to 6 meters (13-20 feet) over a few thousand years about 120,000 years ago during a period known as the Last Interglacial. more info |
| Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi students visit Flower Garden Banks A group of Corpus Christi students studying marine science traded classroom lessons for an underwater adventure look at a coral reef bank with a world-renowned oceanographer. more info |
| Gulf Research Pilot Troubled by Oil Sighting in Macondo Prospect "In fact, we found so much oil out in the Macondo Prospect (about 15 miles from the site of the April 2010 explosion) that we have an 11-minute video of it that never covers the same area twice. Not since last summer have we seen this kind of expansive surface sheen," Schumaker says. You can read more from her logs on her website. more info |
| Monarchs, going green, 'fee simple' That's where the boaters come in. From now through October, scientists are trying to collect as much data as possible on when and where these butterflies are seen. more info |
| BP removes tar balls in Alabama BP workers used fishing nets to scoop tar balls off Alabama’s Gulf Coast beaches yesterday after the sands were fouled by gooey, dark gobs churned up by heavy surf from tropical system Lee. more info |
| OUR VIEW: The Gulf Coast roars back However, while it may be years before the full ecological impact of the spill can be gauged, it’s turned out to be just a one-year blip for beach devotees. more info |
| University’s proposals rejected for BP research "These consortia establish a research community of great strength with promise of substantial achievement," said Rita Colwell, chairman of the GRI research board, in a news release. "The results will illuminate the consequences of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill and enable appropriate responses should there be future releases not only in the Gulf of Mexico but anywhere that oil and gas is produced in ocean environments." more info |
| BP's $100 million rig worker fund expands to other oil spill recovery efforts Rig workers and other offshore laborers affected by last year's Gulf oil spill and drilling moratorium claimed less than a quarter of BP's $100 million grant fund, so a Louisiana foundation began the task Wednesday of distributing the money to other Gulf recovery projects. With $75 million left over, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation announced four new grants totaling $18 million from its Future of the Gulf Fund. more info |
| Calling Industry’s Bluff The department also told the oil companies that it will charge them higher fees for the privilege of drilling in the gulf — raising the minimum bid for deep-water leases to $100 an acre from the current $37.50 an acre. Minimum bid prices have not been raised since 1999, when oil was selling at between $9 and $24 dollars a barrel, far less than this year’s range of $85 to $105. more info |
| La Niña comeback could mean more hurricanes "La Niñas tend to create conditions that are very conducive for the formation of hurricanes.," said Keim. "The implications to Louisiana are pretty huge regarding this particular La Niña." more info |
| Peak of hurricane season arrives Saturday What makes the peak of this season interesting is that we’ve seen 14 named storms so far, meaning, potentially, we could see another 12 to 14 develop. more info |
| La Niña's return may extend Texas drought Last winter La Niña conditions kick-started a drought that has now engulfed 80 percent of Texas in an "exceptional" drought, the worst category tracked by the U.S. Drought Monitor. The resulting drought has led more than 800 of the state's communities to initiate water restrictions, and caused Texas' worst wildfire year on record. more info |
| Tropical Storm Lee surge reveals tar mats on Fourchon Beach "If anyone has concerns regarding oil or tar balls on the beaches they should call the Response Center at 800.424.8802," he said in an e-mail. more info |
| New offshore drilling rules hinge on Deepwater Horizon probe The panel’s report may provide the foundation for bolstering mandates on the blowout preventers used as a last line of defense against unexpected surges of oil and gas at wells. The joint investigation team’s conclusions about well design also could spur regulatory changes. more info |
| Birding Leffis Key Half way across the bridge is a vista of the aqua waters of the Gulf of Mexico on one side and Sarasota Bay on the other. more info |
| Graham made chairman Dr. William “Monty” Graham has been named chairman of the University of Southern Mississippi Department of Marine Science (DMS). Graham more info |
| $112.5 Million Awarded to Research Consortia Studying Effects of Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Research on the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico took a major step forward today with the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GRI) Research Board's announcement that eight Research Consortia will be funded for the next three years. A total of $112.5 million over three years will support this portion of the GRI research effort. These teams will investigate the fate of petroleum in the environment, the impacts of the spill, and the development of new tools and technology for responding to future spills and improving mitigation and restoration. more info |
| Students invited to join virtual field trip Through funding provided by the Gulf of Mexico Alliance Environmental Education Network (GOMAEEN), Louisiana Public Broadcasting (LPB) produced an electronic field trip and is streaming it live for middle and high school students, especially those in Gulf Coast states, as well as the public. more info |
| Sea Stars: First camp of its kind in Coastal Alabama These Stars will get to explore Gulf of Mexico habitats by visiting the salt marsh, the sandy beach and taking a trip to Mobile Bay aboard the Alabama Discovery; DISL’s 65-foot research vessel. Thanks to a grant provided by the Gulf of Mexico Alliance Environmental Education Network (GOMAEEN), this camp is offered at no cost to camper-guardian pairs! more info |
| New Science to Help Direct Action on Excessive Nutrients in Rivers and Estuaries The USGS has released an online, interactive decision support system that provides easy access to six newly-developed regional models describing how rivers receive and transport nutrients from natural and human sources to sensitive waters, such as the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| WHOI-led study sharpens picture of how much oil and gas flowed in Deepwater Horizon spill In a detailed assessment of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, researchers led by a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have determined that the blown-out Macondo well spewed oil at a rate of about 57,000 barrels a day, totaling nearly 5 million barrels of oil released from the well between April 20 and July 15, 2010, when the leak was capped. In addition, the well released some 100 million standard cubic feet per day of natural gas. more info |
| Oil spill: Macondo well did release 5 million barrels The results, published in the online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), are in line with the federal government’s official estimates. The accuracy of the measurements was crucial because, “Ultimately, the impact of the oil on the environment depends primarily on the total volume of oil released,” according to a report by the Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG), a collection of research teams charged with using different means to generate an accurate estimate of the amount of oil released into the Gulf. more info |
| FWS taking on wind, wildlife connection What's happening is the federal wildlife agency is conducting an environmental impact study -- being paid for with money from a group of 19 wind energy companies -- that have asked for an incidental take permit. more info |
| BP spill study flows into city A&M-Corpus Christi has been awarded an $800,000 grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Board is an independent body established by BP to administer the company's 10-year, $500 million commitment to research the effects of the oil spill. more info |
| Scientists report unusually low levels of oxygen in Mobile Bay waters The scientists all blamed hot, windless days coupled with a period of weak tides between Aug. 15 and 20 as contributing factors. With no tidal action and no wind, there was little mixing of water on the bottom of the bay with the more oxygenated water on the surface. more info |
| Study says air in Gulf wasn't toxic Although some said they fell ill, offshore crews involved in the cleanup of BP's oil spill last year did not breathe harmful levels of toxins as crude gushed into the Gulf of Mexico, an independent scientific study found. more info |
| Gulf Coast beach communities chalk up a good summer As the summer's grand finale on the Gulf Coast, Tropical Storm Lee brewed on the horizon Thursday and Friday, chasing away the season's blockbuster throngs of tourists. Just a year after "the lost summer" of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, though, this year's visitors to Gulf Coast beaches filled more hotel rooms and spent more money than any other in history. more info |
| Governor Tours BLB Shipbuilder, Gets Ideas For Job Growth The governor’s visit to South Alabama is even more important given the millions of dollars soon to come to the state through BP fines for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. more info |
| New Orleans' post-Katrina flood defenses pass big test Chris Accardo, chief of the operations division in the Corps' New Orleans district, said the London Avenue floodgate was lowered to block the lake surge on Friday when the lake reached a "trigger" level of 2.5 feet and rising. more info |
| Poll finds national support for La. wetlands After Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil disaster shut down energy production in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in skyrocketing gasoline prices, most Americans now realize the importance of Louisiana to the national economy, a national poll shows. more info |
| Manatees Cool Their Flippers At Power Plants During winter months manatees used to migrate from hot spring to hot spring as they made their way south in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Tropical Storm Lee stirs frustration with Corps levee plans in Plaquemines and Jean Lafitte Flooding from a surge that Tropical Storm Lee pushed north through Barataria Bay has several local officials renewing complaints that the Army Corps of Engineers wrongly delayed or abandoned plans to improve levees in their communities that would have prevented the flooding. more info |
| Gulf task force holds "listening session" in Biloxi The group created by the President to help restore the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill was in Biloxi on Tuesday. more info |
| Heavy rain moves northeast with Lee's remnants Meanwhile, officials in coastal Alabama were trying to determine the origin of tar balls that had washed onto the state's prime tourist beaches. Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon said Tuesday that the tar balls reported so far are very small. He said the surf churned up by Lee was the heaviest he had seen since tar balls were washing up on the beach in 2010 because of the BP oil spill. more info |
| Hurricane preparations should include your landscape Our landscapes also require some attention and thought when it comes to preparing for and dealing with the aftermath of the high winds and heavy rains that hurricanes bring. more info |
| Deepwater trouble on the horizon: oil discovered floating near source of Gulf of Mexico spill Oil is once again fouling the Gulf of Mexico around the Deepwater Horizon well, which was capped a little over a year ago. more info |
| A math-based model for deep-water oil drilling Oil well control is one of the most important processes during drilling operations. In deepwater drilling, controlling pressure in the oil well is crucial, as excessive pressures in the drilled hole can result in blowouts, leading to disastrous events like the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. more info |
| How to prepare for a hurricane And because hurricanes pose a variety of threats — flooding, high winds, storm surges, tornadoes — it is important to prepare in advance and to follow the hurricane safety tips from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other emergency management officials. more info |
| Civil Disobedience on Tar Sands Begins Outside the White House The largest act of civil disobedience by environmentalists in decades began outside the White House this morning, as more than seventy activists were arrested at the north gates during a protest against the Keystone XL pipeline, which if approved by the administration would carry 900,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Sea Turtle Rescue Group Wants Lights Out Florida is arguably the most important sea turtle nesting habitat in the world. A sea turtle must reach about 20 years of age before it bears offspring. Only one in 10,000 hatchlings survive until maturity. When they do become pregnant, they return to nearly the very spot where they were hatched in order to dig a new nest and lay the next generation. more info |
| US policy fellows to release research The four American fellows have each been based at government agencies relevant to their topic of research, which include comparisons of New Zealand and American approaches to resource allocation for ocean renewable energy, disaster preparedness education in schools, corporate financial disclosure, and scientific influence on decision-making for marine protected areas. more info |
| Cite de l'Ocean et du Surf, Biarritz: Interview With Steven Holl & Solange Fabião The Cité de l'Océan et du Surf in Biarritz, France, can be seen through the light of two to three increasingly interconnected architecture and urban design desires: buildings which become emblematic icons for the city where they are situated, buildings that aim to be parts of the city in and of themselves, and, lastly, interpretation centers - specifically Ocean Museums - interested in informative and educational endeavors and general environmental awareness-raising and their increasingly dominant strategy of interaction design around cultural practices to mobilize populations at large and their diverse cultural niches. more info |
| A Look at the Fisheries Training Center GRFTC conducts approximately 20 classes a year and trains nearly 400 law enforcement agents from the Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and state and federal fish and wildlife agencies ranging from Brownsville, Texas, to Key West, Fla. more info |
| Film festival focuses on water wars and more Twain might well have been talking about the fight for clean water that has embroiled Georgia, Alabama and Florida for more than 20 years. Twain's words open the award-winning, 56-minute documentary film "Chattahoochee: Water Wars to Water Vision," featured in this year's Wild & Scenic Film Festival tour, which visits the Big Bend for stops in Carrabelle this weekend, Apalachicola next weekend and Marianna the weekend after that. more info |
| Mississippi Coast Still Rebuilding 6 Years After Katrina Recovery process still underway. more info |
| Port Corpus Christi hosts first Gulf ports environmental summit This Environmental Summit is designed to help Gulf of Mexico ports to begin collaborating on regional environmental issues. more info |
| Beachgoers swim, unaware of sign warning of bacteria Some say swim advisory signs are poorly placed. more info |
| The Fish That Got Away In our backyard — the Gulf of Mexico — nearly 1,500 varieties of finfish flourish in the salty waters, waters that produce some of the world's most delicious seafood. But no one in the Gulf is processing the fish they catch for sushi. No one is performing ike jime, as the Japanese call it, on their fish. more info |
| Oil spill’s impact on loons, pelicans to be studied in Minnesota Minnesota wildlife biologists now have the money they need to study the impacts of the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill on the state’s loons and pelicans. more info |
| Natural gas pipeline project in gulf forced to adapt to economic reality The pipeline will carry the gas past Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay to come ashore at Port Manatee and hook into an existing pipeline to route it to power plants around the state. more info |
| Erosion a top concern on river A University of Iowa civil and environmental engineering professor and others say erosion may be the greatest threat to the health of Iowa’s rivers and is contributing to a massive, expanding dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Keystone XL Pipeline Obama's 'Biggest Climate Test,' Green Groups Say Many of the country's leading climate scientists have explained why in their letter last month to you. It risks many of our national treasures to leaks and spills. And it reduces incentives to make the transition to job-creating clean fuels. more info |
| Fishing Gear Enhanced To Save Sea Life Marine biologists and local fisherman rarely agree on anything, but with the recent alteration to fishing equipment and gear, it seems they are, for once, seeing eye to eye. Fishing has always been on the threshold of debate due to its harmful effects to all marine life. more info |
| Fighting Bad P.R. with Good P.R. When consumers were scared off shrimp by the Gulf oil spill, one fishery turned a crisis into an opportunity. more info |
| Expert: BP spill likely cause of sick Gulf fish Jim Cowan, professor of oceanography at Louisiana State University, has analyzed many of these diseased fish. more info |
| Why is that dead bird wearing a radio? Known as the “Carcass Drift Study,” the $1 million U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service program will help researchers learn how many birds may have died without making it to shore to be counted by wildlife officials. more info |
| Year after oil spill, Gulf seafood rebounds “It’s not really, and it never has been, an issue of contamination; it’s been an issue of perception. And that perception is something that, at least here locally, we’re gaining some ground on, but nationally, we’re not,” said Joe Jewell, deputy director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources' Office of Marine Fisheries. more info |
| Environmentally friendly drilling How can we carry out drilling in a more environmentally friendly way? What practical things can we do that we may not be doing already? more info |
| Saving the Gulf of Mexico -- from Iowa A Dubuque County farmer and a U.S. Army veteran concerned about what flows into northeast Iowa's waterways enlisted in a new project designed to keep them clean. more info |
| 5 Ways to Help Hummingbirds during Their Fall Migration Ruby Throated Hummingbirds fly to Florida, Louisiana or Texas by mid-September before flying across the Gulf to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and south. However, a significant population now winters along the Gulf Coast between Florida and Texas more info |
| Pigs Have Wings and Elephants Fly: Vertebrates Find a Home in “The Cloud” It seems such creatures—all vertebrates, in fact—may soon settle into a permanent cloud existence. No, not the cottony white variety, but the cyber kind. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico receives new artificial reef Soon, those miles of concrete will be at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, forming an artificial reef that will bring new habitat for fish and new opportunities for divers. more info |
| Best Summer Gig Ever: Nature Conservancy Interns Serve up Adventure, Passion and Improv for Gen Y While the main purpose of the series is to use a fresh approach to educate teens and young adults about important environmental issues (ala rebuilding oyster reefs in the Gulf of Mexico and protecting wildlife along the U.S. Mexico Border) the duo's love of film and the written word, which is evident throughout the pieces, also gives the series an artistic flavor that's hard to ignore. more info |
| Texas Suffers Worst Drought Year on Record Weather forecasters and agriculture experts in the southwestern U.S. state of Texas say there is no relief in sight for what already is the worst drought year on record. more info |
| Oil Spills and Meltdowns Highlight the Need for Energy Resilience With every new emergency comes a raft of discourse, policy change and political posturing that combine to give the impression that Something is Being Done more info |
| EarthTalk: Ocean Dead Zones The Mississippi Basin/Gulf of Mexico Water Nutrient Task Force, a coalition of federal, state and tribal agencies, has been busy monitoring the dead zone and recommending ways to reduce it since its formation in 1997. more info |
| Vanishing island was home to heavily-oiled pelican population While destructive forces were at work here long before the B.P. oil spill, Hahn argues heavy oil killed mangrove roots and marsh grasses, dramatically accelerating the erosion process. more info |
| Meeting on wind energy environmental impact study is Tuesday in Kearney The companies are developing a Great Plains Wind Energy Habitat Conservation Plan to protect a 200-mile-wide corridor from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Scientists convene to solve Gulf problems Policymakers and scientists meet this week in New Orleans to solve some of the big ecological problems facing the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| BP Spill: Gulf Restoration Fund for States Wins Broad Support Conservation groups working across the Gulf of Mexico are supporting a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would direct to five Gulf states the billions of dollars in fines that may be imposed on BP and other companies found responsible for the last year's oil spill. more info |
| Donoho teacher attends “Mountains to the Gulf” workshop Donna Plunkett, a science teacher at The Donoho School, was one of 19 teachers who spent the week of June 25-July 2 touring Alabama and learning about natural sciences in the prestigious “Mountains to the Gulf” workshop sponsored by Legacy-Partners in Environmental Education, McDowell Environmental Center, Alabama Water Watch, JSU Field Schools, Gulf of Mexico Alliance and Dauphin Island Sea Lab. more info |
| Scientists: dead zone stresses Gulf, action needed Scientists say the massive area of low oxygen in the Gulf of Mexico, known as the "dead zone" because it kills marine species, will create more problems unless fewer fertilizers are dumped into the Mississippi River. more info |
| Swim at your own risk? Florida cutting back on water testing at beaches The Florida Department of Health plans to quit testing water for bacteria at 45 beaches statewide to reduce spending. more info |
| BP oil spill's effects hard for our outdoors industry to overcome "Prior to the spill, the guides working out of here would have their businesses booked two to three months in advance. Now they're down to taking bookings a week in advance," said Mike Butler, who owns and operators Venice Marina with his brother, Bill. "Where they always had a lot of certainty for the spring-summer-fall seasons, now it's down almost to last-minute stuff." more info |
| How Do You Picture Science? Explaining the environmental ramifications of the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill [leaves this blog] in the Gulf of Mexico is no easy task. Visualizing those impacts in an easy-to-understand way? Maybe even harder. more info |
| Assessing Emerging Challenges In U.S. Environmental Health From understanding the cumulative impacts of widely used chemicals to preparing for life in a warming world, a host of environmental health issues now face medical experts. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Lynn Goldman, dean of the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, talks about meeting the challenges. more info |
| Tar mat cleanup stops, Gulf Shores officials say location possibly uncertain George Crozier with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab believes the remaining tar poses no health risk, and he’s not sure the tar mat removal is necessary. Plus, he added, cleanup on the beach is easier than cleanup offshore. more info |
| Trashing Dog River: Islands of litter flushed into Mobile waterway every time it rains Every time it rains, thousands of bits of trash — cups, plates, coolers, bottles, cigarette butts — wash down city streets into storm drains and then into Halls Mill or one of the other creeks that converge to form Dog River. more info |
| Students from tornado-destroyed Tuscaloosa school get treated to a day in Mobile Fourth- and fifth-grade students from Holt Elementary School in Tuscaloosa last week took a day trip to south Alabama, where they toured the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center and the Mobile County school system’s Environmental Studies Center. more info |
| Sharks wash up on Montrose Beach It seems Shark Week has taken on a whole new meaning in south Alabama. More than 14 sharks washed ashore just a little more than a mile down Montrose Beach. more info |
| Slimy purple people stingers: Glow-in-the-dark mauve stinger jellyfish invade Gulf Coast beaches Small jellyfish with purple polka dots have been washing up from Fort Morgan to Gulf Shores over the last 2 weeks. more info |
| Oil Spills: Nigeria vs Gulf of Mexico Shell admits liability for two large oil spills in Nigeria. more info |
| Uphill fight to bring Gulf of Mexico's 'dead zones' back to life Last week, scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium completed their annual measurement of the Gulf Dead Zone, which measured 6,765 square miles and is larger than the state of Connecticut. more info |
| New NOAA report highlights economic and ecological value of the Gulf coastal region A new report released today The Gulf of Mexico at a Glance: A Second Glance, will provide coastal managers, planners, policy officials, and others with a reference to support regional decision-making and communications about the importance of healthy Gulf coastal ecosystems to a robust national economy, a safe population, and a high quality of life. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone Smaller Than Predicted, Still Harmful This year's dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is roughly equal to the land area of the state of New Jersey, scientists said this week. At 6,765 square miles, this area of low oxygen is the 10th largest on record and is considered about average for the past five years. more info |
| AP IMPACT: Gulf oil industry-gov't ties persist "It just goes on and on and on," Wyden said. "What we would like to do is fundamentally change the culture here to reduce the kind of conflicts we are talking about." To do that, Wyden says, companies also need to be held accountable. more info |
| Marine Studies Center Gets LEED Status The Texas A&M University at Galveston (TAMUG) Ocean and Coastal Studies Building (OCSB) was awarded the prestigious LEED® Gold building certification on July 25, 2011. more info |
| Explore Wetlands, See Sea Turtles at University of Texas Marine Science Institute Open House The University of Texas Marine Science Institute offers activities for the whole family at its Open House. Visitors can learn about the sea and coastal bays and marshes, and the scientific research that goes on there, with trips aboard research and local boats. more info |
| Gulf Coast report outlines threats from sea level rise Up to 60 percent of the Gulf Coast shoreline is considered very vulnerable to sea level rise, according to a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released last week. more info |
| Gulf Dead Zone Smaller Than Forecast Instead, scientists charted a large, but not unprecedented, expanse — 6,765 square miles (17,521 square kilometers) — within the gulf where water was low on oxygen. The dead zone, which peaks in summer, creates suffocating conditions for animals living within it and threatens the fishing industry in the region. more info |
| DHS collects $19,000 in child support from oil spill fund To date, the agency has received $18,986.57 in back child support from the spill fund. more info |
| Oil consuming microbes decrease oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico at accelerated rate The vast plume of oil that coated the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of 2010 BP Horizon deep-water drilling disaster is disappearing, and the cause of the big mystery may be some very small organisms. more info |
| Microbes ate Macondo oil, scientists find A study published by Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution concluded from changes in oxygen levels in the oil slick that bacteria helped decompose the oil. more info |
| Lionfish Invasion Reaches Gulf Marine Sanctuary An invasive species of fish has reached the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Louisiana, and officials are working to understand how serious the problem is. more info |
| Drifting bird carcasses used to estimate Gulf oil spill's toll Known as the “Carcass Drift Study,” this particular experiment will help researchers try to learn how many birds carcasses may have disappeared at sea without ever making it to shore. more info |
| Grand Isle warns of bacteria level in water at beaches In a move common during the summer months, green triangle-shaped signs have unfolded to become diamonds on several Grand Isle beaches, indicating that there’s more bacteria in the saltwater than normal and that it could pose some risk. more info |
| The lingering impact of oil spills On July 26, 2010, while oil from the largely publicized British Petroleum (BP) oil spill was still pouring out into the Gulf of Mexico, quite a bit farther north in Michigan, an Enbridge pipeline ruptured spilling tar sands oil into the Kalamazoo River by way of Talmadge Creek. more info |
| Port of Houston Authority Wins First Place Gulf Guardian Award for Fuel-Switching Project The Port Authority's air quality planning staff has worked with the EPA's Office of International Affairs since 2008 on a partnership project with ports in Brazil and Mexico to study the feasibility of fuel switching to lower sulfur diesel while transiting into the Port of Houston and those destination ports. more info |
| Tiny worms serve as the 'miner's canary' for the Gulf of Mexico Samples of nematodes taken before the oil reached the sediment showed 100 species. While samples taken three months after the spill showed fewer species, the nematodes left behind were healthy and had plenty of other microbes to eat, helping them keep their crucial niche in the food chain. more info |
| As crews remove one giant oil glob, more tar mats could be exposed during storm season BP still has about 350 people working in Alabama, 250 of which are out in the field, Saia said. As much as 3 to 3.5 miles of tar mats — some almost a mile long — have been spotted in about a dozen locations in the Orange Beach area, but West said “significantly more” tar mats are likely. more info |
| Laid-off Groton artist puts skills to work for oil-spill victims “And oh, what a journey it turned out to be,’’ Gaj said of the 3,200-mile drive through Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. “What really interested me was the difference in perspective that a New Englander would have as opposed to someone living in the Gulf region. more info |
| Global warming: Sea levels could rise for centuries to come Strong warning on climate threshold from University of Arizona researchers more info |
| Preventing Ocean Pollution Starts With You Recently, our nation celebrated Oceans Week, where much discussion about ocean pollution and marine debris took place in Washington, D.C. Ocean pollution is a genuine problem, and it’s important that we identify and address the real causes instead of instituting ineffective solutions. more info |
| 'Rare' bacteria in the ocean ain't necessarily so, researchers report For the first time, Campbell says, the team saw some of the bacteria switch from being rare to abundant. Their findings also suggest that although abundance follows activity in the majority of species, a significant portion of the rare community is active, some with growth rates that decrease as abundance increases. more info |
| Waxman calls for national climate-change-education push The top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday urged Energy Secretary Steven Chu to launch a national climate-change-education campaign. more info |
| Scholastic Media Launches New Magic School Bus Game on Nintendo DS™ -- Scholastic Media, a division of Scholastic Inc., the global children's publishing, education and media company, announced today it will bring The Magic School Bus - the Emmy® Award-winning science adventure series based on the wildly popular Scholastic book series - to the Nintendo DS™ system for the first time. The Magic School Bus: Oceans invites gamers to hop on the bus and explore an ocean teeming with life. more info |
| On a 'QUEST' for tools to better teach science QUEST, which stands for Questioning Underlies Effective Science Teaching, is designed to enhance elementary, middle and high school teachers' knowledge of science and mathematics through hands-on laboratory experiments and field experiences, and to acquaint them with specific ideas and activities to use in their classrooms. more info |
| Toxic Mississippi plume could threaten life in Gulf "We have never seen a pulse of this type of water coming in," said Mitchell Roffer, a biological oceanographer who runs a prominent fishing forecast service. "This is probably the largest pulse of fresh, discolored water to ever reach the keys." more info |
| NOAA Seeking Public Comment on Proposed Rule to Repeal Fishery Management Plan for Stone Crab Fishery NOAA Fisheries Service is seeking public comment on a proposed rule to repeal the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for the Stone Crab Fishery of the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| It's Time We Take the Pulse of the Gulf The Gulf is paying the price for decades of neglect and degradation. There are already signs of coastal erosion, pollution, overfishing and excessive nutrient runoff that has produced a dead zone of depleted oxygen. These problems threaten wildlife and the people who depend on a healthy Gulf for jobs and the food on their plate. And these problems didn't end when the well was capped. more info |
| Public meetings planned on proposed oil pipeline that would cross Oklahoma The pipeline would carry crude oil extracted from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico, traveling through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma before reaching refineries in Houston and Port Arthur, Texas. TransCanada also has proposed connecting it to the Bakken oil field in Montana and North Dakota. more info |
| Gulf Turtle Nests Abound, But Worries Remain . Sea turtle nesting season is underway on Gulf of Mexico beaches, and observers say activity seems normal. But these aren't the same animals that nested during last year's Gulf oil spill, and scientists are concerned about a continued rise in turtle deaths. more info |
| Deadliest hurricane risk is not wind, but water Storm surge — the massive mound of water that builds up and comes ashore as a hurricane moves over the ocean or Gulf of Mexico— is the most dangerous aspect of hurricanes, but many public misconceptions persist about it, according to a recent survey of U.S. coastal residents. more info |
| First Gulf of Mexico cruise: Dead zone already bigger than Delaware DiMarco’s cruise found a dead zone that measured 3,260 square miles. Earlier this year Rabelais and colleagues predicted this year’s dead zone will be the largest ever, reaching a maximum extent of about 9,400 square miles. more info |
| Haunting images in graphic novel capture Katrina journey While other survivors have written about their Katrina ordeals, no one has documented such harrowing experiences quite the way Shaw has in "Hurricane Story." Using toys and dolls, some altered and hand-painted, Shaw staged 46 scenes from her family's evacuation, exile and return, then photographed them with a plastic Holga camera with a magnifying lens glued onto it, pairing the often eerie images with simple lines of text. The result is a compelling graphic novel that feels like an art exhibit tucked inside a lovely, clothbound board book. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico's significance felt on state, national levels For me, this year, I was especially drawn to McKinney's piece on the Gulf of Mexico. We all know the kind of lashing the Gulf has taken from recent hurricanes and last year's disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Louisiana took it on the chin with that one, but the rest of us held our collective breath and waited for the disaster to spread. Luckily it didn't, to any visible degree, but what will the future hold? more info |
| UTMB-Galveston leading seafood review after spill A $7.8 million grant will be used by researchers to examine the safety and human consumption of seafood following oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| New Gulf of Mexico port complex could soon have investors Designed to accommodate mega-vessels that are too deep to navigate the waterway, the state is not expected to contribute financially to the Louisiana International Gulf Transfer Terminal, a cargo transfer point that would be built on a 260-acre tact along the east bank of Southwest Pass in Plaquemines Parish. more info |
| Mobile Bay island sees baby bird boom As this year's crop of baby pelicans and terns hatch out on Gaillard Island in Mobile Bay, biologists in Alabama are breathing something akin to a sigh of relief. At the midpoint of the first nesting season since the BP oil spill, the manmade rookery -- at 1,300 acres, one of the largest pelican nesting areas on the upper Gulf Coast -- seems to be home to a bumper crop. more info |
| Grand Isle roars back to life, but not without fresh scars But town residents have found it is much easier to rebuild a storm-toppled fishing camp than to restore public confidence in the safety of the island's seafood and coastal waters. There also are long-term concerns about the spill's impact on fisheries amid the worst shrimping season in recent memory. more info |
| Shrimpers face new questions over turtle deaths Specifically, Oceana says it used federal and state inspection reports to determine that 17 percent of 76 boats documented across the Gulf of Mexico either lacked TEDs or had them disabled. Louisiana was the worst offender, the group says, alleging that 22 percent of the 36 shrimp boats checked fell into that category. more info |
| Overfishing Hits U.S. Fish Populations U.S. fishermen are exhausting the country’s fish populations. A new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says forty stocks of fish populations are being overfished. The stocks being overfished include cod here in the Northeast, snapper in the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific bluefin tuna off the west coast. Anglers are depleting nearly 16 percent of all U.S. fish populations. But, despite the bad news, federal officials are saying that key stocks have been rebuilt and that strong progress in being made in repopulating at-risk stocks. more info |
| Survey explores health of fish in Gulf of Mexico The first two of three vessels launched from the Florida coast last week on one of many 10-day trips around the gulf aimed at catching and studying fish, such as snapper and grouper, two of Florida's most valuable species. more info |
| Researchers target safety on Gulf shrimp boats During a decade that saw 55 Gulf shrimp fishermen killed at sea, researchers and federal safety regulators in 2004 began looking into the safety shortfalls in Gulf shrimping crews, including a lack of radio skills and basic rescue training. more info |
| Hundreds of whale sharks meet off the Mexican coast Hundreds of whale sharks, the largest fish in the world, have met up for their annual summer congregation in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Sick Fish, Fish Kill Reported in Gulf Collier County officials have sent dead fish and water samples to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg for testing. more info |
| Black Elk launches Gulf oil platform ecoproject A study would be performed near the conclusion of a platform’s use to determine whether a thriving ecosystem exists there. In the event such an ecosystem has developed, the program recommends that deck, well and pipeline abandonment commence appropriately, but would allow the structure to remain for the preservation of marine life habitat. more info |
| LSU, Tulane granted millions to study health effects from Gulf oil spill Louisiana State University and Tulane University are among four Gulf of Mexico region universities to share a $25.2 million, five-year federal grant to study health effects from the 2010 oil spill and subsequent cleanup, with a focus on women and children. more info |
| Using Open Innovation To Bring The Gulf Of Mexico Dead Zone Back To Life One "rule" for innovation is that the best ideas often come from unusual sources, so we're looking for new ideas to help us solve the problem of excess nitrogen. We've posted two specific Eco-Challenges, and are looking for "solvers" to work on them. more info |
| Lake Forest Open Lands Hosts Water Ecosystem Expert Gustavson will present “Living Upstream: The Midwest’s Role in Restoration of the Louisiana Coastline and the Gulf of Mexico” as well as participate in a panel discussion on local water policy and importance with U.S. Congressman Robert Dold, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner Debra Shore, and Glenn Adelson, director of Environmental Studies Program at Lake Forest College. more info |
| I'll have the boiled crabs, please The best reason I could come up with: The preponderance of scientific evidence indicates the seafood is safe to eat. Louisiana and Gulf seafood, the FDA and others contend, is probably the most-tested food product on Earth in the wake of the BP oil spill. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Awards $1.5 Million in Grants The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GRI) Research Board announced today that it has awarded 17 grants totaling $1.5 million to support the time-sensitive acquisition of critical samples and observations associated with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico. The funding will support work from July 1 to September 30, 2011 and is provided under the terms of RFP-III, the most recent GRI request for proposals. more info |
| Texas wetland restoration could be model for Gulf "Strengthening the ecology of the Gulf area is critically important. In doing so we can improve the economy of the Gulf region and strengthen the resiliency of the communities of the Gulf," Sherman said. more info |
| Pollution Took Heavy Toll at U.S. Beaches in 2010 Last year was one of the worst in two decades for pollution-related beach closures and warnings, partly due to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and rainy weather, according to the report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an environmental activist group. more info |
| Back from the dead: 800,000-year-old plankton A single-celled alga that went extinct in the North Atlantic Ocean about 800,000 years ago has returned after drifting from the Pacific through the Arctic thanks to melting polar ice. And while its appearance marks the first trans-Arctic migration in modern times, scientists say it signals something potentially bigger. more info |
| Call for nominations for 2011 Ocean Champion award ANational Ocean Champion is also selected in consultation with the UCI Advisory Committee and national leaders around the country. Nominations may be submitted by an individual or organization, and there is no entry fee. more info |
| UCAR online weather education program gets a redesign At MetEd, the weather-curious can learn about everything from avalanche and fire weather forecasting to the radar signatures of severe convective weather and how to analyze ocean swells. The individual modules -- which can take from 15 minutes to more than two hours to get through -- range in skill level and scope. The material in the modules is presented using videos, diagrams, quizzes, maps, animations and audio. more info |
| Environmental report: Area water is polluted Pollution-related advisory days for beaches in Texas more than tripled, rising from 231 in 2009 to 704 in 2010, the report said. Eight percent of water samples in the state and 4 percent in Galveston County exceeded state pollution standards. more info |
| Date Set for 26th Annual International Coastal Cleanup Today Ocean Conservancy announced that this year's International Coastal Cleanup will be held on September 17th. Over the last 25 years, Ocean Conservancy beach cleanup volunteers have collected enough cups, plates, forks, knives and spoons to host a picnic for 2 million people. The July 4th holiday weekend provides great chances to have fun at the beach, but Ocean Conservancy encourages beachgoers to play a role in saving our ocean by taking small steps such as properly disposing of trash and choosing reusable picnic supplies this holiday and all year long. more info |
| Mobile native Margaret Brown wins grant for oil spill documentary film Margaret Brown -- a Mobile, Alabama, native documentary filmmaker most recently known for her film about the dual racial nature of Mobile's Mardi Gras -- has now turned her attention to the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Tampa Bay's Estuary Program Recieves Prestigious Award Although projects throughout the Gulf of Mexico were nominated, TBEP’s Nitrogen Consortium received the award due to their noteworthy accomplishments of a public-private alliance in reducing nitrogen pollution in the Tampa Bay from wastewater, storm water, air emissions and industrial discharges. The Gulf Guardian Award judges coined the Nitrogen Management Consortium as a model of cooperative watershed management for the entire Gulf of Mexico region more info |
| Underwater Robots Compete in NASA Astronaut Training Tank This competition, sponsored by the California-based Marine Advanced Technology Education Center, is now in its 10th year. more info |
| Shrimpers may face stricter rules to protect turtles Federal regulators also have documented a large decrease in the number of shrimp trawlers using required equipment that allows trapped sea turtles to escape. The National Marine Fisheries Service has increased enforcement of those requirements and is considering new rules that could expand gear requirements by April 2012. Meetings will be held this month to gather public comment. more info |
| Looking out for Alabama and the Gulf of Mexico The challenge, he says, will be to set aside boundary differences in order to focus solely on the damage done by the BP oil spill. This view recognizes that leaders will need to think regionally for the good of all the states that border the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Dead Zone in Gulf of Mexico getting bigger We urge our congressional delegation along with Louisiana's to take action and create laws to regulate waste runoff. Residents along the Mississippi should also be educated about the effect of their runoffs. more info |
| Mississippi Floods to Raise the Dead Zone in the Gulf A record-setting dead zone is predicted to occur in the Gulf of Mexico and expected to kill bottom-dwelling fish and other marine life over a significant portion of the seafloor this summer following the rise in nutrient runoff from the Mississippi floods, according to marine scientists supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. more info |
| Bird group spreads wings The institute's roots date back to the early 1990s when then-graduate student Evers was studying the effects of toxic methylmercury on wildlife. Mercury released by burning coal goes into the atmosphere, then settles on soil and the bottom of bodies of water where bacteria converts it to a toxic form called methylmercury, which accumulates and gets concentrated as it moves through the food chain. more info |
| Thousands of Gulf Sea Turtles Killed by Shrimp Trawls Sea turtles have been swimming in the oceans for millions of years, and now these ancient mariners are being unnecessarily pushed toward extinction. It's time to give sea turtles a breather. more info |
| New storm shelters provide reassurance The good news is that all three coastal counties now have shelters -- called FEMA 361 shelters -- that withstand 200 mph winds. Not only are they sturdy enough for major storm winds, but they also have their own water, sewer and generator systems. more info |
| Task force: Restoring sediment key to Gulf revival Restoring the flow of sediment to Gulf Coast wetlands and barrier islands that are key wildlife habitats and provide crucial protection from storms is one of the biggest challenges officials face as they seek to restore a region whose long-time ecological problems came into focus after last year's disastrous oil spill. more info |
| Caminada shoreline restoration project is ready to go, corps says The Army Corps of Engineers has finally unveiled a long-awaited $446 million plan to rebuild the Caminada shoreline south of Port Fourchon and the mostly disappeared Shell Island to the east of Grand Isle. more info |
| University of Georgia department wins EMMY The broadcast, video and photography unit in the Office of Public Affairs at the University of Georgia has won a Southeastern Regional Emmy Award for "Black and Blue: Beneath the Gulf Oil Disaster." more info |
| Hands Across the Sand Events Across the US Today HATS community organizers in Florida are now working to gather enough petition signatures (700,000 signatures) to get a constitutional amendment on the 2012 Florida ballot that would ban near shore oil drilling (10 miles from the coast on the Gulf of Mexico side, 3 miles from the coast on the Atlantic coast side) during statewide elections. If they manage to do so, and garner a 60 percent “yes” vote in 2012, Floridians will prevent the expansion of offshore drilling for oil and gas in Florida waters. more info |
| NOAA steps up effort to address sea turtle mortality, seeks public input NOAA has scheduled a series of public scoping meetings in mid-July in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and North Carolina, to solicit public comments to assist the agency in identifying issues and options for evaluation in a draft Environmental Impact Statement assessing the environmental impacts of potential regulatory approaches to reduce sea turtle mortality. more info |
| When Sharks Attack Robots. Liquid Robotics’ Wave Gliders have the unique ability to travel for months, years even, across the world’s oceans without having to refuel. They are designed to convert the power of waves mechanically to propel themselves. more info |
| Forecasting 'Dead Zone' Conditions in the Gulf Flooding and runoff along the Mississippi may be combining to produce a bad year for the water in the Gulf of Mexico, enlarging a patch of oxygen-starved water. Nancy Rabelais, executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, describes the summer forecast for the Gulf's 'Dead Zone.' more info |
| Coast Guard: Louisiana Oil Spill Cleanup Done, Origins Unknown . The U.S. Coast Guard said Monday the cleanup of a small oil spill near Venice, La., is complete, but federal investigators are still unsure where the plume came from. more info |
| Did You Know: Divide and conquer Waters in Minnesota drain three ways, to Hudson’s Bay, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. The American Indians referred to the Divide as The Top of the World, even though its altitude is only 1,400 feet above sea level. more info |
| Administration issues new rules for fish farms “But with global fisheries reaching alarming and unprecedented levels of depletion, fish cultivation versus wild fish capture has to be considered.” more info |
| Oysters may survive river flooding Gov. Bobby Jindal has already petitioned the federal Department of Interior to declare a fisheries disaster back in May, Watkins said. The federal government hasn't yet responded to that request. more info |
| Kid's Gulf Discovery Day & Kid's Kruise Learn about the ecology of the Gulf of Mexico and Fowl River from area experts and organizations. Enjoy lots of activities and displays for kids of every age, including the Dauphin Island Touch Table. If that sounds fun, you don't want to miss the special Kid's Kruise with Casi Callaway and the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Staff at Bellingrath Gardens. more info |
| NOAA sets fishing quotas for bluefin tuna “We are working closely with longline fishermen to reduce the amount of bluefin tuna that they catch unintentionally,” said Schwaab. “This spring, we began requiring longline fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico to use weak hooks to reduce the unintended bluefin catch while still allowing them to catch swordfish and yellowfin tuna.” more info |
| Animal Attraction: Sea Turtles Released To The Wild . The YappoPalooza fundraising project supports a binational effort between the U.S., Texas and Mexico that has brought back the Kemp’s Ridley turtle from the brink of extinction. The focus involves protecting the Ridley’s primary nesting sites. About 95 percent of the worldwide Kemp’s Ridley Turtles nest in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico along Gulf of Mexico beaches. more info |
| Fish on Fridays: Twelve Million Lines in the Water Fishery managers, and even Congress, have acted on our need to get a better handle on recreational fishing’s true effect on our fish stocks. Included in the 2006 reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act were provisions to strengthen federal oversight of this activity. more info |
| Library summer programs get in gear About 8 feet long and spouting fire, the dragon was created over a six-week period by children in the after-school program, said children’s librarian, Jaime Lee. Among the many types of materials used to create the dragon were 600 old CDs, each painted magenta and turquoise, for scales; a cardboard box for the head; chicken wire and swimming pool noodles to form the body structure; surgical gloves stuffed with newspaper for feet; bathtub caulking; PVC pipe; a 2x4 to stabilize the dragon; tissue paper; sparkly Christmas ribbon; markers; acrylic paints; masking tape; and tons of aluminum foil. more info |
| Gulf Coast environmentalist, Sea Lab director tangle over Gulf's post-oil spill condition Data collected so far show that the spill’s effects have been "minor" east of Louisiana, according to George Crozier, executive director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. more info |
| Jellyfish blooms transfer food energy from fish to bacteria The researchers tracked the flow of food energy in the lab by measuring the amount of carbon taken up and released by jellyfish and bacteria within closed containers during "incubation" experiments of varying length. Carbon is the "currency" of energy exchange in living systems. more info |
| DI Sea Lab: Leave tar balls on beach "From a public relations point of view, they want to be able to advertise to the public, 'We cleaned the beach! We cleaned it from stem to stern, top to bottom.' But it's a marketing tool. It's not environmentally that big an issue," Crozier said. more info |
| Shark bite victim released from hospital; officials say number of sharks in Gulf not unusual A 20-year-old man bitten by what officials believe was a shark off the Alabama Coast was released Thursday after being treated for three days at a hospital. more info |
| Troy Professors Receive Money for Gulf Oil Spill Research Two Troy University professors have taken on separate projects with funding from the Gulf Research Initiative to conduct research on the BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill. more info |
| Are jellyfish a harbinger of dying seas? Jellyfish could send once-productive seas, including the Gulf of Mexico, back to a more primitive state, if theories pointing to striking increases in the gelatinous creatures prove true. more info |
| Dauphin Island's resources offer a convenient, enjoyable field trip This facility educates the young and old alike with gripping visual displays, interactive exhibits and live aquariums featuring the native habitats of the Mobile Bay Estuary which encompasses the Delta, Bay, Barrier Islands and Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Alabama hosts AFBF commodity conference The more than 100 attendees participated in workshops and tours of outstanding farms in south Alabama and received an update on the coastal recovery from George Crozier, executive director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. more info |
| Navarre Beach Marine Science Station wins Gulf Guardian Award The Gulf of Mexico Program recently announced that the Navarre Beach Marine Science Station of Navarre Beach, Florida will receive a Gulf Guardian Award for 2011 in the Youth Education Category. The Awards ceremony will be held in conjunction with the Gulf of Mexico Alliance Meeting on August t in New Orleans. more info |
| Youth group earns federal recognition A group of local high school students has earned recognition from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for their efforts to educate their peers about problems facing the Gulf of Mexico and its communities in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. more info |
| Major expedition launches to study impacts of recent events on Gulf of Mexico EcoSystem BATON ROUGE, La. and BOSTON,Polymer Solutions,Ocean Alliance, the University of Southern Maine and Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB) today launched a 14-week scientific voyage to study the impacts of recent oil spills and natural disasters on the Gulf of Mexico, one of the world's most important ocean habitats. The scientific mission will leave Key West, Florida with a ten-person team aboard the 93-foot floating laboratory, Odyssey. The team will collect samples from fish, squid, krill, sperm and Brydes whales, and the water from depths of up to 3,000 feet to try to monitor and gauge the health of the Gulf ecosystem. more info |
| Commerce and NOAA release national aquaculture policies The Department of Commerce and NOAA today released national sustainable marine aquaculture policies to meet the growing demand for healthy seafood, to create jobs in coastal communities, and restore vital ecosystems. Foreign aquaculture accounts for about half of the 84 percent of seafood imported by the U.S., contributing to the $9 billion trade deficit in seafood. more info |
| Office of Naval Research engages international partners at OCEANS 2011 The Office of Naval Research's Global (ONR Global) department joined the international scientific community at OCEANS 11 IEEE Santander Conference from June 6-9 in Spain to exchange ideas and support student participation to develop future experts in marine technology. more info |
| The Pier Aquarium Wins Two Foundation Grants for Ocean in Motion The Pier Aquarium has announced two foundation grants that will support education programs this year and 2012. The Margaret Ewell Dickins Foundation of St. Petersburg and the Alvah H. and Wyline P. Chapman Foundation, St. Petersburg have both awarded grants to fund educational programming including Ocean in Motion (OIM), a traveling touch tank program with an outreach education curriculum. more info |
| Communicating the Ocean The concept was ambitious from the very start: Bridging the gap between profound science and entertaining broadcasts. And providing crucial and continuous information on the climatic challenges of the ocean - using all kinds of media. 19 years ago, ALDEBARAN Hamburg set its sails and began to pursue this vision no matter what. more info |
| Nautica to Celebrate World Oceans Day Nautica®, a leading global lifestyle brand, and Oceana, an ocean conservation organization dedicated to protecting the world's oceans, will join forces to raise awareness for "World Oceans Day" on June 8, 2011. World Oceans Day pays homage to the world's oceans and the important role the oceans play in our lives. As an official holiday, it aims to engage more people in the fight to reverse the declining health of marine ecosystems. more info |
| Baldwin County to add Perdido Bay weather, water monitoring station Boaters enjoying Perdido Bay should soon see a new monitoring station that will feed data on weather and water quality to a website, along with several other outposts in the Mobile Bay area. more info |
| Tropicalia Wild File: Great blue heron and stingray A press release about the paper states, “Although elasmobranchs have been previously reported in the diets of birds, this observation was the first documenting the attack and consumption behavior by a bird on an elasmobranch.” more info |
| Fertility Loves Company: Why Mauve Stingers Don’t Go Solo By blooming in large numbers, mauve stingers were only doing what comes naturally: sticking together in order to reproduce more effectively. more info |
| In Historic Flooding On Mississippi River, A Missed Opportunity To Rebuild Louisiana For decades, a mixture of industrial development and erosion has carved away at southern Louisiana, eliminating nearly 2,000 square miles of land and making the area increasingly vulnerable to storms that sweep in from the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Simultaneous meetings produce new fish rules State and federal fisheries management panels meet in Key West and St. Augustine to hash out regulations for several species. more info |
| Louisiana: Coast Guard Investigates Origin of Oil Slick in Gulf of Mexico The Plaquemines Parish president, Billy Nungesser, says oil has been spotted in the waters off the coast near Venice and that he believes the seven-mile slick is from last year’s BP spill. Mr. Nungesser says there have been no recent reports to the Coast Guard of spilled oil in the area. The origin of the oil has not been determined. The Coast Guard has sent pollution investigators to take samples. more info |
| Historic flood begins to abate, but far from over Thousands of acres (hectares) of crops, timber and catfish farms are still flooded, mostly by tributaries that backed up because the Mississippi River was so high. Hundreds of people are still displaced from flooded homes. Some people had nothing to go home to. more info |
| DI Sea Lab Announces New Director Dr. John Valentine has been appointed executive director of Alabama’s Dauphin Island Sea Lab by the Marine Environmental Sciences Consortium board of directors. more info |
| Study: Strongest Gulf hurricanes ease near coast Cool waters just below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico cause the strongest hurricanes to almost always lose intensity before they hit that part of the U.S. coast, according to new research. The findings could help scientists more accurately forecast the storms during this year's hurricane season, which begins Wednesday. more info |
| Largest-Ever Gulf Dead Zone Predicted This Summer "When you get excessive nutrients, you get excessive algae. Those algae sink to the bottom, consume oxygen thus the Dead Zone," said Dr. Robert Twilley, Vice President of Research at UL. more info |
| Company says its containment system can go beyond Gulf of Mexico A Houston company says it has developed a system ready to respond to oil spills worldwide using concepts engineered for the Gulf of Mexico after last year's BP disaster. more info |
| Base prepares for hurricane season The Atlantic hurricane season began June 1 and Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany officials are keeping a close watch on the weather in both the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Beach gets built Longboat Key’s highly erosive North End, which only one month ago the churning waters of the Gulf of Mexico within feet of condominiums, is now protected by a new 130-foot wide beach. more info |
| Flood Fears: Fish Will Spread into New Areas Native to Southeast Asia and China, the various Asian carp, including the silver and bighead species, were introduced to the Mississippi and Missouri River basins starting in the 1960s during floods, which caused the overflow of catfish aquaculture ponds where the carp were being kept for their ability to keep algae at bay. more info |
| States along Mississippi River battle over runoff As the surging waters of the Mississippi pass downstream, they leave behind flooded towns and inundated lives and carry forward a brew of farm chemicals and waste that this year — given record flooding — is expected to result in the largest dead zone ever in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| As Mexico Hurricane Season Approaches, International Insurance Group Offers New Tips For Homeowners The 2011 hurricane season is predicted to be an especially active one, both in the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico. In anticipation of the predicted active hurricane season, Mexico Homeowner’s insurance provider advises owners of property in Mexico to take the following steps to prepare for hurricane season. more info |
| Last 30 oiled sea turtles released back to Gulf The last 30 sea turtles rescued from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, including one that apparently had been bitten by a shark, have gotten well and have been released back into the Gulf. more info |
| Mississippi diverted to revive Delta wetlands This summer, in response to flooding, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has opened two channels to divert part of the Mississippi River away from New Orleans and toward the wetlands. The Bonnet Carre spillway is sending water into Lake Pontchartrain, while the Morganza spillway diverts water through the Atchafalaya River Basin and into the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Systems in Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico unlikely to develop into tropical cyclones A small area of low pressure located over the western Gulf of Mexico about 325 miles east of the Mexican coast is producing limited shower activity. more info |
| Shrimpers, not oil, causing hundreds of turtles’ deaths along Gulf of Mexico, scientists say But the e-mails show that shrimpers across the Gulf of Mexico are routinely failing to place the devices in their nets or installing them improperly. One e-mail describing a series of inspections in Louisiana called “compliance to be poor at best.” At the port of Cameron, one out of nine vessels were found in compliance with the law; in Intracoastal City, La., two out of 17 met federal requirements; and in four other areas where boats were boarded, three out of 29 met the legal test. more info |
| How Oil Spill May Affect Turtles Though the tainted water never reached the Coastal Bend, there is one way some local residents may have been effected. Locally, scientists at the Padre Island Seashore are studying a group of endangered turtles who may have swam in the toxic water. more info |
| Q&A: Jellyfish stings and what you can do about them Monty Graham, senior marine scientist of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama, and Kevin Johnson, Florida Institute of Technology marine and environmental systems professor, provided answers to questions about these common but little understood nuisances of Florida beaches. more info |
| Seasonal Pinellas fertilizer ban in effect The seasonal prohibition on applying fertilizer containing nitrogen or phosphorous on lawns and landscaping began June 1 and will remain in effect until the end of September. more info |
| Biodiversity: Whale sharks gather in Gulf of Mexico Largest-ever aggregation of giant fish discovered off the Yucatán Peninsula more info |
| Wild and deadly weather: Is La Nina to blame? It's been a spring of records -- heat, floods, tornadoes. There appears to be something behind it, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone. Remember the weather effect known as "El Nino"? Well, meet La Nina. more info |
| Will you eat Gulf seafood? Poll finds most still say no A survey of more than 1,500 USA Today readers found about 60 percent still will not eat gulf seafood. more info |
| Will jellyfish storm the beaches Monty Graham, a jellyfish expert and marine scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Louisiana, said he wouldn’t be surprised if mauve stingers showed up on Destin beaches. more info |
| High levels of toxic cadmium dumped into Tampa Bay The water gushing from a former phosphate plant into the Gulf of Mexico in North Manatee County contains high levels of two toxic metals and nutrients that could harm a precious Southwest Florida fishery. more info |
| Low Oxygen in Gulf of Mexico Has Fish Sexually Confused Extensive reproductive disruption, ovarian masculinization, and aromatase suppression in Atlantic croaker in the northern Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone. more info |
| Finalists announced for Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE In order to generate some incentive, and provide financial support to the cream of the crop, the X PRIZE Foundation is now in the midst of its US$1.4 million Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE. more info |
| Infected snapper hard to find in Gulf off Alabama coast despite reports of fish with rash Despite media reports describing a rash of red snapper with lesions caught off Alabama in the Gulf of Mexico, such fish proved difficult to catch during 4 days of intensive fishing off the Alabama coast by a team of researchers from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. more info |
| The Agriculture Chief as Water Advocate On Friday, the Department of Agriculture announced another such program, the Watershed Condition Framework. more info |
| Lovely places: Scenic Byway connects 130 Alabama miles A Dolphin Watch captain won’t promise to get right up next to dolphin; he would know the propeller is their worst predator in these Gulf waters. more info |
| Gulf research teams offer conflicting reports on health of red snapper Despite the reports of diseased fish that are circulating among some commercial anglers and within scientific circles, Alabama researchers fishing within 15 miles of Dauphin Island Thursday caught more than 300 red snapper and found no sign of infection. more info |
| Capitol Hill Ocean Day There was also a panel on the aftermath of the BP Gulf Oil disaster featuring Dr. Jane Lubchenco of NOAA, Admiral That Allen formerly of the U.S. Coast Guard, and Don Boesch of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, and many other conversations around ocean and coastal restoration, plastics in the ocean and more. more info |
| In Pictures: Top ten new species The pancake batfish (Halieutichthys intermedius) was found in the Gulf of Mexico, and walks along the sea floor using its fleshy fins. It is one of the top ten new species of 2010 announced by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. more info |
| Even the Ocean Has Grass Roots This weekend in Washington, D.C., the Blue Frontier Campaign is hosting the 2011 Blue Vision Summit, a celebration of the ocean, its wildlife, and the work people are doing to protect it, as well as serious opportunity to get more work done. As founder David Helvarg said during the official opening of the summit last night at the Carnegie Institution for Science, people are not here just to look at ocean disaster photos, “we’re going to talk about real solutions.” Particularly, they’ll be taking smaller, grass roots solutions that are working, and figuring out how to scale them up for even wider success. more info |
| How the Floods May Restore Louisiana's Wetlands The talk of New Orleans has centered on whether the most severe Mississippi River flood in more than a quarter-century will cause catastrophic damage to a city still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. And for good reason: the flood has carved a destructive path from from Cairo, Illinois, to Vicksburg, Mississippi, and prompted Louisiana's Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, to ask the federal government for emergency assistance. But there just might be a silver lining: the flood could actually help Louisiana's fragile wetlands. more info |
| NOAA predicting 6-10 Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico hurricanes this season After two relatively mild Atlantic hurricane seasons, public and private forecasters are warning coastal residents from Texas to New England to be prepared for a lot more tropical storms in the season that begins June 1. more info |
| A House Divided - BP’s Gulf of Mexico Disaster One Year Later The tough decisions about how to describe the spill reflect Louisianans’ split loyalties, which are divided between the fishing culture – the heart of the state’s identity – and the oil industry, the backbone of its economy. Since the 1930s, the two have been intimately connected: Many fishermen work the rigs in the off-season, and some of the best fishing spots are found near abandoned platforms, where sea life flourishes. In Louisiana, there’s nothing odd about celebrating the annual Shrimp and Petroleum Festival. more info |
| Previous floods followed massive rains The biggest difference is the rain, or lack of it. A spring drought dried up bayous, ditches and swamps this year, allowing the parched ground to soak up and slow the floodwater released May 14 when the Morganza Spillway was opened to relieve pressure on Mississippi River levees. more info |
| Nitrogen from sewage emerging as coral threat Nitrogen from sewage is replacing nitrogen from chemical fertilizers as one of the primary sources of pollution that damages fragile offshore reef ecosystems. The effects are particularly pronounced in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, according to a study published recently in the journal Global Change Biology more info |
| Scientists Explore Hidden World of Ancient Maritime Maya NOAA-sponsored explorers are searching a wild, largely unexplored and forgotten coastline for evidence and artifacts of one of the greatest seafaring traditions of the ancient New World, where Maya traders once paddled massive dugout canoes filled with trade goods from across Mexico and Central America. more info |
| Farm Runoff in Mississippi River Floodwater Fuels Dead Zone in Gulf This year, with floodwaters from the Birds Point levee breach and the Morganza and Bonnet Carret spillways spreading over farmland and other residential areas, the river is collecting tremendous amounts of fertilizer and pesticides. This is contributing to what scientists say may become the largest dead zone ever, and posing a serious threat to already taxed marine life. more info |
| At GMU Commencement, New Grads Urged to Address Complex Issues Collectively These disasters, as well as economic globalization and interconnected financial systems, show that old methods of problem-solving aren’t up to the task, said Allen, who gave the keynote address at George Mason University’s May 21 commencement ceremony at the Patriot Center. more info |
| Mississippi fishermen snag manatees near Deer Island Despite the reports of diseased fish that are circulating among some commercial anglers and within scientific circles, Alabama researchers fishing within 15 miles of Dauphin Island Thursday caught more than 300 red snapper and found no sign of infection. more info |
| Progress on a plan to protect the Gulf The plan calls for wide- spread expansion and creation of wildlife safety zones — similar to the National Park system created more info |
| Task Force Tackles Gulf Restoration “It was so important for me to come today to talk with you, because I want you to understand how important Alabama is in this scheme of the five states involved. As the Governor, I love this state and we want the best for this state. But, as I said, we must all work together. I think the perception is changing. I think as we let people know that the beaches are clean and the seafood is safe that they will begin to come back. I think this summer we are going to see an uptick in the number of people coming, and I do believe our economy is going to improve this summer.” more info |
| Ocean Springs school receives award for environmental education Magnolia Park Elementary School received a $5,500 award Friday from the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources Seafood Technology Bureau for an environmental stewardship program. more info |
| Flooding could spur largest ever dead zone Each year, LUMCON sends an annual research cruise from Cocodrie to map the dead zone. This year’s cruise leaves June 25. But a smaller cruise testing for low-oxygen waters off Terrebonne and the Atchafalaya River will leave Monday. Rabalais said she’s already seen low-oxygen areas developing off the coast in March and April. more info |
| Project Ocean Is "Retail Activism" at its Best Here's a new catch-phrase: retail activism. It refers to stores that get involved with political issues to raise awareness, raise money and presumably sell stuff. A great example in London right now is taking place at Selfridges' Department Store (think Saks Fifth Avenue in the USA) which is really pushing out the boat with their new campaign Project Ocean. more info |
| This fishing contest targets spiny alien invaders Beginning at sunrise one day this month, dozens of mercenaries equipped with nets, spear guns and puncture-proof gloves will slip into the warm waters off Florida's coast in search of a ruthless enemy. more info |
| Dauphin Island Sea Lab director: Gulf Coast oil spill produced large fish population Dr. George Crozier, director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab since 1979, was made an honorary employee of Daphne Utilities by general manager Rob McElroy on Tuesday. That day, Crozier addressed the current state of Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico one year after the oil spill. He said the gulf and the bay are doing much better than originally anticipated. more info |
| Water Flows Through 9 Morganza Bays "We're using every flood control tool we have in the system," Army Corps of Engineers Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh said from the dry side of the spillway, before the bay was opened. The podium Walsh was standing at was expected to be under several feet of water by today. more info |
| Sickened fish in Gulf alarm scientists Patterson is conducting research on the chronic effects of the BP oil spill on Gulf fish. And he sees troubling signs consistent with oil exposure: fish with lesions, external parasites, odd pigmentation patterns, and diseased livers and ovaries. These may be signs of compromised immune systems in fish that are expending their energy dealing with toxins, Patterson said. more info |
| Rising Miss. river raises concerns about channel The corps currently is using four dredges to maintain the channel's 45-foot depth, said Michelle Spraul, the corps' operations manager for the Mississippi River. Although the dredges are keeping up with the sediment, more will likely be needed as high water moves farther south, she said Wednesday. more info |
| Murky Waters While different scientists have reached varying conclusions about how much oil, gas, and related compounds have ended up on the ocean floor, how much remains in the water column, and how thoroughly microbes have degraded the Macondo hydrocarbons, all agree that it is far too soon to know how the unnatural presence of so much oil and gas in the Gulf will ultimately affect its ecosystem. more info |
| Citizen Advisory Committee gets role in Gulf ecosystem task force "Guided by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the CAC will allow the Restoration Task Force to be more responsive to community concerns, and make sure that those who are most familiar with the threats to our Gulf, our coast and our communities have a seat at the table as the restoration implementation strategy is developed," Viles said. more info |
| EPA administrator directs Gulf Restoration discussions "Whether it's the barrier islands and how they protect your beautiful beaches, or whether its the marshlands and how they are the nursery for seafood as well as a way of life. Or the oil, gas and chemical industries that provide jobs. All those things come together and are based on a resource we can't afford to take for granted," said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. more info |
| Rising River Moving Sediment Out Into the Gulf R. King Milling, AWF chair, noted that scientists who have studied coastal erosion in Louisiana have said the river's nourishing materials need to be redirected back into the marshes the river built up over hundreds of years before the levees were built after the 1927 flood. more info |
| Mother Nature Cleans up Gulf Oil Spill Eisen, diving into his presentation, set out to explain what microbes are, why they are so hard to study and how Lady Gaga—an extreme example chosen to represent the human species in opening remarks—was relevant to the matter. more info |
| Tug destined to be hub of new artificial reef She is the hub of a four pronged proposed reef system named Conch Reef. Conch Reef is the County’s latest reef project funded by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission with a 10% match of County funds. more info |
| Does a Monster Flood Have to Fuel a Monster Dead Zone Too? Researchers are expecting a mighty dead zone will form from this year's mighty floods. The Gulf, staggering back from last year's oily assaults on its ecosystems, will likely pay a heavy price... again, smack in the middle of the most breeding season for everything from seabirds to tuna... and smack in the middle of important seasons for commercial fisheries, sports fisheries, and tourism. more info |
| Marine Lab Tracks Pollutants in Dolphins and Beluga Whales Bottlenose dolphins* and beluga whales**, two marine species at or near the top of their respective food webs, accumulate more chemical pollutants in their bodies when they live and feed in waters near urbanized areas, according to scientists working at the Hollings Marine Laboratory (HML), a government-university collaboration in Charleston, S.C. more info |
| Hummingbirds spark the skies It migrates about 950 kilometres from Mexico to its northern home, across the Gulf of Mexico, flying for about 20 hours straight. more info |
| Scientists urge ocean drilling observation U.K. scientists say they want more discussion of independent monitoring of the deep-sea oil and gas drilling industry to judge its ecological impact. more info |
| Oil Spill: New study outlines global species impacts They found 53 species with a distribution that overlaps the area of the oil spill that are categorized as critically endangered, endangered, or vulnerable by the IUCN Red List. Of these, only 14 receive legal protection in the United States under the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, or the Marine Mammal Protection Act more info |
| Students win ‘Best in State’ in engineering competition These award-winning ninth- to 12th-graders worked to solve the global energy “supply and demand” problem highlighted by the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill and current events in the Middle East. more info |
| Kemp's ridley turtle nest count up to 78 The number of Kemp's ridley turtle nests has increase to 78 through Sunday, according to Padre Island National Seashore staff. more info |
| Everyone needs flood insurance Hurricane season officially starts in less than a month on June 1st. One of the items you need to review is your insurance coverage, especially flood insurance. As so many of us found out after Hurricane Katrina, homeowner policies do not cover rising water. more info |
| Washing Away the Fields of Iowa For Iowa — and other Corn Belt states facing similar problems — this means an increasing loss of fertility that has to be replaced chemically. It marks a failure of stewardship, since these soils will have to feed future generations. And every particle that washes away causes problems downstream, including sedimentation — which can increase the risk of flooding — and the alarming dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, the result of runoff of the chemical fertilizers farmers apply to make up for lost fertility. more info |
| 50 Surprising Facts You Never Knew About Oil 4. The states of Texas, Louisiana and California account for over half of all domestic refining capacity. 5. Texas is the leading state in crude oil production with over 5 billion barrels in reserves. more info |
| Proposed parish pipeline provides promise According to the Barataria Terrebonne National Estuary Program, an estimated 163,000 acres of land were lost between 1995 and 2010 alone. more info |
| Study Probes Sources of Mississippi River Phosphorus Overall, the findings suggest that reducing phosphorus pollution will require broad adoption of practices that limit nutrient runoff, such as cover crops, buffer strips, and incorporation of fertilizers. It will also require limits on phosphorus discharge from cities. more info |
| Environmental groups sue Chicago over its sewage Environmental groups on Tuesday sued the city of Chicago's water treatment authority, charging its sewage promotes algae growth that is choking Midwestern rivers and contributes to the Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone." more info |
| Crews rescue whales stranded off FL coast Conservationists have been working to rescue more than a dozen pilot whales stranded off the Florida Keys. more info |
| EPA Administrator to Head Gulf Ecosystem Restoration Task Force Meeting in Mobile, Ala. On Friday, May 6, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson will convene an official meeting of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force in Mobile, Alabama. The meeting will further the task force’s ongoing commitment to supporting the conservation and restoration of resilient and healthy ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| More Frequent Whale Strandings Has Experts on Edge In the last few years, there has been an unexplained spike in the number of whales washing ashore. While the National Marine Fisheries Service has declared an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) in the Northern Gulf of Mexico, it's more than just oil spills that are causing increased strandings worldwide. And experts are worried. more info |
| South Texas Gulf of Mexico beach cleanup kicks off 25th year Saturday Slather on sunscreen, slip on closed-toes shoes, grab your gloves and pick up your beach Saturday to add to the more than 7,900 tons of trash gathered by more than 406,000 volunteers since 1986. more info |
| Rare turtle gets second chance Haverfield said the best way to rescue a turtle that has been hooked is to raise it in a net or walk it to the beach. Reeling it in causes the hook to go further into the animal, causing more damage more info |
| Partnership to monitor oil, gas releases in Gulf of Mexico, Florida Keys ITT Corporation's AADI brand has teamed up with the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill to develop two new multi-sensor arrays to detect light hydrocarbons and oxygen depletion, conditions associated with oil and gas releases. This research is vital to monitor the long-term effects of water contamination and its threat to coral reef and other coastal ecosystems. more info |
| Disasters challenge GOP governors of Ala., Miss. The deadly storms that pounded the South on April 27 were a quick initiation for Bentley into the massive task of disaster recovery. They were just another chapter for his colleague next door, fellow Republican and second-term Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. Barbour has overseen his state's recovery from Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and is now bracing for Mississippi River floodwaters. more info |
| Environmental Benefits Flow Downstream Reusing water improves water quality by reducing the amount of runoff entering the river and helping filter out nutrients and sediments. It provides benefits for farmers, too: the nutrients in the water fertilize the plants, which prefer the warmer reservoir water to cold aquifer water, since the latter takes more energy for them to process. And the reuse of water means that less water is drawn from the aquifer. more info |
| BP oil spill - Newsnight BBC Newsnight report on the Deep Water Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil spill one more info |
| Delta Woods & Waters Joan Turner from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab shows off the jaws of a shark to students on Thursday, April 28,2011 during the Delta Woods & Waters Expo held at 5 Rivers Delta Resource Center on the Causeway. more info |
| Navarre Beach Marine Station honored Charlene Mauro, project director for the Navarre Beach Marine Science Station, has learned the program has received a 2011 Gulf Guardian Award for education. more info |
| Agriculture tied to gulf 'dead zone' Researchers at the University of Illinois and Cornell University warn that phosphorus and nitrate pollution in the Mississippi River from agricultural runoff is causing a growing hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico that threatens marine life and wildlife habitats. more info |
| NOAA ocean explorations: understanding oil spill-related changes in the Gulf of Mexico NOAA and partners conducted 11 ocean explorations in the Gulf of Mexico during the past ten years, providing a foundation of information against which to measure change to the region’s ecosystems — changes that may relate to the Deepwater Horizon event that took place a year ago. With this foundation, as well as emerging information about the oil spill and the response to the spill, NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research created The Gulf of Mexico Deep-Sea Ecosystem Education Materials Collection, which includes an educator’s guide and 16 associated lesson plans. more info |
| Registration for Sea Camp Open The focus of this year's camp is threatened and endangered marine species. Campers will learn to fish, crab, seine and sieve at the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory Marine Education Center in Ocean Springs. Registration for this year's event closes May 13. more info |
| Students to compete in ocean sciences bowl More than 20 high schools from across the nation will compete this weekend in the 14th annual National Ocean Sciences Bowl at Texas A&M University at Galveston. more info |
| Eddies found to be deep, powerful modes of ocean transport "Thus, although hydrothermal sources of heat, chemical and larval fluxes do not exhibit seasonality there is potential for long-distance transport and dispersal to have seasonal to interannual variability." more info |
| Coastal governors form coalition to lobby for offshore drilling The push for a new Outer Continental Shelf Governors Coalition is led by four governors who know a little something about oil and gas production offshore: Rick Perry of Texas, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Sean Parnell of Alaska. more info |
| More storms 'to hit producing areas' Low pressure over the Gulf Coast states, combined with a weaker high-pressure zone around Bermuda will allow storms to track into the western Gulf of Mexico, Chris Hebert, lead hurricane forecaster for ImpactWeather said today at the OTC conference in Houston. more info |
| Governor: Oil spill media coverage hurt Miss. Barbour said Mississippi's beaches are clean and the seafood is safe. He said he had shrimp Creole for lunch Wednesday, with the prawns caught in the Gulf. more info |
| Water walkers to converge at Bad River in June “We are one of the four (groups of walkers) that are carrying the salt water from each of the four directions. To raise consciousness, to collect the consciousness of the people and for people to be aware that the water is very precious. And the salt water is what we are carrying now,” Mandamin said of her group making the trek from the south. more info |
| Interior Department will seek continual improvements in blowout preventers Hayes said that ministers and senior government officials from at least a dozen nations -- including Mexico and Brazil -- will be gathering in Washington April 14 at the Interior Department for a discussion of developments in containing potential deepwater blowouts, and to "share information we have learned from our searing experience with the Macondo well." more info |
| Where to go, what to do in severe weather Did you know that the United States has the highest incidence of tornadoes worldwide, with more than 1,000 occurring every year? This is due to the unique geography that brings together polar air from Canada, tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico, and dry air from the Southwest to clash in the middle of the country. more info |
| ‘Fine’ news from Gulf Coast Researchers from the University of South Alabama and Dauphin Island Sea Lab have been catching about 300 fish a month since the BP disaster and have done detailed internal tests of many fish. Bob Shipp, head of marine sciences at South Alabama, returned from a recent eight-day expedition and, after examining the catch, told the newspaper that “all the fish are fine.” more info |
| Science gets to the bottom of it Larry McKinney, who heads a Gulf research centre at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, has days when he’s confident in the Gulf’s resilience and days when he’s pessimistic. more info |
| Students developed dispersant for oil spills Soy lecithin, which is a byproduct of the soybean plant, is the main ingredient. It is also the primary emulsifier used in the chocolate products that we eat," said Lochhead. "When mixed with oil, such as the type that spilled from the Gulf explosion, the dispersant will create emulsification that will cause the oil to literally fall off anything it touches." more info |
| Number of Kemp's ridley turtle nest found in April at 31 Anyone who finds a Kemp's ridley turtle or nest is asked to call seashore staff at 949-8173, Ext. 226. more info |
| USM researchers focus on seafood safety, oil lurking in Gulf Dr. Milroy and other researchers at USM immediately started gathering data after the rig explosion. At the Marine Science lab at Stennis, technicians are using six different instruments and sensors to detect changes in the Mississippi Sound, like the oxygen level, temperature, and organisms at the bottom of the food chain. more info |
| MERI Director Shaw to Receive Pair of Honors Shaw dove into the oil slick following the 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill to see firsthand its impact on marine life. She has helped to focus the national debate on the hazards of chemical dispersants. She subsequently launched Gulf EcoTox, an independent investigation into the effects of oil and chemical dispersants in the food web. more info |
| See the storms from space Typically, the storms wane at night as the temperature cools, but with this particular system, so much energy has come in from the Gulf of Mexico that it's allowing the storms to hold together overnight, Rob Gutro, a NASA spokesman, explained to me today in an email. "That's why there were tornados overnight in the central U.S." more info |
| Tornadoes, Floods Wrack U.S. Southeast and Midwest The most intense storms are expected across northern Alabama, far northwestern Georgia, northeastern Mississippi and southern Tennessee, according to the National Weather Service. more info |
| GRI Research Board Announces Request for Proposals for BP’s $500 Million Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative “We have created a structure which facilitates the unique, scientific knowledge of Gulf State academic institutions to study and to ultimately contribute to the viability of the Gulf Coast,” said Dr. Bill Walker, Executive Director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources and current Co-Chair of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance Management Team. more info |
| Quick Help for the Gulf In the meantime, the $1 billion (and possibly further interim payments) will be used to restore the ecosystem, as nearly as possible, to the way it was — replenishing damaged beaches, repairing coastal marshes and wetlands, rebuilding oyster beds. more info |
| Members of Ojibwe tribe carrying water from Gulf of Mexico to Lake Superior against pollution Members of the Ojibwe tribe — mostly from Minnesota — are walking from the Mississippi Gulf Coast to Lake Superior to focus attention on how pollution is affecting the world's water supplies. more info |
| New Gulf Coast Conservation project to protect beach nesting birds in 5 States One year after the start of the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, American Bird Conservancy (ABC) announced it will launch a five-state, Gulf Coast conservation effort that will identify and implement protective measures for vulnerable beach-nesting birds such as Least Terns, Black Skimmers, Sandwich Terns, and Royal Terns. more info |
| Gulf Coast Research Laboratory narrowing in on rebuild from Hurricane Katrina The focus of the center will be on conservation of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, he said. more info |
| That time again: Loggerhead sea turtle nesting and hatching season Outside lights that can not be turned off for safety reasons can be temporarily shielded with foil, hoods or painted with black heat resistant oven paint on the beach-facing side. more info |
| Volunteers on watch, ready to walk With Gulf of Mexico temperatures in the upper 70s, the crew that monitors sea turtle nesting on Anna Maria Island is on watch. more info |
| Shorebird nesting season off to good start in Fla. Just about a year after the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, National Park Service scientists are closely monitoring shorebird nests in the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Nesting season began March 1 and continues through mid-August. more info |
| Act Local, Act Global, But Act To leverage those 100 million "acts," to engage people worldwide faster and spur people into environmental action, Earth Day Network has forged a collaboration with the ubiquitous social platform Facebook on the Billion Acts of Green® campaign, the world's largest environmental advocacy and service project. more info |
| Divers work toward reef recovery When the Narcosis Scuba Center takes a boat of divers out into the Gulf of Mexico, a "look, don't touch" policy is strictly enforced. To preserve marine ecosystems, the Tarpon Springs, Fla., shop permits nothing to be removed and brought back on board. Nothing, that is, except garbage. more info |
| Public Offer Opinions about Post-Spill Gulf Restoration President Obama's Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force listened Monday to environmentalists and residents suggestions on what to do in healing the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon disaster a year ago. more info |
| Role of the Gulf of Mexico, water vapor, and global warming Another contributor to the recent severe weather is an unusually warm Gulf of Mexico, where sea surface temperatures are running 1 to 2.5 degrees Celsius above average. The Gulf is the main moisture source for storm systems as they move east from the Rockies, and the additional moisture is helping to fuel thunderstorm development. more info |
| Fertilizer, farmland research, urban sprawl Agriculture has a seat at this table in solving this problem. Our philosophy is that every pound of fertilizer we keep on the farm field not only helps agriculture but the environment. Pressures continue to mount on doing a better and better job of being efficient. more info |
| Gov Tour Fish and Wildlife Commission Fresh off his fishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico, Governor Rick Scott toured Florida Fish and Wildlife and applauded their work. The trip was part of the rookie governor’s plan to visit every agency and department to better understand their mission and their budget. more info |
| Florida Gets Millions From BP BP will give the Northwest Florida Tourism Council (NWFTC) $30 million to help the state's tourism industry recover from the effects of last April’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GRI) Research Board to Announce Request for Proposals The GRI was established to investigate the impacts and fate of the oil, dispersed oil, and dispersant on the ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico and affected coastal States in a broad context of improving fundamental understanding of the dynamics of such events and their environmental stresses and public health implications. BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance appointed an equal number of research scientists to the board. more info |
| BP to give $1 billion for Gulf restoration; each state to select $100 million in projects The Natural Resource Trustees for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill announced today that BP has agreed to provide $1 billion toward early restoration projects in the Gulf of Mexico to address problems caused by the 2010 oil spill. more info |
| Local Divers Work to Preserve Oceans’ Health, Beauty The foundation allows divers and non-divers alike to participate in marine conservancy through many hands-on projects, including underwater and coastal cleanups and reef monitoring. more info |
| Web Resource on Gulf of Mexico Oil Disaster Ocean-Oil.org is a free, open-access, peer-reviewed electronic education resource about the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The Ocean-Oil website is seamlessly integrated into the Encyclopedia of Earth (www.eoearth.org), which is a free, peer-reviewed, searchable collection of content, written by expert scholars and educators, about the Earth, its natural environments, and their interaction with society. OCEAN-OIL resources available in the Encyclopedia of Earth (www.eoearth/oceanoil.org) include the following: more info |
| 2 Ocean Springs educators receive grants for innovative teaching projects "This grant opportunity will allow us the chance next year to look at all of his artwork and be able to look at Horn Island and the ecology there and benefits of Horn Island to folks on the coast," Comerford said. more info |
| Year after Gulf oil spill, group gives mixed report card for wildlife The current status of the coastal wetlands -- where a wide variety of animals live or breed -- is classified in the report as "poor," with that classification based on several factors in place before the April 20, 2010, explosion on the drill rig Deepwater Horizon killed 11 workers and triggered what scientists say was the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Even before the spill, the area was hard hit due to erosion, storms and river channeling. more info |
| Sea erosion threatening Dauphin Island residential areas, coastal marshlands Without a significant and costly beach rebuilding program, erosion threatens the survival of the west end of Dauphin Island as a residential area and leaves the bulk of Alabama’s coastal marshland vulnerable to destruction, according to the results of a multi-year study. more info |
| Seagrass restoration project on Baldwin County coast continues The biggest causes? That would be declining water clarity in coastal areas — most due to poor land management practices. That leads to onshore erosion that winds up in creeks and bays before flowing into the Gulf, Heck said. Another culprit is nutrient-rich runoff from fields and lawns. When the nutrients reach marine environments, they spur explosive growth in algae that crowds out seagrasses. more info |
| Auburn University beach study could be ready by end of month in Baldwin County The professors plan to continue analyzing their data well after they submit their report to the city, by publishing findings in scientific journals and seeking grants to continue studying the ecosystem of the beaches. more info |
| Heron eats stingray for breakfast; 1st proof that birds eat rays Danny Dolan was out for a morning walk, camera in hand, when he spotted a great blue heron hunting in the shallows of the Mississippi Sound. more info |
| Pier Aquarium to move into brand new facility at John's Pass on Madeira Beach in late 2012 The Pier Aquarium will soon be moving away from its long-time home in downtown St. Petersburg to a brand new location at John's Pass Village on Madeira Beach. Aquarium officials making the announcement to relocate the Pinellas County attraction Tuesday morning. more info |
| Port of St. Pete eyed as research hub The city recently requested proposals for developing the under-utilized port, and those who responded all agreed the port is right-sized for research vessels. more info |
| Gulf wildlife one year later Nature is resilient and can recover from most catastrophic events, given enough time. Most scientists believe the Gulf will eventually recover, but when and at what costs? more info |
| Scientists Need Funds to Continue Spill-Related Research In Baton Rouge, Andrea Taylor Recher, spokeswoman for Governor Bobby Jindal's Office of Coastal Activities, said: The state is very committed to scientific research related to our coast and the oil spill. Through the NRDA process and many other actions, hundreds of millions of dollars in studies and assessments are underway to determine the impact of the spill on our natural resources. We are working with other Gulf states through the Gulf Research Initiative to provide additional research funding to our colleges and universities in the near term. more info |
| Mixed bag for Gulf wildlife year after BP spill The Gulf of Mexico is one of the country's most important habitats for birds , with more than 300 species living in or passing through it. There are 34 federally-protected species that call the Gulf home. more info |
| Web Extra: Michael DeGruy on disaster underwater in the Gulf Filmmaker and Oceanographer Michael DeGruy spoke with Piers Morgan last night about the situation underwater in the Gulf of Mexico one year after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. DeGruy says the coral near the well head is stressed and dying. He doesn't think the damage is done. more info |
| Scientists surprised, cautious over environment's apparent post-oil spill recovery With the caveat that much remains unknown — and problems could still emerge at any time — scientists said their worst fears had so far not been realized. more info |
| USM researchers focus on seafood safety, oil lurking in Gulf The numerous bottles inside the freezer contain water and organisms that were collected from the Gulf of Mexico. USM researchers want to know if the fish, shrimp and oyster samples have been exposed to molecules found in crude oil called Polycyclic Aromatic HydroCarbons, or PAH. more info |
| Scientists Brew 'Green' Dispersants in Gulf Spill's Wake There was no chance for their surfactant, early in development, to be used during the spill. But the concept was so well received that, by late August, the National Science Foundation had fast-tracked grants to Somasundaran, along with scientists at Louisiana State University and Iowa State University, to brew and test their green dispersants against Corexit 9500, the chemical widely used during the spill. Modular Genetics would lead the effort. more info |
| BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Wildlife Update: Roseate Spoonbills Despite the fact that the oil spill’s affect on the species is still largely unknown, it seems that the blushing birds largely escaped the worst of it. more info |
| Shorebird nesting season off to good start in Fla. Scientists also are looking ahead to sea turtle nesting season, which begins May 1. They say the number of turtle nests was down last year, likely because of the oil spill and the commotion caused by cleanup crews. more info |
| Public Offer Opinions about Post-Spill Gulf Restoration President Obama's Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force listened Monday to environmentalists and residents suggestions on what to do in healing the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon disaster a year ago. more info |
| Tulane researcher to discuss public health implications of Gulf oil spill at OU lecture A researcher from a New Orleans-based university will visit Oklahoma and discuss the public health implications of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Eleven Year-Old's Drawings Raise $175,000 For Gulf Coast Birds As you all are aware of, the oil spill in the Gulf is devistating (sic). My mom has already donated a lot of money to help, but I have an idea that may also help. I am a decent drawer, and I was wondering if I could sell some bird paintings and give the profits to your organization. more info |
| Sobering trip finds marshes still polluted from spill At the mouth of the Mississippi River, where Pass a Loutre meets the Gulf of Mexico, two state leaders dig in the marsh with their hands Tuesday, and quickly find oil from the BP spill just under the surface. more info |
| ‘SEAFOOD WITH CERTAINTY': Gulf Wild is born in Destin The Gulf of Mexico's Reef Fish Shareholders' Alliance brought in Top Chef Masters finalist Rick Moonen to speak about his dedication to sustainability, the safety of the Gulf's seafood and perform a cooking demonstration using that very seafood. more info |
| As PR crises go, it doesn't get any bigger Speaking at this year's Public Relations Institute annual conference, Mr Chapman, a BP veteran of 17 years, took delegates deep inside the communications challenges of what he described as a "corporate, environmental and human crisis". more info |
| Scientists find higher-than-normal mortality rates in waters affected by spill State biologists collected more than 2,000 oysters in the mortality study. They said they are not sure what caused the oysters to die. However, they say it is possible fresh water diversions affected the salinity of the water -- since the closer to land and the diversions, the worse the mortality rate appeared to be. more info |
| New Web Series Asks the Question: Is the Seafood Safe? The Food Channel® (foodchannel.com) is releasing a WebTV video that takes a look at the future of seafood following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill which began a year ago, April 20, 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico. The film crew shot in New Orleans, La., over a ten day period, checking the pulse of the region's fishing industry and talking to the people who make their living from it. more info |
| CNN Student News Transcript: April 20, 2011 Returning 10 months later, the Louisiana governor's office gave me an exclusive and disturbing look inside this damaged ecosystem. I could still see oil everywhere, sticking to the plants. more info |
| Oil From BP Spill Found on Dead Dolphins in Gulf of Mexico "The northern Gulf of Mexico is no stranger to dolphin mortality deaths," said Blair Mase, a regional marine mammal stranding coordinator for NOAA, referring to deaths researchers consider unexplained. "Since 1990 we've had 11 dolphin mortality events in the Gulf, so it does occur with regularity. What's so unusual about this case is that we've seen a sustained increase in dolphin mortalities since February 2010. So we're particularly concerned." more info |
| Science May Be Murky in the Gulf for Years But the Gulf of Mexico and its coastal wetlands are vastly complicated ecosystems. Scientists had incomplete information on them before the BP oil spill a year ago today, and it will be years before they can start to draw conclusions about the impact of the millions of barrels of oil that spewed into the Gulf. more info |
| Cuba vows to stress safety in search for offshore oil The oil platform expected to begin drilling this summer in Cuban waters of the Gulf of Mexico is one of the "world's safest and most modern" and will operate under "very strict" regulations, a senior government engineer said here Tuesday. more info |
| Public invited to give input on Gulf Coast restoration The Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program is hosting a public meeting on Gulf of Mexico restoration strategies from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Congressman Solomon P. Ortiz International Center. more info |
| One Year Later…How’s the Gulf Doing?. A year after the worst oil spill to strike U.S. waters, oyster beds are struggling along the Gulf of Mexico, the dolphin population is experiencing what the federal government calls an “unusual mortality event,” and red snapper with rotting fins are showing up on fishing lines. WSJ’s Jeff Ball joins us to discuss why scientists aren’t prepared to totally blame the BP oil spill for these problems just yet. more info |
| NASA To Leverage Nebula For Gulf Ecosystem Project The center's Applied Science and Technology Project Office (ASTPO) has been using the results of NASA Earth Science research to address issues identified by a partnership of five states in the Gulf region called the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, according to a post on NASA's Nebula blog. more info |
| Cost to coast unclear Washing birds off is more dramatic, but problems with food sources — seafood and vegetation — can also have a long term impact on waterfowl populations. That, too, can take time to determine. more info |
| What will you discover? Dauphin Island Sea Lab's Discovery Day this Saturday Sat. April 16th 10am-2pm Featuring FREE CHILDREN’S ADMISSION TO ESTUARIUM more info |
| Ocean Connections: National Environmental Education Week This week (April 10-17, 2011) is National Environmental Education Week, the nation’s largest environmental education event held each year the week before Earth Day to inspire environmental learning and stewardship among students and the public. more info |
| GCRL plans Earth Day celebration The University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory will host a free Earth Day Celebration for the community from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the lab, 703 East Beach Drive in Ocean Springs. more info |
| Cold hard data vs warm baby dolphins Much of the drama that drives these stories to the front page arises out of potential links to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year. It’s important to critically evaluate these sorts of reports, however, and not to allow traditional press/media to create causal relationships for us, based on an editor’s impression of a perceived correlation. more info |
| Water reuse is South Florida priority, no matter how icky it sounds Using highly treated sewage to water lawns or to recharge the region's water supply may not sound appealing, but water reuse has become a crucial component for communities under pressure to conserve drinking water and to end the discharge of treated wastewater into the ocean. more info |
| Junior Wildlife Champions Promote Positive Change Increasing children’s awareness of current events can be easy and educational, especially if you empower them to make positive changes in their own ways. There are also fun, new tools to help teachers and parents enhance their children’s science education. more info |
| 'I'd stake my reputation on it': Gulf fishing alliance introduces new brand Local restaurateurs, seafood dealers and fishermen joined forces with the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance to promote Gulf seafood through a new tagging and tracking system called TransparenSea and under the new “Gulf Wild” name. more info |
| Clips from HBO documentary Saving Pelican 895 More than 7,000 birds were killed as a result of the oil spill that spread through the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April 2010. In "Saving Pelican 895," HBO documentary filmmakers present the story of the 895th surviving oiled pelican to be rescued by the Fort Jackson Oiled Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Louisiana. more info |
| Bluefin Tuna Catch a (Small) Break The hooks are simply thinner than usual, and bend under the weight of a bluefin, whose average size when caught in the gulf is 485 pounds. The hooks still work for yellowfin tuna and swordfish, which weigh a lot less. Fishing for bluefin in the gulf has been illegal since the 1980s, but longline boats often catch them without meaning to. Whether landed or released, the bluefin die. more info |
| Spill-related health concerns persist Oil-spill cleanup workers and commercial divers are the most prone to high levels of cancer-causing chemicals believed to be related to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, according to tests from an independent group of chemists, advocates and doctors. more info |
| Oily birds the inspiration for science fair project The 15-year-old Archbishop MacDonald high school students presented their findings Saturday morning at the Edmonton Regional Science Fair where their project, called Novel Concepts to Decontaminating Oiled Birds, attracted a steady stream of curious judges. more info |
| Artwork highlights devastation The interactive exhibit, simply called "Spill IT," deals with the environmental and economic impact of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Magnitude 6.5 Earthquake : 2011 Mexico News A magnitude 6.5 earthquake hit Veracruz, Mexico at 6:11 AM Pacific time today, April 7, 2011. Veracruz, Mexico is located in the central part of the state on the Gulf of Mexico. Veracruz is a major port city which happens to be the oldest and largest port city in Mexico. Because of the depth of the earthquake, no injuries or fatalities were reported. more info |
| Carl Safina Studies ‘Saving The Ocean’ Marine biologist Carl Safina is an optimist, though. In his new PBS series “Saving the Ocean,” Safina turns his attention on promising conservation efforts around the world, from rebounding cod stocks off New England, to an Islamic conservation movement in a poor fishing community in Zanzibar. more info |
| Atlanta radio personality Paul Leslie runs to benefit Alabama Coastal Foundation "They want to help support our cause and it also will hopefully raise some much needed funds to help with our work in continuing to get information to the public in the aftermath of the oil spill as well as our education and habitat programs which are ongoing." more info |
| New study warns on coral reef diversity Over a two-year period, researchers gathered biological field data from nearly 2000 reef sites worldwide detailing fish species' weight, size and abundance, enabling them to calculate the cumulative weight of individual reefs (standing biomass). These results were then compared against demographic data. more info |
| 10 Ways to Help Students Ask Better Questions Students have spent hours learning the art of questioning. Here are ten things I've done in class to encourage students to ask better questions: more info |
| Gulf Coast beaches clean of 2010’s oil spill After days of walking the beaches, driving almost 900 miles, and talking to countless residents and visitors from Grand Isle, La., to the Florida Panhandle — the coastal band most affected by the catastrophe — here is what I found. more info |
| Sea Lab center gets the gold The $4.5 million facility on Dauphin Island is the first LEED Gold certified building in south Alabama, according to John Dindo, assistant director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. more info |
| Weeks Bay Day Celebrates Reserve's 25th Anniversary Coastal conservation took a significant step in 1986 when the Weeks Bay watershed in Baldwin County was added to the National Estuarine Research Reserves System, which encompasses more than 1.3 million acres of coastal and estuarine habitat in 28 reserves located in 22 states and Puerto Rico. more info |
| Fewer than 50 percent of Lafourche, Terrebonne homes have flood insurance Fewer than 50 percent of households and businesses in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes have flood insurance policies, according to parish officials. But parish officials say that's not enough in a community that faces flooding threats from heavy rainfall, river flooding and an increasing threat of storm surge as wetlands erode away and the Gulf of Mexico continues to march further inland. more info |
| Art inspires hope for cleaner seas It is part of a collaboration with Hurley and the charity H.O.P.E., or Helping Other People Everywhere, which promotes education and peace through social projects. Boyd, 35, created the sea-inspired, hand-drawn images for the special collection of tees and water bottles to raise awareness about humans' impact on the oceans. more info |
| Ohio students learn at Ala. beach Joan Miller, an eighth grade teacher, wanted to teach her visual art students about our area. The students were initially going to take a field trip to the Kentucky Aquarium to learn about nature. Lucy Buffet then offered a chance to experience the Gulf Coast and wildlife first hand. Buffet will fund housing and food for the students during their stay along with entertainment. more info |
| MRH Eighth-Graders Learn About Marine Ecology and History in Alabama Trip On Monday, the students hopped aboard the Alabama Discovery, a research vessel, to learn about more than a dozen species of wildlife and to talk about the ecology of the area, Dillon said. The school is working in conjunction with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, which has deployed coordinators to travel with the group. more info |
| Oil from last summer's spill evaporated, dissipated or was soaked up, says scientist Graham’s speech to about 200 young graduate students at the Southeastern Ecology and Evolution Conference dealt with how scientists engage the public in the midst of a crisis. more info |
| ONLY ONE OCEAN CD by the Banana Slug String Band Wins Parents’ Choice Award ONLY ONE OCEAN, the brand new children’s educational music CD by the Banana Slug String Band, has been awarded a 2011 Parents’ Choice Award. Established in 1978, Parents’ Choice is the nation's oldest nonprofit guide to quality children's media and toys. more info |
| MacGillivray Freeman Films launches global campaign to protect ocean The campaign is focused on two primary goals to achieve by 2020. One World One Ocean will advocate for at least 10 percent of the world's oceans to be set aside as national and international marine sanctuaries. Currently just 1 percent of the ocean is protected compared to 12 percent of protected land around the world, which is preserved through national parks, monuments and world heritage sites. One World One Ocean will also fund conservation projects aimed at changing the way people eat sea life, which has been decimated by over-fishing and pollution. more info |
| Sanibel Sea School, BIG ARTS present 'Bag It,' Q & A with film's director The Sanibel Sea School and BIG ARTS present the 2010 Blue Ocean Film Festival winner "Bag It," followed by question-and-answer session with the film's director, Suzan Beraza. BLUE Ocean Film Festival is a global film festival and conservation summit for underwater filmmakers and marine researchers. more info |
| Earth, We Have a Problem -- Failure Is Not an Option Today, we are threatened with many challenges that science has labeled our planetary boundaries. In an article in Nature, Johan Rocstrom and his co-authors argue that to avoid catastrophic environmental change, humanity must stay within defined planetary boundaries. If one boundary is transgressed, then safe levels for other processes could also be under serious risk. The planetary boundaries include: climate change, ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol loading, chemical pollution, land system changes, ozone depletion, overload of phosphorus and nitrates, and decreasing fresh water resources. more info |
| US to share BP oil spill lessons at international forum The United States will share with officials from at least a dozen countries information on how to "put together and put in place strategies for responding to blow-outs," Hayes said. more info |
| U.S. eyes more rules to prevent oil blowouts The U.S. government is weighing more safety standards for blowout preventers on oil-drilling rigs, after a probe uncovered a possible design flaw that may have helped to cause last year's massive Gulf oil spill, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Tuesday. more info |
| Endangered Species Act Protection Sought for Nation’s Smallest Seahorse The Center for Biological Diversity today filed a petition seeking Endangered Species Act protection for the dwarf seahorse, a one-inch long seahorse that lives in seagrass beds in the Gulf of Mexico, Florida and the Caribbean. The seahorse is threatened with extinction due to pollution from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, decline of seagrass throughout its range and commercial collection. more info |
| Galveston has little to fear from tsunami The chance of a tsunami crashing into Galveston Island and surging up the Houston Ship Channel is low based on available information, but it could still happen, a scientist at a tsunami conference here said. more info |
| U.S. scientists find 2,000-year-old coral near BP Gulf well "The fact that the animals live continuously for thousands of years amazes me," Nancy Prouty, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey said in announcing the findings, which are part of several ongoing coral studies. more info |
| Sea turtle deaths up along Gulf, joining dolphin trend "In the past couple of weeks, we've seen an increase" in turtle deaths in the northern Gulf, Connie Barclay, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told msnbc.com. more info |
| Will Earth day be overshadowed by another environmental disaster? Richter encouraged everyone to use this year's Earth Day to speak out about the environmental issues that they care about. "They should be thinking about their grandchildren and the world that those children are going to get left with," he said. "People need to let their government know, let their representatives know, that they are very concerned about this issue and they are going to hold their representatives accountable for their actions." more info |
| The Sun Can Power More Than Just Smiles Yes, it’s that simple — and practical! Alternate energy resources are not pie-in-the-sky, they are reasonable and affordable and will enable you to free yourself from a tradition you may not be so happy with. more info |
| Oil-Eating Bacteria Engineered SKIMMING, CONTROLLED BURNS AND DISPERSANTS ARE SOME OF THE MAIN TOOLS USED TO CONTROL BIG OFFSHORE OIL SPILLS LIKE THE APRIL 2010 SPILL IN THE GULF OF MEXICO. BUT ONCE THE OIL GETS ON SHORE OR INTO MARSHLAND, IT POSES A MUCH DIFFERENT SET OF PROBLEMS. more info |
| Gulf mammal deaths likely far higher than body count, scientists say The scientists urge environmentalists and authorities not to rely solely on observed carcass counts in judging the severity of an event, but to develop standard formulas for more accurate estimates. more info |
| Nancy Rabalais’s Revelle Lecture looks at Gulf of Mexico oil disaster Nancy Rabalais, executive director and a professor at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, will present “Troubled Waters in the Gulf of Mexico” at 4 p.m. on April 5. more info |
| FWC Biologists Discover New Species in Hillsborough County Fisherman's Catch A scientific publication released Thursday officially announced the discovery of Chromodoris fentoni, a type of shell-less snail known as a nudibranch (pronounced “nu-da-brank”). more info |
| Gifted students learn about birds The 43 students from Oak Grove Middle School spend one day a week at the center learning about birds as part of an ornithology unit. more info |
| 2,000 Year-old Deep-sea Black Corals call Gulf of Mexico Home For the first time, scientists have been able to validate the age of deep-sea black corals in the Gulf of Mexico. They found the Gulf is home to 2,000 year-old deep-sea black corals, many of which are only a few feet tall. more info |
| Mexico-USA Water Crises all along the Rio Grande As World Water Day came and went last week, Mexican officials once again sounded the alarm over the depletion and contamination of water resources in the northern border region. In Matamoros, Tamaulipas, a public utility official reminded residents that the Rio Grande, which historically entered the Gulf of Mexico outside Matamoros, was one of the world's waterways in danger of "extinction." more info |
| Marine education is just a mouse-click away The internet revolution has led to the proliferation of accessible web-based educational resources more info |
| La. pushes to get BP money for Gulf restoration Louisiana's congressional delegation is making a new push to get money from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill dedicated to restoring the Gulf Coast. more info |
| Snorkeling reef to be installed at Pensacola Beach next week Escambia County Marine Resources Division is expected to begin installing a long-awaited snorkeling reef in the Gulf of Mexico off of Pensacola Beach next week, weather permitting. more info |
| Tornado watch in effect for Tampa Bay A tornado watch was in effect for Tampa Bay until 8 p.m. Wednesday as severe weather moved into the region from the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Gulf Guardian nominations sought; program honors those protecting waters Nominations for Gulf Guardian awards will be accepted through Thursday to recognize businesses, community groups, individuals and organizations that take extraordinary steps to keep the Gulf of Mexico healthy, beautiful and productive, program organizers said. more info |
| Warm water causes extra-cold winters in northeastern North America and northeastern Asia Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have now found a mechanism that helps explain these chillier winters—and the culprit is warm water off the eastern coasts of these continents. more info |
| Obama Lays Out Plan to Cut Reliance on Fuel Imports President Obama called on Wednesday for a one-third reduction in oil imports over the next decade, and said the effort had to begin immediately. In a speech at Georgetown University , the president said that the United States cannot go on consuming one- quarter of the world’s oil production while posessing only two percent of global reserves. more info |
| Forum to focus on tsunami impacts “The top tsunami experts in the world will gather here in Galveston to discuss the best techniques for modeling tsunami propagation and how we can improve the accuracy of tsunami predictions such as arrival time, wave height and flooding,” Panchang said. more info |
| Crisis management puts huge strains on firms, CEOs Crisis managers say TEPCO is facing one of the most challenging forms of corporate disaster -- potentially open- ended and endangering health and human life. As oil giant BP (BP.L) found in last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill, that can be a very uncomfortable place to be. more info |
| Water issues worry Americans most, global warming least, says new Gallup poll Water issues worry Americans most – loss of open space and global warming worry Americans least – according to a new Gallup poll. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Alliance Welcomes AG Associations The Gulf of Mexico Alliance's (Alliance) newest partnership with members of the Southern Association of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors (SAAESD) and Association of Southern Region Extension Directors (ASRED) will expand efforts to balance agricultural needs with improved water quality. more info |
| Marsh provides backdrop for Moss Point fourth-graders' watershed education The marsh at the Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve was the backdrop for Moss Point fourth-graders to learn about the watershed - and to have some fun. more info |
| Red tide hurts, but could it also cure diseases? Aside from making healthy people cough and wheeze, red tide can have serious health consequences, scientists have documented after a decade of research. Just one hour of exposure to red tide causes people with asthma -- about 6 to 10 percent of the population -- to suffer breathing problems for up to a week. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative To implement the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, BP has entered into an agreement with the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, a partnership of the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The alliance has worked for several years on issues such as water quality, habitat conservation, ecosystem integration and coastal community resilience. more info |
| Government tightens lid on dolphin death probe The U.S. government is keeping a tight lid on its probe into scores of unexplained dolphin deaths along the Gulf Coast, possibly connected to last year's BP oil spill, causing tension with some independent marine scientists. more info |
| Accepting Nominations for the 2011 Gulf Guardian Awards! The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Gulf of Mexico Program partnership developed the Gulf Guardian awards as a way to recognize and honor the businesses, community groups, individuals, and organizations that are taking extraordinary steps to keep the Gulf healthy, beautiful and productive. more info |
| U.S. Coast Guard Says Tests Link Spill to Anglo-Suisse Well The U.S. Coast Guard said samples of oil that washed up on Louisiana beaches last weekend match crude that Anglo-Suisse Offshore Partners LLC reported spilling from one of its Gulf of Mexico wells. more info |
| Flooded farmland didn't keep ducks out of marshes Flooding farmland after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill didn't keep migrating ducks from flocking to coastal marshes but did provide essential inland wetlands during a major drought, a Louisiana state waterfowl expert said. more info |
| NOAA, FDA Continue to Re-test Gulf Seafood and Post Results NOAA continues to re-test seafood from the Gulf of Mexico to demonstrate to American and worldwide consumers that it is safe to eat, and announced today it will continue this re-testing into the summer. more info |
| Oil Drilling to Resume in the Gulf’s Deep Waters The Interior Department said Monday that it had approved the first new deepwater drilling permit in the Gulf of Mexico since the BP explosion and spill last spring, a milestone after a period of intense uncertainty for industry and a wholesale remaking of the nation’s system of offshore oil and gas regulation. more info |
| Large Intl Presence in Sciences Convention in Cuba Experts in geology, geophysics and mining from the five continents will attend the 4th Cuban Convention of Earth Sciences (Geociencias 2011) to be held in Havana on April 4-8. more info |
| Texas' two decades of oil spill readiness When the Deepwater Horizon undersea oil rig blew out in the Gulf of Mexico last year, adjacent Texas had an advantage no other coastal state can claim — an oil spill response program with pre-positioned equipment, expertise and most importantly, well-rehearsed plans for protecting our state's waters. more info |
| New sightings of apparent oil near Chandeleur islands reported from flyover Even as officials tried to determine the source of weathered oil near Grand Isle, whole new swaths of what could be fresh surface oil have popped up on the other side of the Mississippi River, in the open water between the delicate coastal bayous and the sandy crescent-shaped Chandeleur barrier islands. more info |
| Dawn® Launches a Junior Wildlife Champions Program to Help Educate Future Generations In conjunction with its long-standing partners, International Bird Rescue (Bird Rescue) and The Marine Mammal Center, Dawn collaborated with Discovery Education, the leading provider of high quality curriculum-based digital content whose services are available in more than half of U.S. schools, to help provide teachers and families with new in-class lesson plans and at-home activities that teach youths and encourage them to explore the issues and get involved in their own ways. more info |
| World Water Day Brings a Flood of Corporate Commitments Shoemaker Teva launched a shopping-based program today that will find the company protecting one linear foot of global waterways for each pair of Teva products sold in 2011. The company will donate to nonprofits including the Ocean Conservancy and the Waterkeeper Alliance to protect as much as 4.3 million feet of waterways. more info |
| Trash Free Seas: 25 Years of Snapshots of this Global Problem Ocean Conservancy is releasing today a new report titled “Tracking Trash: 25 Years of Action for the Ocean.” This milestone report compiles data and stories about trash in the ocean, known as marine debris, for every participating state and country, collected from 2010 and as well as 25 years of International Coastal Cleanups—the largest volunteer effort for the ocean. The report also highlights solutions from individuals to inspire behavior change and from companies to accelerate product innovation. more info |
| Cormorants show up in big numbers over coastal areas Huge flocks of cormorants have taken up residence in a few locations around Dauphin Island this year, part of an annual migration that brings the birds each winter. This year, say some in the birding world, it seems like there are more than ever. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico oil spill 2010: Much oil never made it to the surface, scientists say The 40th annual Benthic Ecology Meeting was held at the Renaissance Riverview Plaza this week, drawing about 600 scientists from around the nation who study the creatures that live along the seafloor. The meeting was sponsored by the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and the University of South Alabama more info |
| Alton Brown celebrates the soul of gumbo on Dauphin Island Alton Brown, host of the Food Network’s popular “Good Eats,” lays great store by his ability to explain — in great detail — the science behind why foods taste and cook up the way they do. more info |
| A small sanctuary on a very small Alabama island I want to express my love and appreciation for a little known wildlife refuge on Dauphin Island. It is the Audubon Sanctuary that provides an amazing variety of ecosystems. There is no admission fee, and the site is enjoyed by residents and visitors from throughout the world. more info |
| 800 bags: 400 mangrove seedlings, 400 marsh grass Volunteers plan to set out 800 burlap bags filled with soil, inoculated with oil-eating bacteria and planted with mangrove seedlings and marsh grasses in an area hit hard by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. more info |
| Coast Guard: Gulf sheen likely came from river The sheen is believed caused by “a tremendous amount of sediment being carried down the Mississippi River due to high water,” some of it related to recent heavy rains in the Midwest and “possibly further agitated by dredging operations,” Coast Guard officials said. Reports of a sheen in Timbalier Bay, near Grand Isle, Fourchon Beach and Elmer's Island, are also being investigated and some areas have been boomed off. Jefferson Parish said Sunday that well south of Grand Isle had released oil for 4-6 hours before being plugged. However, no well fires were reported around Grand Isle, and no injuries were reported. more info |
| Mercurial Mysteries “My research is focusing on methylmercury because it is the form of mercury that actually moves through the food web,” says Rumbold, “and people are exposed to it almost entirely by eating fish or other aquatic wildlife that are at the top of that food web.” more info |
| Scientists Release Air Quality Data From Gulf Oil Spill De Gouw says these heavier compounds are not usually measured in conventional air quality monitoring programs, which are designed to capture other contaminants like carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and ozone. The study, reported in the Journal Science, may also shed light on why there are more organic aerosols in polluted air than scientists can explain. more info |
| Nature exhibits rebuilt after Katrina back in place at Davis Bayou center And today, they will be open to the public for the first time in an open-house celebration from 10 a.m. to noon. The formal name of the building is William M. Colmer Visitor Center. more info |
| Loker Kindergartners 'Solve' Marine Mystery The Fishes/Sandlers have been performing their educational acts for 33 years. Their tour has taken them to 20 countries, including Indonesia and Samoa. more info |
| New Report--25 Years of Tracking Ocean Trash part of its Trash Free Seas campaign, Ocean Conservancy is releasing the only annual global snapshot of the problem of trash in our ocean in a report titled “Talking Trash: 25 Years of Action for the Ocean” on Tuesday, March 22. It provides a 25-year look at the trash and other marine debris found on beaches and in the water. The report will be used to educate the public and leaders in government and industry to make strides in preventing marine debris from choking our ocean and waterways. more info |
| Samohi Students Participate in National Student Summit “The summit is designed to teach high school students about the interconnectedness between the ocean, Great Lakes, inland seas, and climate with particular focus on climate change,” according to the summit’s website. more info |
| API to establish offshore safety center in Houston A petroleum industry group plans to establish a center for offshore safety in Houston nearly a year after a disastrous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Website in works to track seaweed to Galveston Researchers plan to launch a website next year that could help forecast how much seaweed ends up on Southeast Texas beaches. more info |
| DI mayor told there is minor leak in gulf Dauphin Island Mayor Jeff Collier said he was e-mailed information from two sources by a member of Dauphin Island's chamber about a possible leak in the Gulf. One source was from upstate Alabama and the other was from a Coast Guard source. more info |
| Oyster testing can reflect oil spill impact on Pensacola Bay Emerald Coastkeeper and the City of Gulf Breeze are monitoring oysters to measure whether the long-term impact from pockets of submerged oil could be hazardous to the health of the Pensacola Bay. more info |
| Are lionfish coming to a plate near you? tropical fish native to Indonesian waters has now established itself as a permanent resident of the Gulf and south Atlantic, scientists say, posing a threat to valuable commercial and recreational fish like red snapper. more info |
| BP Chief Says Industry Must Change to Guard Against Spills In his first public address to oil industry executives since becoming chief of BP, Robert Dudley said the entire industry needed to change to prevent another devastating deepwater oil spill like the one BP suffered last year. more info |
| On the Mark: Advertising means more than just getting them here Collier County has grown and prospered because of our prime amenity, the Gulf of Mexico. Not only are the beaches a sought after destination, but so are boating and a myriad of other saltwater-related sports. Tourists flock here to spend a week, a month, or a season in what many consider a paradise. more info |
| Five-mile wide suspected oil slick spotted just north of Deepwater Horizon explosion site Officials have confirmed there is a five-mile wide spill of some substance in the Gulf of Mexico, but have not yet identified it. more info |
| Study suggests alternative treatment for bacteria in oysters A joint study by local oyster growers and researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science shows that moving farmed oysters into saltier waters just prior to harvest nearly eliminates the presence of a bacterium that can sicken humans. more info |
| Can art help us understand environmental disaster? Simon Stevens, spokesperson for Invisible Dust, the charity that commissioned HeHe, argues that society is inured to environmental disasters because of constant media coverage. He believes that art is critical in helping us to focus our understanding of past events: "Art goes beyond the headlines, it gives you the space and the freedom to think without the commentary." more info |
| Over 50,000 Sharks Poached in the U.S. Gulf, but Some Good News for Embattled Apex Predators Of the 26 – 73 million sharks killed each year for their fins, the Washington Post yesterday reported that over 50,000 sharks are poached from the U.S. waters in the Gulf of Mexico (this number is based on a 2005 study, so likely many more are killed). The Mexican fishermen who catch these sharks risk confiscation of their boats and capture by the U.S. Coast Guard because sharks fins are such a valuable commodity. more info |
| Florida Senate passes oil spill recovery measure The Florida Senate has unanimously passed a bill designed to help the Florida Panhandle diversify its economy after last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill dealt a severe blow to its tourism industry. more info |
| Rare shark spotted off Panama City Beach Walkers and fishers on the pier Thursday afternoon were privy to an astounding sight, as a basking shark, about 15 feet long, meandered around the Russell-Fields Pier. more info |
| Lowly Rangia clam as oil-sucking hero? Researchers aim to find out The lowly Rangia clam, so common in the waters of Lake Pontchartrain, Lake Maurepas and other brackish bodies of water in the South, may take on a new role if studies at Southeastern Louisiana University determine the organism can actually contribute to helping clean oil-polluted waters. Caitlyn Guice, a junior chemistry major from Prairieville, has received a $2,300 Louisiana Sea Grant Undergraduate Research Opportunities Grant to study the ability of the clam to remove hydrocarbon pollutants from natural water a[Euro]" like the oil that polluted the Gulf of Mexico last summer. more info |
| Hurricane names Igor, Tomas retired Two of the 19 storm names used in the busy 2010 season have been retired and won't reappear on the list of storms in future seasons. more info |
| More dead dolphins have scientists looking for answers Institute of Marine Mammal Studies Director, Dr. Moby Solangi, told WLOX News that three other dolphins were found dead in Alabama yesterday. more info |
| As Cuba Prepares to Drill for Oil Offshore, New Report Urges Major Changes in U.S. Policy The Center for Democracy in the Americas is devoted to changing U.S. policy toward the countries of the Americas by basing our relations on mutual respect, fostering dialogue with those governments and movements with which U.S. policy is at odds, and recognizing positive trends in democracy and governance. more info |
| ‘Buddies’ help kids understand Then, Karen Thomason had an idea. Why not write a book, or a series of books to explain the spill to youngsters? They were seeing for themselves that the youngest children were scared and confused. more info |
| FOR KIDS: Gulf floor got slimed Memories of last year's mammoth oil spill may be fading, but on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, plenty of reminders persist. Patches of oil litter the seafloor. Some are small, like droplets that sprinkled down from above; others are thick carpets of oil. more info |
| Extent and Speed of Lionfish Spread Unprecedented The rapid spread of lionfishes along the U.S. eastern seaboard, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean is the first documented case of a non-native marine fish establishing a self-sustaining population in the region, according to recent U.S. Geological Survey studies. more info |
| Study: ‘Oil-based’ atmospheric plumes found near BP spill The University of Miami said Friday that a team of researchers led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found two plumes of “oil-based pollutants” in the atmosphere near the Deepwater Horizon rig site in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Like oil and water in the gulf Cuba and its foreign partners will begin exploring for oil this year in the Gulf of Mexico. Drilling will take place as close as 50 miles from Florida and in sites deeper than BP's Macondo well, the source of last year's disaster. About 5 billion barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas lie beneath the gulf in land belonging to Cuba, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. more info |
| Cousteau: A life of green action Environmental activist Philippe Cousteau is to explore the Arctic with CNN to show how scientists in the wilderness are studying climate change in one of the coldest places on the planet. more info |
| Global Ocean Race : A vital offshore racing environmental alliance is agreed A partnership between the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and the Global Ocean Race 2011-12 (GOR) was confirmed at the Solo Racing Festival held at the Royal Southern Yacht Club in Hamble, UK, over the weekend. This ground breaking initiative will include a green mandate for GOR teams during the double-handed, Class40 round the world race; a drive to raise awareness of collisions between yachts and whales; an international education programme and vital research and data collection by the GOR teams throughout the circumnavigation. more info |
| Oilenomics: Tampa Bay spill coverage It has been nearly a year since the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s first coverage of the BP oil spill, and while the well is capped and the story is less front of mind, there continues to be a range of issues surrounding the economic impact of the spill in Tampa Bay, despite no oil ever washing up on our beaches. more info |
| Don't forget about the children! It’s that time again…before you know it, hurricane season will be with us again. When making preparations, please don’t forget about involving the children in your preparedness activities so they too are ready! Each year tropical storms develop over the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico. Many stay over the ocean and never impact land, but in an average three-year period, roughly five hurricanes strike the U.S. coastline. more info |
| Legislators to focus on recovering from oil spill Last year's Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an economic and environmental disaster for the Gulf of Mexico and the coastal states that border it. In Florida, the pollution and public relations fallout hit hardest in the westernmost parts of the state. more info |
| DAUPHIN ISLAND SEA LAB "BOARDWALK TALKS" Come to the Estuarium to participate in a dialog with the experts at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. The Northern Gulf Institute presents a series of informal chats encompassing science in the Gulf of Mexico region. These brief talks are free and the series will examine a broad range of topics. On Wednesday, March 16 from 11:15-11:45 a.m. more info |
| Scientists debate cause of dolphin deaths Marine scientists are debating whether 80-plus bottlenose dolphins found dead along the US Gulf Coast since January were more likely to have died from last year's oil spill or a winter cold snap. more info |
| Cold water influx in Gulf may have delivered fatal blow to dead dolphins A combination of factors probably led to this year’s rash of dolphin deaths, although plumes of cold water that entered Mobile Bay in January and February may have delivered the killing blow, according to one of the Gulf’s foremost dolphin scientists. more info |
| Education Service Center Region 2 unveils center for early childhood education Coastal Bend students will soon be able to explore the arctic, ocean and rain forest without leaving South Texas. more info |
| Science education: News coverage of tsunami offers students 'real life' lesson Some students are asking questions about the effects tsunamis have on fish and marine animals. According to NOAA.gov, more info |
| Gulf oil spill gives a glimpse into the source of atmospheric aerosols Atmospheric aerosols (particles with radii of 1µm or less) can reflect sunlight and provide a surface area for chemical reactions to occur (e.g., they enhance chlorine’s ability to destroy ozone), and water condenses on their surface to modify cloud particles. An understanding of aerosol composition and formation is absolutely essential for predicting the impact of pollution and formulating sound environmental regulations. more info |
| Louisiana wildlife advocates meeting March 18 in Alexandria Conservation groups, sportsmen, environmentalists and natural resource management professionals from throughout Louisiana will convene in Alexandria the weekend of March 18 for the Louisiana Wildlife Federation's 72nd annual convention. more info |
| Sharks - A Multiplex of Crisis & Hope For over 450 million years and older than the dinosaurs, and surviving 5 major extinctions, sharks have shaped and balanced the delicate ocean ecosystem reigning at the top of the food chain as the ultimate Apex predator. But within the last few decades humans have drastically depleted the oceans of sharks with most governments turning a blind eye to the mass slaughter of the species. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico is a treasure to protect: Frances Beinecke In it, we laid out specific recommendations on essential steps needed to protect our workers and our waters from the risks of offshore oil production. We were unanimous in our recommendations, reflecting solid agreement among all seven members of our bipartisan commission. more info |
| A Bird’s Eye View: March 11, 2011 The light is clear and the vague outline of the sun is coming through the gray sky as a brown pelican, the poster bird for the Gulf oil spill, is cruising barely inches above the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| UF researchers begin mission Friday to study Gulf of Mexico biodiversity A group of 23 researchers led by University of Florida scientist Gustav Paulay will leave from St. Petersburg Friday on an expedition to survey the biodiversity of the Gulf of Mexico’s ocean floor. more info |
| Chance of devastating tsunami small in Florida Such catastrophic waves are unlikely but not impossible for Florida and the nation's East Coast, according tsunami researchers, while Caribbean island dwellers have more reason to be wary more info |
| Two new reefs form from bridge debris More than 8,000 tons of debris from the demolished fishing bridge have been deposited in the Gulf of Mexico on Gilchrist Reef, according to Escambia County Marine Resource Officer Robert Turpin. Eight barge loads have filled the reef to capacity, and there is now enough debris for two more reefs. more info |
| The Health of the Gulf: Fishermen and Oilmen Clash "Right now, with this new season beginning to unfold, we're likely to see more impacts," he said. "BP wants to settle, settle, settle. But people who study the Gulf and actually understand it know that the impacts will be felt in different ways for different species long after BP's liability will have been discharged." more info |
| Governor Bentley Announces BP Funds for Gulf Coast Tourism Promotion The $16 Million BP grant is specifically designated for promotion of tourism for Baldwin and Mobile counties, the two counties hit hardest by last year’s loss of tourism following the oil spill. As part of the agreement, Lee Sentell, Director of the Alabama Department of Tourism will administer the grant funds with the aid of the Alabama Coastal Development Commission (ACDC), an advisory commission formed for such purposes. The ACDC will develop, implement and plan the tourism promotion program and advise Sentell. more info |
| Whale Shark Feeding Frenzies Mystify, Enlighten Scientists The sharks live their lives largely out of the sight. Little is known about where they go and what they do when they aren't in shallow-water feeding groups like the ones in Mexican waters. Satellite tags, which beam back information about animals' whereabouts, have given some hints, said Robert Hueter, the director of the shark research center at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida. more info |
| EPA needs nominations for Gulf Guardian awards The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Gulf of Mexico Program is accepting nominations for its Gulf Guardian awards. more info |
| New Website Tracks Coastal, Ocean Investments and Successes by State NOAA’s Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM) has launched a new interactive web page that shows the scope of coastal program investments and successes in NOAA’s 34 partner states and territories. more info |
| Despite our abuse, the Gulf keeps calling us The Gulf of Mexico, the eternal Gulf, nature supreme between Florida and Mexico, ninth-largest in the world, designated by scientists as sibling of the sprawling Atlantic, clings to sand-shored western Florida in everlasting seafaring heritage, ancestry and now worldwide inspection. more info |
| Gulf Shores council agrees to transportation hub In other business Monday, Gulf Shores officials discussed a proposal to launch a marine education program on the beach called Ocean Camp. more info |
| Skimming the Surface: A Birding Moment in Florida As I neared, I gazed at their uniform forward stares and proboscidean bills. If you’ve ever taken a long look at a skimmer, then you know its lower mandible is much longer than its upper. They have a serious and useful under bite. This long jaw they slice lightly through the water, and when they feel a fish, they dip their head, clamp their bill, snatch it up, and swallow. more info |
| Ocean Springs parents concerned about education funding "I agree that cuts have to be made, but we also need to think about the future," Wilson said. "If we're cutting our education, what does that leave us for our students as they become those leaders in our world?" more info |
| Celebrate Books: Children Book Festival The annual Children’s Book Festival presents, “Hair Raising Adventures in Reading,” at 2 and 7 p.m. Wednesday March 9 at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and at 4:30 p.m. at Del Mar College. more info |
| 2 parishes receive $900K in grants BOEMRE awarded four Coastal Impact Assistance Program grants totaling $1.3 million to Louisiana coastal communities for projects that prevent coastal erosion, develop conservation education opportunities and improve coastal transportation infrastructure. more info |
| Widespread cloud cover over Eastern U.S A slight risk for severe weather activity remains across portions of the eastern Gulf Coast region more info |
| Restoration up to locals, study says Recommendations from the DELTAS2010 study include reconnecting the Mississippi River with its natural delta and re-introducing fresh water sediment to the wetlands. more info |
| Migrating Birds Face Increasing Perils on Spring Journey As spring approaches, millions of birds will wing their way back to North America. Red knots near Tierra del Fuego will make a remarkable journey to the arctic tundra. Swainson's hawks leave their winter homes in Brazil and Argentina, flying north for up to 14,000 miles. Ruby-throated hummingbirds have already begun to make landfall after crossing the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Houma-Thibodaux and surrounding areas under flash-flood watch Terrebonne, Lafourche, Assumption and most of southeast Louisiana.are under a flash-flood watch through Wednesdayafternoon as heavy rain is expected starting tonight, according to the National Weather Service. more info |
| Expect to Hear More About Mississippi River Basin Initiative What does central and north-central Indiana have to do with the Mississippi River Basin? As far as NRCS is concerned, there is a strong connection. What happens in fields along watersheds far from the Mississippi eventually affects water quality in the Mississippi River. more info |
| Citizen Science to track lingering oil in the Gulf The Surfrider group has also diligently been collecting samples for long-term monitoring and ‘fingerprinting’ an oil signature to confirm origin from the Macondo well. They’ve been working hard to get funding from various organizations (when I met Michael in September they were doing this all on their own dime), and Patagonia has recently donated $25,000 to support their sediment testing work. more info |
| Rising seas imperil roads, ports, scientists say Their conclusion: With a conservative estimate of sea-level rise and erosion, in the next 20 years La. 1 will be flooding up to 30 times a year just from high tides, cutting off access to the trucks that supply the offshore industry and for residents of Grand Isle, Louisiana's only inhabited barrier island. more info |
| Gulf restoration task force says plan will address both BP oil spill effects and existing environmental problems The presidential Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force will have a first draft of its plan to address ecosystem restoration in the Gulf of Mexico by its next meeting in early May, commission staffers said Monday. more info |
| High schoolers to simulate Gulf oil spill robotics challenges During Wisconsin’s second annual Remotely Operated Vehicle competition, student teams from Waterford High School and The Prairie School will have to use student-designed remotely-controlled underwater robots to navigate simulated challenges similar to those faced by underwater robots used during the Gulf oil spill, according to a competition press release. more info |
| From Here to the Gulf: MWRD's own documents point to their pollution problem New documents have emerged that show the damage caused by a sewage pollution stream in the Chicago River that extends all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Florida amps efforts to boost consumer confidence in Gulf seafood Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services plans to use USD 20 million obtained from BP over the next three years to improve its laboratories’ ability to inspect and boost public confidence in seafood harvested in the Gulf of Mexico since last year’s oil spill. more info |
| Sea turtle returned to Gulf of Mexico after 18 months of rehab “It’s a wonderful feeling to see this turtle go back to the sea,” Clausen said in the release. “We’re so glad the Flying Fish Fleet could help with the rescue. That’s what we’re here for.” more info |
| Urbandale teen uses Web to support mission in Gulf Then Campbell created Vampire Support to serve as a fundraising arm for various causes. She even received a $5,000 grant from Pepsi through its "Do Good for the Gulf" campaign. more info |
| UWA lands grant to study oil spill impact Three University of West Alabama professors in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics recently received a $45,310 grant from the Marine Environmental Sciences Consortium for study of the effects of the recent oil spill on Alabama’s gulf coast. more info |
| BP oil spill may be responsible for dolphin deaths Since the start of the year, 87 bottlenose dolphins have washed up on the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and along the Florida panhandle, Kim Amendola, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. That's about 12 times higher than typical strandings at this time of year more info |
| Sustainable Neighborhoods and Communities: Initiatives, Certifications, and Developments Many groups are working to advance the sustainability of neighborhoods and communities. In addition to various national organizations, local grassroots initiatives for community sustainability, resiliency, and energy independence are gaining steam around the country and the world. Check out the map/list of U.S. Transition initiatives (and see if one has been started near you), and to learn about ecovillages that have been established around the world, visit the Global Ecovillage Network website (click on “Find an Ecovillage” to search for communities in your region). more info |
| Dramatic coastal land loss projected Scientists and others say that without action to protect and restore Louisiana's coast, the Gulf of Mexico will cover large chunks of coastal parishes in 90 years. more info |
| Inspiring Young People to Care about the Environment I have gained new insight into how young people become interested in science and the environment by engaging young adults ages fifteen to twenty in hands-on environmental work through the Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) in Newport, Oregon. Programs like YCC can foster an increase in participants' feelings of emotional and physical connection with their surroundings and the natural world (Louie-Badua and Wolf, p.91). Crew members go through their personal journeys of discovery in which they push their own personal boundaries and learn new things about their surroundings. more info |
| Dolphin, Manatee Deaths Baffle Scientists Near-record numbers of manatees have died in Florida waters in early 2011, the second straight year of above-average deaths, alarming officials who are also puzzled by a surge in dolphin fatalities along the Gulf Coast. more info |
| HISD students learning power of green energy At Washington High School, students are not only generating their own electricity, they're also using their resources to help out the school. more info |
| Costco Pulls Threatened Fish from Stores Among the fish being pulled from display cases are Atlantic cod, Atlantic halibut, Chilean sea bass, grouper, monkfish, redfish, swordfish and bluefin tuna. Sales of these and other at-risk species will not resume until a sustainable source can be identified, the company said in a statement. more info |
| National Wildlife Week March 14-20, 2011 Celebrate National Wildlife Week by doing what comes naturally. Whatever you do--at home, school or play--do it outdoors and have fun! Climb trees, chase butterflies, dig in the dirt and celebrate nature. You’ll become healthier, happier and more connected to the world around you. more info |
| BRAIN FACT: Development Of Children's Brains Is Enhanced When Regularly Exposed To Green Spaces For Play The development of children’s brains is enhanced when regularly exposed to green spaces for play or physical activity. Outdoor play can lead to better motor coordination, fewer attention problems, and an increase in memory. more info |
| Sailors For the Sea Creates Environmental Lesson Plans For Young Sailors Young sailors should be more than just captains of the high seas — they should be ecologically aware as well. That’s the message behind Sailors for the Sea’s new Rainy Day Kits. The kits — packaged into fun activities like a tag-inspired game that helps young sailors learn about pollution — are free, downloadable environmental lesson plans with a focus on environmentalism and marine ecology. more info |
| Nature photographer Tom Ulrich to hold workshop at Gulf Coast Research Laboratory At his free lecture Thursday, Ulrich will give a 70-minute program on his past year's work that includes Texas nature scenes, hummingbirds of Ecuador, and scenic shots of Glacier National Park and the Grand Tetons. more info |
| UF researchers begin mission Friday to study Gulf of Mexico biodiversity A group of 23 researchers led by University of Florida scientist Gustav Paulay will leave from St. Petersburg Friday on an expedition to survey the biodiversity of the Gulf of Mexico’s ocean floor. more info |
| Flagship debris videos hit the web Videos purported to prove claims that substantial amounts of debris such as glass and concrete have fallen or been pushed into the Gulf of Mexico from the Flagship Hotel appeared on YouTube late Tuesday. more info |
| Largest Study on Oil Spill Impacts on Human Health Kicks Off Following the tragic Gulf Oil Spill last year, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) is leading the largest study ever conducted on the possible effects of an oil spill on human health. The study will assess Gulf of Mexico residents who help with the oil spill clean up, surveying their health over the next five years. The Gulf Long Term Follow-Up Study (GuLF STUDY) will compare the health of clean-up workers to those who did not assist in the clean-up efforts to determine if particular health problems are more prevalent in the clean-up workers. more info |
| Three Urgent Questions about the Die-Off of Gulf Dolphins If the BP spill is responsible, drawing a link could well depend on other types of research, such as comparative studies of exposed and unexposed populations, which could take years. For now, NOAA may make more progress in ruling out other causes than in ruling oil in. And that’s important, too. more info |
| 'A Matter of Survival' If nothing is done to protect and restore coastal Louisiana, large portions of the state's coastal parishes could be underwater in 90 years, scientists and others say. more info |
| BP Executives: No 2010 Bonus, But Reward "Good Business Results" Restoration, research and other donations In conjunction with the Gulf of Mexico Alliance (a partnership of the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas with the goal of significantly increasing regional collaboration to enhance the ecological and economic health of the Gulf of Mexico), we have established the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GRI) providing $500 million to study and monitor the spill's potential long-term impacts on the environment and local public health. Specifically, the 10-year programme will examine the spread and fate of the oil and other contaminants, the degree of biodegradation, effects of the spill on local ecosystems, and detection, clean-up and mitigation technology. While the details of the programme were being developed, BP awarded a series of fast-track grants to five research groups, totalling $40 million. BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance appointed an equal number of research scientists to the governing board of the GRI and, in December, the GRI held its first meeting. more info |
| Safe for human consumption While that concern can easily be allayed by the ample information saying our seafood is safe to eat and still delicious, not everyone bothers to get the information. So general feelings about oil and its impact on our seafood can be hard to combat. more info |
| USF study finds beaches essentially cleaned of oil In their National Science Foundation-funded study, geologists Ping Wang, Rip Kirby and Jun Cheng found little to no visible oil on the surface, below the sand or in the swash zone — where waves wash up onto the beach and typically deposit seaweed and debris. The areas they surveyed last month stretched from Panama City Beach west to Dauphin Island, Ala. more info |
| Tarpon Springs hosts Gulf Maritime Festival Showcasing the city’s cultural treasures and Florida’s maritime heritage, the annual festival features demonstrators and performers hailing from the Gulf of Mexico coastal communities from Cortez to Apalachicola. more info |
| River ports support push for more dredging money About $85 million is needed annually to keep the Mississippi River deep enough for ships to navigate from the Gulf of Mexico to Louisiana’s capital city, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers only receives about $53 million for dredging operations. The result of the shortfall is shipping restrictions, which are plaguing some operations on the lower Mississippi. more info |
| World's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway Even so, "it's very important to devote resources and legislation toward species conservation if we don't want to be the species whose activity caused a mass extinction." more info |
| Offshore 'blue hole' caters to sea turtles, amberjack Along Florida’s Gulf shore, the continental shelf extends out as far as 300 miles before reaching depths greater than 100 feet. About 25 miles offshore Marco Island is an unusual feature called a “blue hole.” Several of these deep caverns created by sinkholes exist in Gulf waters. They may have once seeped fresh water, but most are inactive today. more info |
| BP’s Gulf of Mexico Disaster One Year Later Dalton Beninato is writing an in-depth profile of Joannie Hughes, a Plaquemines Parish single mother turned environmental activist after the BP blowout in April 2010 turned her hometown into a public health risk. Hughes founded Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana and found laboratories willing to study the environmental effect of the Deep Water Horizon disaster on rainwater in Belle Chase. Her findings so far have been eye opening. more info |
| FAMU Video Featured at Smithsonian Ocean Hall of the Museum of Natural History Florida A&M University (FAMU) Environmental Science Institute (ESI) students are featured in the video “From Education to Exploration: Students at Sea,” which is on display at the Smithsonian Ocean Hall of the Museum of Natural History more info |
| Would Better Marketing Help the Coral Reefs? "At their core, reefs are about people as well as nature: ensuring stable food supplies, promoting recovery from coral bleaching, and acting as a magnet for tourist dollars," said Mark Spalding, senior marine scientist at the Nature Conservancy and a lead author of the report. more info |
| What's killing the dolphins? Baby bottle-nose dolphins are washing up dead in record numbers on the shores of Alabama and Mississippi, alarming scientists and a federal agency charged with monitoring the health of the Gulf of Mexico. CNN's Kiran Chetry speaks to senior scientist of the National Wildlife Federation, Doug Inkley and he says the BP oil spill may have had a negative impact on the dolphins' fitness. more info |
| Electronic field trip opens world of seashores For many students across the nation, the shores of the Gulf of Mexico are something they might not see in real life, but the National Park Foundation has found a way to bring the shores of Gulf Islands National Seashore to them. more info |
| 'Fog Of Research' Clouds Study Of Oil's Effects In Gulf Shortly after the spill, BP gave several universities and research groups in the Gulf about $50 million, with the promise of another $450 million over 10 years. BP and the Gulf states picked a board of scientists to decide who gets it. more info |
| Scientist finds Gulf bottom still oily, dead Oil from the BP spill remains stuck on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a scientist's video and slides that demonstrate the oil isn't degrading as hoped and has decimated life on parts of the sea floor. more info |
| Documentary explores state of the Gulf "Ninety five percent of all the fish in the Gulf of Mexico live some part of their life cycle in Texas waters and so protecting value of those fisheries and the health of the wildlife are absolutely essential to our states health and vitality," said Smith. more info |
| Mississippi Delta's fish are fine, but wetlands vanishing It was the concern by VanDam and many other top tournament anglers that there won't be a Delta for them to return to if we don't soon stop the erosion that's wiping America's most productive wetlands from the map. more info |
| Artist reflects on five years since Katrina Su Stella secretly prayed for two things when Hurricane Katrina smashed into her yard in Biloxi, Miss. She asked for a new roof and a different job. more info |
| Lawsuit Launched to Protect Endangered Whales From Gulf of Mexico Oil Exploration The Center for Biological Diversity, Gulf Restoration Network, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club filed a formal notice of intent to sue Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Wednesday for ignoring marine-mammal protection laws when approving offshore oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico. The suit will challenge 10 projects approved since Oct. 15, 2010, without permits required by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act that are designed to protect endangered whales and other marine mammals from harmful offshore oil activities. The 60-day notice of intent to sue is a legally required precursor to filing a lawsuit under the Endangered Species Act. more info |
| Bay High students share oceanography experiences with Sen. Cochran Bay High School students Joseph Luttrell, Gerard Frommeyer and Chad Burch on Thursday shared their experiences of working with the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (GCRL) with U.S. Senator Thad Cochran. more info |
| New free, hands-on tool supports sustainable living choices People who want to eat healthy and live sustainably have a new way to measure their impact on the environment: a Web-based tool [https://n-print.org/sites/n-print.org/files/footprint_sql/index.html#/home] that calculates an individual's "nitrogen footprint." more info |
| Public invited to LUMCON Gulf Lagniappe Workshop The Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium is offering a one-day workshop series - "Gulf Lagniappe" - at the DeFelice Marine Center in Cocodrie. The first session, titled "Plankton Populations/Water Quality," will be held March 12. Dr. Geoff Sinclair is the scheduled presenter. more info |
| Royal Oak students spend break restoring wetlands Once again, Royal Oak High School students took a bus south to New Orleans, where they continued clean-up efforts from Hurricane Katrina. This time, 38 students and 11 chaperones spent a week replanting Louisiana wetlands as part of what organizer Steve Chisnell said is the largest environmental restoration project in human history. more info |
| Dauphin Island Sea Lab's Skimmer Newsletter for February 2011 On March 26th, 4pm to 7pm, the Estuarium at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab will be host of the first ever "Eatin' Good in Alabama!" - an exciting event celebrating the continued vibrancy of our Gulf Coast with a guest appearance from celebrity chef and the Food Network's Peabody Award winning science geek, Alton Brown. more info |
| First harmful algal bloom species genome sequenced In the first genome sequencing of a harmful algal bloom species, researchers found that Aureococcus' unique gene complement allows it to outcompete other marine phytoplankton and thrive in human-modified ecosystems, which could help explain the global increases in harmful algal blooms (HABs). more info |
| Plans to drill for oil near Cuban coast put Florida at risk That's closer than oil rigs can get to Florida under U.S. law, which prohibits rigs in U.S. waters within 125 miles of the Panhandle and keeps them as far as 250 miles away from the rest of the state's shoreline. more info |
| Scientist finds oily, dead gulf floor In five expeditions, the last one in December, Joye and colleagues took 250 cores of the seafloor and traveled across 2,600 square miles. Some of the sites she had been studying before the oil spill on April 20. Much of the oil that she found on the seafloor - and in the water column - was chemically fingerprinted, proving it came from the BP spill. Joye is still waiting for results to show whether other oil samples she tested were from BP's Macondo well. more info |
| Dolphin Calves Dying in the Gulf So far, she and her colleagues are seeing about 10 times the number of dead infant dolphins in the area, which is home to some 2,000 to 5,000 dolphins. more info |
| 4 more dead dolphins in Miss., 1 more in Ala. So far, 28 dolphins of all ages have been found dead in the two states since the beginning of the year. There were 89 reported in all of 2010. more info |
| Shareholders Offer a Spate of Climate and Environmental Resolutions Several companies, including many outside the energy sector, have also been asked to provide more detailed greenhouse gas inventories and to assess the risks of climate change to their bottom lines. more info |
| Florida sea turtles and the impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill This year's sea turtle nesting season will begin on May 1, with Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation staff and volunteers gearing up to cover island beaches. more info |
| Oil's impact on ecosystem being studied As the oil leak from the Deepwater Horizon off the coast of Louisiana continues to spew, the researchers - and others like them from Texas to Florida - will continue to sample the Gulf fish and nutrient-rich estuaries to determine the oil's impact on the fragile ecosystem, where everything is related. more info |
| Sperm whale found on Galveston beach Rescuers were struggling to save a pygmy sperm whale that washed up on the beach in Galveston early today. more info |
| Jackson Library travel series opens with a visit to The Gulf of Mexico Kim Lewis, a science teacher at Buckeye Hills, spent 17 days aboard the research vessel, The Oregon II. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) selects teachers each year to work along with scientists to conduct their oceanic research. Kim Lewis worked aboard the Oregon II in the Gulf of Mexico July 1-17, 2010 surveying the species of organisms found along the ocean floor. more info |
| New oil washes up on shore at Elmer's Island, more new oil sighted near coast Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries agents are reporting the sighting of new oil washing up on shore at Elmer's Island. Oil has also been spotted at Red Fish Bay, Bay Jimmy, and Pass-a-Loutre. more info |
| Seafood safety: To eat or not to eat? Fishing closures remain in areas where there is a potential that seafood is in some way tainted, even if only because of appearance. No tested seafood bound for market, federal authorities maintain, has come up unsafe. And Louisiana's closures, for the most part, were precautionary. Oysters that were killed in one area died because of freshwater diversion, industry voices maintain, not because of oil. more info |
| Researchers Report On Broader Public Health Impact of 2010 Spill "From a public health standpoint, we need to understand that when there is a significant environmental crisis, we need to extend public health outreach and education, psychological monitoring and mental health services beyond the immediately affected areas, paying particular attention to people at risk for income loss. There are things that can be done to help people manage their stress and anxiety, and cope in these situations, so these interventions need to be available immediately in the communities where the impacted individuals live," adds Grattan, who is also a neuropsychologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center. more info |
| Orange Beach considers paying Auburn scientists to probe for lingering oil spill damage city in coastal Alabama is considering paying for a scientific study that could determine whether its beaches are clean after last year's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| 3.5 earthquake reported off Ala. coast The United States Geological Survey reports the 3.5 magnitude earthquake happened at 5:15 p.m. The epicenter was located in the Gulf of Mexico about 10 miles southwest of Gulf Shores. more info |
| Are you prepared for severe weather? Monday marks the beginning of Severe Weather Awareness Week in Mississippi. more info |
| Kell students building oil cleanup machine Members of Kell High School's robotics team are using a $10,000 grant to build a machine that could aid in the cleanup of oil spills. more info |
| Doubt On Deep Clean Crozier says he understands why communities like Dauphin Island are going through with the deep clean. He says they want to show tourists they’re doing everything they can to make sure the beaches are clean and safe, but the deep clean amounts to a public relations effort. more info |
| Diver goes nose-to-nose with sharks to help stop shark finning NRDC ocean expert Leila Monroe talks about the importance of passing a ban on shark finning with William Winram, a free diver and photographer who swims with sharks to help protect them. more info |
| Ocean Sciences center offering lecture on Feb. 24 The lecture, "Exploring and Protecting Planet Ocean," will be held at the Science Center Auditorium (Building N) on the Main Campus of Indian River State College on Virginia Avenue and 30th Street in Fort Pierce. more info |
| Studying killer whale diet not for the squeamish American and Canadian researchers who spent more than 100 days over four years among scores of so-called "transient" killer whales got an unprecedented education in how the whales hunt their food. more info |
| NOAA announces next step in Gulf restoration plan NOAA and the DOI plan to develop a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) that involves state co-trustess from all affected states (Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Texas, and Alabama) in a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS). The first phase is meetings in all the affected areas. more info |
| Oil or algae?: NOAA investigates recent sighting NOAA scientists have conducted sampling of this rust colored substance and have confirmed the material is algae,” said Mike Morrison, a WCSO spokesman. more info |
| Take the plunge as season to swim with manatees grows short Manatees share a common ancestry with the elephant and every day consume 10 to 15 percent of their body weight — which typically reaches about 1,000 pounds. So where there are aquatic plants, there are manatees. more info |
| Oysters stage a comeback after BP disaster With all of these precautions in place, any food that is legally harvested from the Gulf of Mexico is absolutely safe at this point, said Don Kraemer, an FDA seafood safety expert. more info |
| For one island, future is now It is easy to empathize with the families who have a connection to the island. For them, the island is home, and anyone with a heart can understand the powerful sentiments that entails. Intellectually, the story is different. Over and over, taxpayers have committed to rebuilding a road that has little chance of surviving much longer. more info |
| UWF revealing oil's reach The center is gaining new attention as it conducts research aimed at cracking what may turn out to be one of the top environmental puzzles of the age: How much of the 270 million gallons of spilled BP oil remains in the Gulf? And what is its impact on the food chain and ecosystem? more info |
| UM researchers study Bluefin tuna in the Gulf Many scientists have stated that the Gulf of Mexico is the only spawning area for the Western Bluefin tuna. For a species that was already on the verge of making the endangered species list, this set back could be devastating to future generations. more info |
| Coverage of Green Issues Becomes More Specialized So where does coverage go from here? One issue journalists are increasingly latching onto is the emptiness of politicians’ vows on energy and climate. As the comedian Jon Stewart recently pointed out, every U.S. president since Richard M. Nixon has vowed to wean the United States off foreign oil and develop substantial alternative energy sources at home. None has succeeded. more info |
| Natural habitats at wildlife refuge getting gentler version of beach cleanup Unlike the public beaches used mostly for human pleasure, the refuge has never undergone a beach renourishment process. And officials say that the heavy beach cleaning equipment could do more harm to the creatures that live below the surface and those that feed in the area than the oil that spread across Alabama’s shoreline after the BP PLC spill. more info |
| Are Alabama beaches clean? 2 Auburn professors seek funding for post-oil spill study "We know that BP has done a lot of work to clean the beaches, but what does that mean with respect to clean? It depends on how you define clean," Hayworth said. "There’s a real need to be able to state that in some defensible scientific way as quickly as possible." more info |
| Gulf research cash still in limbo In response, BP said on 29 September that the Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GMA), a partnership of the states around the Gulf, would administer the grants. Awards would be made by an expanded advisory council of 20 members, with BP and the alliance each appointing half of the members. more info |
| Our Impact on Water It sought to explain that as individuals, we have great impact on the water quality in our lives, and we can get money back for improving it. more info |
| Galveston District monitors Gulf for signs of cold-stunning The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District’s Operations Division and Environmental Branch are closely monitoring the Gulf of Mexico water temperatures in South Texas for signs of sea turtle “cold-stunning.” more info |
| Nearly killed in oil spill, dolphin now thriving Despite his progress, it is too risky to release Louie into the wild because of his young age. So this week, with the help of the U.S. Coast Guard, Louie was transported the Dolphin Research Center in the Florida Keys, a nonprofit organization that cares for rescued dolphins. more info |
| Endangered whooping crane discovered shot to death With only 540 whooping cranes left in the world, the loss of just one is significant. Investigators with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are looking into the death of a male whooping crane found dead at Weiss Lake in Cherokee County on Jan. 28. The investigators believe the six-year-old whooping crane, designated as 12-04, was shot to death. more info |
| Tompkins women helping to restore Gulf wetlands Leslie Carrere and PJ Marshall started Gulf Savers last year. The project seeks to clean the oil from the Gulf Coast by using bags containing humus mixtures and native marsh grasses that have oil-eating microbes. more info |
| Weather warms, rescued sea turtles back to Gulf Curator Jeff George with Sea Turtle Inc. says about 1,200 turtles were found last week on beaches between Corpus Christi and Boca Chica Beach at the south tip of South Padre Island. George says about 250 were already dead. more info |
| Moving the Gulf Coast Toward a Sustainable Future Numerous university research consortiums, federal-state restoration plans, and other collaborations, such as the five-state Gulf of Mexico alliance, exist across the region—providing a natural infrastructure to convene world-class innovation. more info |
| Whooping cranes to be reintroduced in Louisiana Ten whooping cranes, the most endangered species of crane in the world, will be reintroduced in a Louisiana conservation area more than 60 years after the birds' numbers dwindled to near zero, the U.S. Interior Department said on Tuesday. more info |
| New program brings Walter Anderson's art into classrooms The program is called Suitcase Lessons. That's because the art educator, Suzanne Weidie, carries her supplies in a suitcase and travels from classroom to classroom. She integrates the art classes into other core subjects like Science, Language Arts and Math. more info |
| US to conduct enviro review of 5-year drilling plan The environmental impact statement will cover all proposed lease sales that would be held off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama during the 2012-2017 period. The agency has scheduled public meetings in Houston on Feb. 15, New Orleans on Feb. 16 and Mobile, Alabama, on Feb. 17 to discuss the five-year drilling plan. more info |
| EPA's Power Plant Rules Would Spur Job Creation -- Report The power sector is bracing for a slew of new federal requirements, including the proposed Clean Air Transport Rule (CATR), a program aimed at smog- and soot-forming pollution that travels across state lines. By next month, EPA must also propose new limits on mercury and other types of toxic air pollution to replace a George W. Bush-era program that was thrown out by a federal court. more info |
| Framing the Message on Sustainability: Part One So what can we learn from social psychologists (and the ad industry that uses them)? What really motivates people to make -- and demand -- a change? more info |
| NEPA Reviews Could Stall Return of Offshore Drilling Projects in Deep Water The future pace of drilling approvals in the Gulf of Mexico might be slowed less by new laws or regulations stemming from last year's massive spill but by a decades-old law that opens the door to longer environmental reviews and litigation. more info |
| Volunteers trying to save the lives of 500 rescued sea turtles A staggering number of sea turtles washed ashore on Thursday and Friday due to freezing waters out in the Gulf of Mexico and Laguna Madre. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico oil spill signals need for more investment in green technology, activists say The message delivered Tuesday at the opening day of a three-day Green Jobs conference sponsored by a "Blue Green Alliance" of labor unions and environmentalists -- led by the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club -- who see the disaster as a clarion call for greater investments in green technology. more info |
| Post BP Oil Spill Mardi Gras will be a Party The Louisiana tourism department recently rebranded its materials with the logo "LOU!S!ANA, Pick Your Passion." In Louisiana, that is often synonymous with its unique cuisine, and central to that is its seafood. more info |
| Poplarville surges to Hurricane Bowl victory, again Eighteen teams totaling 85 students and representing 13 high schools from Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee squared off Saturday in the 2011 Hurricane Bowl -- a rapid-fire, quiz bowl–style ocean sciences competition at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast research Laboratory. more info |
| U.S. Students to Tackle Global Energy Crisis in 2011 JETS TEAMS Competition Last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill spotlighted the need to develop economically and environmentally responsible forms of energy in the face of growing global demand. This year, American high school students will work to solve the "supply and demand" problem as the Junior Engineering Technical Society (JETS) launches its annual TEAMS competition. more info |
| Oil in Gulf of Mexico: Biologists cite need for critical data to determine ecological consequences Twenty years after biologists attempted to determine the ecological damages to marine life from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, scientists dealing with the BP disaster find themselves with the same problem: the lack of critical data to determine the ecological consequences of human-induced environmental disasters, a University of Florida researcher said. more info |
| Anne Rudloe: One with the sea, even if for a moment Marine biologists and writers, my husband and I run Gulf Specimen Marine Lab in Panacea, a tiny nonprofit aquarium, and write books about the ocean. A precarious life, it is dependent upon the unforgiving sea for survival, both financially and sometimes literally. Years before, I began spending time alone in the forest and along the shore in order to better handle the mental challenges of each day, and it had eventually become a major focus of this intense and always uncertain way of life. more info |
| Don't worry: That stinky goo isn't oil "I see this a lot," he said. "We have seen this after rough weather where large quantities of organic material are stirred up, and then it settles out in troughs." more info |
| On Gulf Oil Spill’s Effects, Doing Science With a Deadline Dr. Tunnell is associate director of Texas A&M’s Harte Research Institute in Corpus Christi, which focuses on the Gulf of Mexico and marine research. It brings together biologists and chemists, but its ranks also include an economist and an expert on marine law and policy. more info |
| Gulf Coast Seafood Safety Concerns Attitudes about seafood safety have run the gambit in the nine months since the oil spill. A recent study out of Louisiana shows 70 percent of those surveyed still have concerns about seafood that comes out of the Gulf of Mexico. Folks along Alabama's Gulf Coast say those attitudes are mostly based on misinformation and rumor and they are not worried. more info |
| Sustainable Seafood Is Everyone’s Business A nationwide, sustainable seafood movement has come into being as a result of declining -; and in cases such as Atlantic bluefin tuna, collapsing -; fisheries. For many species, anglers and fishermen simply took fish from the ocean faster than the fish could reproduce. more info |
| NPR reporter says he tried to ask right questions about Gulf spill Harris, who won a Kavli Science Journal Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science in November for his coverage of the BP oil spill, became the go-to news source for updates on the spill. more info |
| Hardships serve to strengthen We enjoy a bountiful slice of nature, which gives us everything from a thriving seafood industry to active tourism to beloved natural attractions. They are at Grand Isle or our favorite fishing spots we have shared with generations of our family members. more info |
| MDEQ offering free recycling bins to schools, non-profits Teachers and parents who want their schools to be more environmentally friendly are being encouraged to apply for a new grant program. The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality is now offering free 22 gallon recycling bins more info |
| Students compete in Hurricane Bowl at Gulf Coast Research Lab Some of the best and brightest science students from across the South will be in Ocean Springs Saturday morning for the Hurricane Bowl. It's a regional ocean sciences quiz bowl competition for high school students. more info |
| Alabama and the Oil Spill: Gulf Fish Numbers Up Student researchers at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab load up a boat with some essentials. It's about two hours to their destination in the Gulf of Mexico: T-35, so named because the water's 35 meters deep. They're going to collect thousands of samples of tiny arthropods (shrimp and crabs are an example), then count them at the lab. more info |
| Toxic blob drifting in Gulf mystifies scientists Just off the Florida Panhandle coastline, within site of Perdido Key, an underwater mass of dead sea life that appears to be growing as microscopic algae and bacteria get trapped and die has been found by scientists. more info |
| Scientists urge new research policies in wake of Gulf disaster Scientists are having a difficult time gauging the recovery of marine species from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico because they lack sufficient data about historical population size and the distribution, growth rates and reproduction rates of many species. more info |
| Centre College students get 'eye-opening' look at post-oil spill Alabama Hurst was one of more than a dozen freshman students from Centre College, a private, liberal arts school in Danville, Ky., who traveled 1,400 miles round trip last week to Dauphin Island as part of a course on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. more info |
| Letter to a Young Ocean Activist After learning about the pacific garbage patch Sarah wrote a passionate letter in which she expressed her love and concern for the planet, and asked, "How can I get people to want to help as much as I do?". Jill forwarded the email to me because of an initiative I am developing, Reclaimin' The Oceans. more info |
| Panelists explore questions of oil spill The symposium Wednesday featured scientists, media representatives, government and Gulf-area officials speaking on their challenges and advantages from interaction with each other. more info |
| Flipping the Switch: See the Wild, Find Yourself If you decide to travel, consider doing it in a way that flips your switch, helps an endangered species and supports the conservation efforts in communities near those animals. more info |
| Will appealing to human emotions save the environment? Conservationist Wallace J. Nichols, known for his work protecting sea turtles and the ocean, argues that environmental problems should be addressed using neuroscience and empathy, in addition to the existing facts, figures and statistics. He says people make decisions based on various emotions (product marketers certainly can attest to this), but environmentalists don’t really speak to those emotions in their work. more info |
| Ice Cores Yield Rich History of Climate Change On Friday, Jan. 28 in Antarctica, a research team investigating the last 100,000 years of Earth's climate history reached an important milestone completing the main ice core to a depth of 3,331 meters (10,928 feet) at West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS). The project will be completed over the next two years with some additional coring and borehole logging to obtain additional information and samples of the ice for the study of the climate record contained in the core. more info |
| NOAA, Partners, Launch New Website Highlighting African-American Maritime Heritage NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, in partnership with Murrain Associates, Inc., and the National Association of Black Scuba Divers (NABS), today launched Voyage to Discovery, a new website and education initiative highlighting untold stories of African-Americans and the sea more info |
| Sea Camp 2011 registration starts Open to students ages age 6-13, registration begins today. During the camp, participants learn to fish, crab, seine and sieve at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory Marine Education Center in Ocean Springs. more info |
| Study: Undersea Dispersant in Gulf of Mexico Lingered in Deepwater Plume A core ingredient of the dispersant injected deep underwater at BP's runaway oil well remained trapped in an undersea plume of oil, methane and other hydrocarbons, resisting decay even as it became vanishingly dilute, scientists reported yesterday in the first detailed study of undersea dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Officials encouraged by latest manatee count Despite the record number of manatees killed by the cold in 2010, wildlife officials are encouraged by the most recent manatee count, in which spotters tallied nearly 5,000 sea cows along Florida's coasts. more info |
| The Certified Fisher Invested in Sustainable Harvests Program Charter captains and deckhands along Alabama's Gulf Coast will have another resource as they prepare for spring fishing trips. The Certified Fisher Invested in Sustainable Harvests (CFISH) program will provide captains with a unique training opportunity, the first of its kind in the nation. more info |
| Amazonian apple snails found in Baldwin pond For decades, apple snails were sold in pet stores as a means of keeping tanks free of algae. The snails are prodigious plant eaters and have proven to be successful at colonizing new habitats, to the detriment of native creatures. They have become a nuisance in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. In some areas, they have been blamed for wiping out up to 95 percent of the native aquatic vegetation. more info |
| Projects may help restore our wetlands There are projects that show great promise. One is the Davis Pond Freshwater Diversion Project, located in the Mississippi Delta region of our state. There is a newer diversion structure closer to the Gulf. more info |
| Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary goes solar Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary has gone solar thanks to a cross-country donation with a message. more info |
| BP Oil Spill: Dispersants study from Woods Hole Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute issued a press release on January 26, 2011, documenting their findings to date concerning the residue of the dispersant Corexit used in the Gulf Oil Spill. The research was reviewed and published by the American Chemical Society in the journal Environmental Science & Technology on the same day. more info |
| Leadership changes for Northern Gulf Institute announced Two top research professors from Mississippi State are joining the leadership of the Northern Gulf Institute. more info |
| Katrina Cut on Dauphin Island closed with giant heap of rock The mile-long gap that Hurricane Katrina ripped through the middle of Dauphin Island in 2005 has been replaced with a giant heap of rock. more info |
| "Gulf Safe" seafood campaign continues The DMR is counting on its Gulf Safe Seafood campaign to convince everyone that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is the best you can buy. more info |
| Corps sets meeting on restoration plan The Army Corps of Engineers plans a meeting Feb. 3 on the draft plan for restoring the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet area near New Orleans. more info |
| From science to action in environmental justice On the east side of Houston, Texas is the Ship Channel, a narrow vein that gapes into the bay just north of the Gulf of Mexico. Through this waterway, freighters carry Western oil to sea. The banks are tangled with refineries, docks, pipelines, and rails. Fuel tanks stack the shore like poker chips, and when the air is heavy, it lowers over the channel in a dull, gray haze. more info |
| Nature tours to begin Feb. 1 at Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge The winter series of Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge guided nature tours starts next week, but residents and visitors have already been calling to sign up for the free excursions, officials said Monday. more info |
| Registration under way for Sea Camp in Ocean Springs Threatened and endangered marine species are the focus of Sea Camp 2011. Open to students ages 6-13, registration started last week. During the camp, participants learn to fish, crab, seine and sieve at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory Marine Education Center in Ocean Springs. more info |
| Sea Turtle Populations Drop Following Spill The BP oil spill was especially unkind to sea turtles, experts say. A new report finds that more turtles were killed or injured in the Gulf of Mexico in the time after the April 20th disaster than in any similar period in the past twenty years. more info |
| Water, Water, Everywhere Whether filmmakers look to water as an environment in which to stage Mega Shark versus Giant Octopus, hide The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, find The Water Horse or create another sequel to Jaws, the ocean is a constant battleground for survival. Whether water allows filmmakers to look deep into The Abyss, to Run Silent, Run Deep, or spend time with Kevin Kostner in Waterworld, water offers a constant source of wonder. more info |
| Oyster task force votes to keep Louisiana grounds closed This week, the task force voted unequivocally against a motion by Al Sunseri, an oyster dealer, advising the opening of more public grounds east of the Mississippi River in Louisiana. According to a state Wildlife and Fisheries report, recent surveys found that hardly any young "spat" oysters there are in question. more info |
| Area farmers featured in "Troubled Waters" film screening A beautiful if controversial film exploring the dead zone problem in the Gulf of Mexico and how innovative farmers from southeast Minnesota and elsewhere are helping fix it will be aired Sunday, Jan. 30, as part of the Frozen River Film Festival at Winona State University. more info |
| Summer oystering faces tougher rules New summer oyster rules, introduced last year to further reduce the incidence of a potentially deadly food-borne bacteria, did not work out as planned, and will likely give way to an even lengthier period of restrictions in 2011. more info |
| Louisiana Says BP Hurt Coastal Schools Plaquemines Parish School Board and Louisiana sued BP and others involved in the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe for contaminating the state's fragile wetlands. The Plaquemines Parish School Board holds certain wetlands in trust for the use of schools, and says that "oil and dispersants released into the Gulf of Mexico by defendants have contaminated and continue to contaminate PPSB's real property." more info |
| Congressman Accuses White House Of Putting Spin Above Science A Democratic congressman on Tuesday released heavily-redacted documents suggesting that White House officials overruled scientific concerns as they rushed to release a controversial report last summer on what happened to the oil that had spilled from a BP rig in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Exporters warn that mouth of Mississippi River is silting in; critics blame spending cuts River pilots and exporters are warning that the mouth of the Mississippi River is silting in, threatening a major commercial route, because there is not enough money to pay for dredges that normally keep the channel open. more info |
| Mexico’s exports rise as fruit flies fall Maersk’s director general for Central America Erik Bo Hansen told the publication that in the last few years many clients have expressed interest in a route that would connect the Gulf of Mexico with the world. more info |
| Stimulus dollars at work on Pelican Island Gulf Copper obtained about $2.25 million in stimulus money, which it used to help pay for the machinery at the facility. The U.S. Maritime Administration dealt out the money, meant to help small shipyards become more efficient, Jonathan Hale, vice president of Gulf Copper, said. more info |
| Hundreds of Volunteers Convene in Mobile Bay, AL to Restore the Gulf On January 22-23, 2011, nearly 550 volunteers from Alabama and beyond donned boots and gloves and donated their time to place 16,000 bags of oyster shells along the shore – the first step to building 100 miles of oyster reef over the next three to five years in Mobile, AL. Watch a video of the volunteers in action! more info |
| Professional development opportunity for teachers: Ocean Exploration Join NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research (OER) for the latest professional development opportunity for educators based upon the voyages of NOAA’s new ship and America’s Ship for Ocean Exploration, the Okeanos Explorer. more info |
| Northrop Grumman gives more than $60k to schools The company is presenting more than a dozen educational grants to school districts in Alabama and Mississippi. The money will support math and science programs, robotics competitions, and general scholarships. more info |
| Bayou lifestyle jeopardized According to NPR's radio show "Living on Earth," before Hurricane Katrina, the Grand Bayou Village consisted of 23 extended families, only nine of which returned post-disaster. more info |
| Two ocean opportunities for students/educators EE Week Opportunities for Students and Educators more info |
| USM may be left looking for funds When it comes to federal earmarks, Washington's new "Just Say No" policy may have the University of Southern Mississippi and its peer state institutions scrambling to find other funding sources for millions of research and infrastructure dollars. more info |
| Oil spill discussions slated at U of Ga. Participants in three days of talks that begin Tuesday will discuss how scientists, government leaders, oil industry representatives and journalists presented information to the public and each other. more info |
| Whooping cranes, tourists spend languid days on Texas gulf coast The Aransas National Wildlife Refuge is the winter home of the whooping crane, a bird on the verge of extinction. I drove 20 miles off the main road to get there. I climbed a tall observation tower. In the distance, at least four football fields away, were, or at least seemed to be, two white dots in the waving reeds. more info |
| MDEQ director: Mississippi still has 'isolated and sporadic' tar balls from Gulf oil spill Mississippi is still seeing some lingering, visible effects from the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the director of the state Department of Environmental Quality told lawmakers Monday. more info |
| Hope on the half-shell in the Gulf This is an open invitation for people looking for an opportunity to take direct action to restore the Gulf of Mexico. Join the Conservancy and our partners this weekend (Jan. 21-22, 2011) at Helen Wood Park near Mobile, Ala., as we lay the first quarter-mile of oyster reefs in the 100-1000: Restore Coastal Alabama project. more info |
| Dredge Work Started at Little Lagoon City officials in Gulf Shores point to the entire Little Lagoon project as one of the success stories in the entire disaster that was the BP oil spill. more info |
| Focus On Nature: Beach birds of the Fork and Florida The skimmer’s red-orange bill is uniquely designed so that when the bird flies close to the water it can lower its bill into the water and pick up a meal on the wing. When the lower bill touches a fish it snaps down instantly to catch it. It’s always a thrill to see Nature’s design work out so beautifully. more info |
| Caladesi Island a natural attraction Over 100 years after Henry Scharrer settled here, people still come to enjoy the fishing, paddling, hiking and beach more info |
| 242 sea turtles released into the Gulf of Mexico Two hundred forty-two cold-stunned sea turtles removed from St. Joseph Bay this winter were released Wednesday into the Gulf of Mexico off Cape San Blas in Gulf County. more info |
| Apache works to kill leaking well in the US Gulf of Mexico The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) is continuing to oversee Apache Corp.’s source control efforts for a natural gas leak near East Cameron Block 278 Platform B. more info |
| Tampa Bay under slight risk of severe storms Tuesday A powerful upper-level system is moving out of the southern Plains and into the Gulf of Mexico during the day Tuesday. The system will produce heavy rain and storms across the deep south and the Florida Peninsula. more info |
| Louisiana seafood industry poised for rebound "We need to allow what happened, but we've got to move forward. This industry is too important to the state, the people that fish in this industry, it's too important to our culture. We have to do everything we can to keep our fishing communities moving forward," says Smith. more info |
| Miss. commission releases Gulf restoration report Bill Walker, co-chairman of the Mississippi Gulf of Mexico Commission, said the report focuses on three areas: a sustainable environment, sustainable economy and programs to address mental health issues associated with the spill. more info |
| Tee off to support Mote Help marine life out of the ‘rough’ by signing up now for the Second Annual Mote Marine Laboratory Golf Tournament, which supports Mote’s ocean science, conservation and education programs. more info |
| Conspiracies Don’t Kill Birds. People, However, Do. “Five billion birds die in the U.S. every year,” said Melanie Driscoll, a biologist and director of bird conservation for the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi Flyway for the National Audubon Society. more info |
| Positive change can be child’s play Deshaies connected with Ocean Academy through Northeastern’s student group Peace through Play, which was named Student Organization of the Year for 2010 by the Office for Student Affairs and Student Activities, Leadership & Scholarship. more info |
| Bunker Middle School students apply real science to remote water vehicles And while they didn’t find any sunken ships, David Craymer’s earth science students learned a thing or two about design, buoyancy and persistence. more info |
| NSF Webcast: Water And Oil Everywhere, And Now It's Safe To Drink Building upon research conducted during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, engineers have incorporated a swellable nano-structured glass called Osorb® into a system for extracting pollutants like dissolved petroleum from water--and collecting the petroleum for later use. more info |
| Agreement seeks to balance Missouri River wildlife management with water quality needs Efforts to build habitat for the endangered pallid sturgeon also add to the nutrient load of the Missouri River, feeding the hypoxic area known as the dead-zone in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Sea Turtles Rescued from Cold Water Sea turtles are being rescued from the Gulf of Mexico and taken to Gulf World Marine Park in Panama City Beach. Marine park officials animal trainers confirmed more than 100 turtles were rescued Friday. more info |
| Success of Gulf restoration report depends on funding and political will, say commissioners Implementing the recommendations contained in the Mississippi Gulf of Mexico Commission's report will hinge on summoning funds and political will, 2 commissioners say. more info |
| Keeping an eye on the loons When the loons make their return journey north to Minnesota from the Gulf of Mexico this year, wildlife watchers will be following them closely. more info |
| Estimating spill may be more law than science The amount of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon rig blowout will be determined by protracted court proceedings rather than purely scientific calculations, the nation's top environmental enforcement officer said Thursday. more info |
| With new app, you've got the whole world in your hand The app allows users to get in-depth looks at Earth's geological features, forces and phenomena everywhere from the bottom of the ocean to the planet's atmosphere. more info |
| Naval Academy Students Contributing to STEM Education Yet this is not the only mission that is taken on while at the Naval Academy. Students are also helping answer another need in our country, a higher focus on science, technology, engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). more info |
| The Mystery of the Black Goo Back at the University of South Florida laboratories, the experiments began. It turns out the black goo is made up of dead plankton and other organisms that adhered to each other. But why did all these life forms die? John Paul, a professor of biological oceanography, tested the waters from the mud and they came back, in his words, "toxic as all bejesus." more info |
| How Smart Science Makes or Breaks Marine Protected Areas Marine protected areas, MPAs, are needed badly across the planet to help ocean ecosystems recover from decades of abuse. And as a global society, we're making progress in creating them. However, sometimes practical human issues take precedence over the science that would make a protected area worthwhile. more info |
| Earth's Hot Past: Prologue to Future Climate? The magnitude of climate change during Earth's deep past suggests that future temperatures may eventually rise far more than projected if society continues its pace of emitting greenhouse gases, a new analysis concludes. more info |
| Florida Senate panel approves oil spill bill A key provision would require that 75 percent of any fines or settlements collected by the state be spent in seven coastal Panhandle counties. The money would fund research on the spill's effects, environmental restoration and economic development incentives. more info |
| Training underway for Emergency Management Officials When Bay County Emergency Management officials moved into their new operations center last April, they put it to use immediately. more info |
| 'Pink meanie,' new species of giant jellyfish, identified in Gulf of Mexico Now, with the aid of genetic fingerprinting and other techniques, scientists have determined the Gulf version is a unique species, Drymonema larsoni. More importantly, the pink meanie and its Mediterranean cousin represent a new family of jellyfish altogether, the first new family of jellies identified since 1921, according to The Biological Bulletin. more info |
| Cold weather means "sea cows" try to stay warm, too With the Gulf of Mexico temperatures running in the low 60s, a quiet migration is in progress. Florida's manatees make their swim toward warmer waters in south Florida. more info |
| Tuna Fight Muddies Waters Over Damage From BP Spill The U.S. government will wrap up public meetings next week on whether to recommend declaring the Atlantic bluefin an endangered species. If the government declared the fish endangered, it would bar fishermen from targeting the fish in U.S. waters. An environmental group filed the request last year, claiming in part that the western-Atlantic stock of the fish, long believed to spawn only in the Gulf of Mexico, would "be devastated" by last year's spill from a blown-out BP PLC well. more info |
| After the Great Spill: How the Gulf Cleaned Itself While the jury is still out, the early evidence shows something surprising: the Gulf proved to be much more resilient to the oil spill than scientists might have expected. The vast majority of the oil and other hydrocarbons seem to be gone, less than six months after the crude stopped flowing. And the biggest heroes of the cleanup turned out to be not the thousands of workers who scoured oil from the beaches or the shrimp-boat captains who turned their vessels into oil skimmers. They were actually the microscopic bacteria in the Gulf that digested much of the hydrocarbons while they were still deep under the surface. more info |
| 'Pink Meanie' a Jellyfish Like No Other Meet the "pink meanie," a new species of jellyfish discovered by scientists at Dauphin Island Sea Lab and the University of California, Merced. more info |
| Baker’s educational vision lives on That place is a reality at Orange Beach Elementary School, called the Steven W. Baker Sea, Sand and Stars Science and Nature Center. more info |
| Saltwater aquarium is mesmerizing The Gulf of Mexico aquarium that took Dubuque firefighters five hours to fill is the star attraction of a new $40 million expansion of the National Mississippi River Museum that opened in June. more info |
| Plan for Nature: How to Protect Endangered Species from Climate Change By protecting these imperiled species, we will protect ourselves, ensure that our grandchildren have clean water, safeguard our coastal communities from the ravages of increasingly severe storms, and pass down America's unique natural heritage for future generations. more info |
| Dr. Angel White: It’s mid-course correction time for the ‘plastics in the ocean’ issue The mass communication of the problem of plastic pollution in the North Pacific Gyre has been overblown for several years now. more info |
| ‘Hot-Bunking’ Bacterium Recycles Iron to Boost Ocean Metabolism Newswise — In the vast ocean where an essential nutrient—iron—is scarce, a marine bacterium that launches the ocean food web survives by using a remarkable biochemical trick: It recycles iron. more info |
| DNR to study Gulf oil spill's effect on Minnesota loons “The loons that hatched in Minnesota in 2008 and 2009 were in the Gulf during the entire spill. They usually don’t make the trip north until their third year,” said Carrol Henderson, nongame wildlife supervisor for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. more info |
| Scope and Pace of Gulf Cleanup Is Criticized Eight months since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill began, the cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico goes on, with over 5,000 people and more than 300 boats still at work. Tar balls are still washing up on beaches. Visible sheen is still showing up in certain places in the wake of motorboats. Oil is being washed out of some areas, where it was buried, only to show up someplace else. more info |
| Toms River teen named one of National Wildlife Federation's 'Unsung Heroes' of the Gulf oil spill The National Wildlife Federation recently compiled a list of "Unsung Heroes" who helped in the aftermath of last year's oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Among the list are governors, actors, Pulitzer Prize winners — and Erin Kenny. more info |
| BP funding UA research into oil spill About $786,000 was awarded to 18 UA scientists stationed at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. more info |
| White House Official: Preserving Gulf Coast a Massive Job A White House appointee says preserving the ecosystem of the Gulf Coast -- damaged by the BP oil spill and decades of erosion -- will be a massive undertaking, the "grandaddy" of restoration projects. more info |
| Bacteria gobbled methane from BP spill: scientists Bacteria ate nearly all the potentially climate-warming methane that spewed from BP's broken wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico last year, scientists reported on Thursday. more info |
| Attacking the Oceanic Garbage Gyres with…Art?! The Waves of Change contest broadens the reach of the message in an interesting way: Entrants are asked to submit art between now and March 13th that reflects our society’s addiction to single use plastic. The first example shows the creative, humorous, impactful way this could look: Sushi To Die For shows what initially looks like your average sushi – but it’s made entirely out of plastic waste. more info |
| Built A Boat Out Of Bottles At Sanibel Sea School They may be gratified to know that the water bottles and milk bottles and juice and tea bottles did their duty to float the Calypso, a “boat” built by Sanibel Sea School campers in honor of Jacques Cousteau’s original ocean research vessel. more info |
| Tar balls still being cleaned off Grand Isle beaches With the 2011 tourism season looming, Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts wants BP to hasten its pace in cleaning up Grand Isle, where tar balls are continuing to wash ashore in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Failure in the Gulf The document released Wednesday by the presidential commission investigating last spring’s oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico is a riveting and chilling indictment of “systemic failures” throughout the oil business and of the federal agencies that allowed themselves to be captured by the people they were supposed to regulate. more info |
| Where did BP's methane clouds end up? Kessler and the co-authors of a paper published today by the journal Science believe large amounts of bacteria bloomed rapidly as the methane levels rose and metabolized the natural gas as food. more info |
| A Son of the Bayou, Torn Over the Shrimping Life While Americans were debating their reliance on fossil fuel in the wake of the worst offshore oil spill in United States history, Aaron Greco was trying to decide what to do with his life. His story illuminates the singular appeal and hardships of a livelihood in jeopardy. more info |
| "Boat House Buddies:" Teaching kids about the oil spill The books, which were privately published, follow a group of kids, including Sandcastle Sally, Jet Ski Jimmy, and Gizmo Geek, as they learn about the impact oil has had on their beach, what it's done to their seafood, how it's affected the wildlife, what they can do to help. more info |
| Program offers hands-on science experience A scientific research vessel cut through the cold wind to Terrebonne Bay Saturday on its way to collect samples of shrimp and microorganisms. Seagulls hovered over the boat’s wake, and dolphins playfully splashed along its sides. But despite its mission, more than half of the vessel’s occupants were not scientists. more info |
| USGS Undertakes Additional Studies of Reef Damage in Gulf of Mexico to Assess Cause A team of U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and academic scientists are analyzing samples of coral and surrounding sediments from an area damaged near the Deepwater Horizon site in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Texas Parks and Wildlife documentary to feature Gulf of Mexico A one-hour documentary, The State of the Gulf -- America's Sea, will air in late February on all Texas public television stations, taking a broad look at the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the BP oil spill that followed the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore rig April 20. more info |
| Leak shuts Exxon Mobil platform in Gulf of Mexico An Exxon Mobil oil and gas production platform in Gulf of Mexico block West Delta 73 has been shut due to a small leak, a filing with the U.S. National Response Center said Monday. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Blog LUMCON The money comes from the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, working with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. The workshops are intended to provide people ages 18 and older with information on water quality, nutrients, ecosystems and conservation along the Gulf coast. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Foundation Newsletter: Gulf News GMF Science & Spanish Club students and partners from Marathon Oil Corporation volunteered to help restore marsh habitat in Galveston this fall as part of the Restore America's Estuaries National Conference. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Master Mapping Plan The Gulf of Mexico Alliance is developing a Gulf of Mexico Master Mapping Plan as part of the Governors' Action Plan II for Healthy and Resilient Coasts. The major components of the mapping plan are: a comprehensive assessment of requirements for high-quality, high-resolution elevation and imagery data including repeat intervals for collection, collation of ongoing mapping programs at the federal, state, and local levels and within academia that may address these requirements, a gap analysis between the mapping requirements and programs to identify which mapping needs are currently unmet, and a strategy to not only acquire baseline data, but to establish a program of mapping to support the goals of the Alliance throughout the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Study shows drifting fish larvae allow marine reserves to rebuild fisheries Marine ecologists at Oregon State University have shown for the first time that tiny fish larvae can drift with ocean currents and “re-seed” fish stocks significant distances away – more than 100 miles in a new study from Hawaii. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico oil spill continues to foul 168 miles of Louisiana coastline Louisiana's coastline continues to be smeared with significant amounts of oil and oiled material from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster, with cleanup teams struggling to remove as much as possible of the toxic material by the time migratory birds arrive at the end of February, said the program manager of the Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Teams, which are working for BP and the federal government. more info |
| Endangered Predator A 2000 law banned finning off the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. Last month, Congress approved a bill prohibiting shark finning in all United States waters. It requires boats to bring sharks to port with the fins attached. This limits each vessel’s catch, since a whole shark takes up a lot more room than the fins alone. The bill’s immediate impact on the global market will be modest. But it gives the United States credibility to push other big fishing nations to follow its lead. more info |
| Manatee died from cold, malnourishment The initial necropsy results are in for the manatee that washed up in Mobile Bay on Christmas day. Cold Stress, or hypothermia, combined with not having enough food likely led to the animal's demise. more info |
| Dead manatee found in Pascagoula River "The preliminary assessment based on the gross necropsy is that is related to a cold stunning," Solangi said. more info |
| Manatees paddle to warm water to escape Fla. chill Manatees — those giant aquatic mammals with the flat, paddle-shaped tails — are swimming out of the chilly Gulf of Mexico waters and into warmer springs and power plant discharge canals. On Tuesday, more than 300 manatees floated in the outflow of Tampa Electric's Big Bend Power Station. more info |
| Native American art needs exposure "The Haudenosaunee culture in which I was raised requires humans to give thanks to Mother Earth. Every person and animal is dependent on clean water for survival. As an artist, the spill in the Gulf touched me enough to make a comment about it," said Jemison, a Seneca and member of the Heron Clan. more info |
| Many questions for Louisiana economy in 2011 The state took a wild ride in 2010 with major successes — such as nabbing a major steel plant — and chilling setbacks, including a slowdown in petroleum activity after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the shutdown of NASA's space shuttle program and the planned closure of a shipyard that is Louisiana's largest industrial employer. more info |
| Sand berms off La. stopped little oil in gulf spill, panel finds One of the most controversial tactics used against this summer's Gulf of Mexico oil spill - the construction of large sand islands off the Louisiana coast - managed to stop only a "minuscule" amount of oil, according to a draft report from a presidential commission. more info |
| Fishing Nets Killed More Sea Turtles than BP Spill Endangered sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico may face more dangers from fishing operations than the BP oil spill, according to an essay published Wednesday in the Miami Herald. more info |
| Deep-Water Sub Dives Into The Fountain Of Youth A deep-diving submersible named Alvin made one final trip to the ocean floor this week, before being hauled ashore for an extensive, 18-month makeover. more info |
| Sea life still struggling from oil spill Scientists at the institute of Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport are studying why two endangered manatees died near the Gulf Coast in the past two weeks. more info |
| Tunes in the Key of Green: music that hit home after the Gulf Spill I was struck by the connections between my two favorite albums of the year and the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Both “Plastic Beach” by The Gorillaz and “Ya-Ka-May” by Galactic came out before the spill, so neither one is directly related to the mess. But watching things unfold from afar, the themes these albums explored felt all the more “in the moment” as I read Rocky’s harrowing Louisiana dispatches and saw the images of oiled birds being attended to on TV. And that has gotten me to think a bit more about the whole green or eco-music community that seems to be emerging. more info |
| 2011 economic outlookin Louisiana: slow growth Despite the struggling U.S. economy and the nation's worst oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the state still had close to 20,000 more jobs in October than the same month last year. more info |
| Science, People and the Planet in 2010 Managing risk on an increasingly crowded and human-exploited planet will surely be a prime theme, with the avoidable Gulf of Mexico oil gusher being a prime example. In many instances, science increasingly delineates dangers, but societies choose to ignore the information. more info |
| Tiger shark bellies found full of migrating birds; are Gulf oil and gas rigs to blame? It described a 2005 federal study documenting a phenomenon called “nocturnal circulation,” during which birds migrating across the sea on cloudy nights became disoriented by the brightly lit oil platforms. The birds flew around a platform for hours, often until they died of exhaustion and fell into the water. more info |
| Aging Oil Rigs, Pipelines Expose Gulf to Accidents Older structures are more prone to accidents, especially fires, and more dangerous for workers. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal accident records, platforms that are 20 years old or more accounted for more than 60% of fires and nearly 60% of serious injuries aboard platforms in 2009. more info |
| Oil debris still washing up on Panhandle beaches Bay County's chief of emergency services, Mark Bowen, says crews are still finding a quarter of a pound to half a pound of oil product along the beaches every day. more info |
| In Christmas tradition, Gulf Coast birds counted As dawn breaks on the Gulf of Mexico, Hans Holbrook and Chris Brantley stomp onto the beach in rubber boots, telescopes and tripods slung over their shoulders, alert for signs of birds. more info |
| Gulf Ports Anticipate Panama Canal Expansion's Benefits Ports around the world eagerly await the completion of the Panama Canal expansion in 2014 for the financial boost they hope it will lend their locales. At three Gulf of Mexico and inland ports and waterways — Gulfport, Mississippi; Mobile, Alabama; and the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway — local port authorities have signed memoranda of understanding (MOU) with the Panama Canal Authority to encourage increased traffic in the Gulf. more info |
| Old fishing pier slowly becoming new Gulf reef The first load of concrete materials from the demolition of the Gulf Breeze Fishing Bridge was deployed in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, Dec. 15. The reefing is a collaborative project between City of Gulf Breeze and Escambia County. more info |
| Southeast Asian Immigrants Flounder After Gulf Spill The uncertainty in the aftermath of the disaster has taken a toll on people who relied on the Gulf for their livelihood, according to Tonya Fistein, a therapist with AltaPointe Health Systems in Bayou La Batre. She says there are many unanswered questions. more info |
| For bayou tribe, new year brings only uncertainty The United Houma Nation, with a current membership of about 17,000, is no stranger to adversity. The tribespeople have lived in the bayous and rivers of Louisiana for centuries and survived many challenges prior to the oil spill — including land grabs a century ago, civil rights abuses and, more recently, a series of strong hurricanes and degradation of the marshes that many members rely on for their livelihood. more info |
| Conservation money aimed at watersheds Farmers and landowners volunteer to participate. Projects will try to preserve agricultural productivity. Key practices will include nutrient management, conservation crop rotation, residue and tillage management, restoring wetlands, planting trees along streams, drainage water management and field-edge monitoring. more info |
| After Oil Spill Crisis, a Protector Keeps Watch Ms. Kimble recently went out to examine the aftermath, from the brown, dead marsh grass in Bay Jimmy to the malodorous oil found with a shovel’s nudge in the beach sand at South Pass. She is not an oil rigger, or an oysterman, or a shrimper. She is the coastal program manager for Plaquemines Parish, tending to its wounded banks. more info |
| Farm Bureau leader aims to shape ag policy this year Robinson's job now is to get the word out about the policies Farm Bureau delegates endorse and to provide information to farmers and policymakers on how farms can run in ways that reduce pollution. He's as interested in a Franklin County wetland bank as he is in what happens to the Gulf of Mexico when nitrogen from fertilizer and other sources runs down the Mississippi River. more info |
| Lawmakers back plan for coastal district State lawmakers are pushing for a new congressional district that would bind all coastal parishes with a direct interest and stake in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| State closer to granting dredging permit to open clogged Wiggins Pass A project to remove a shoal that has posed a hazard to boaters for months at Wiggins Pass in North Naples has reached a milestone. more info |
| Scientists to begin yearlong study of oil spill's impact on Gulf As part of Alabama’s Marine Environmental Science Consortium, more than 100 scientists from 14 different universities across the state are conducting studies with $5 million in BP PLC grant money, dubbed RAPID Response Research funds. more info |
| U.S. issues new guidance for offshore drilling According to the ocean energy bureau, companies should provide detailed "containment plans" that describe how they would combat debris - like the wreckage of the Deepwater Horizon at BP's well last summer - while trying to contain a blown-out well. Operators also should describe what subsea containment equipment, remotely operated vehicles and support vessels they would be able to use in case of a disaster. more info |
| FAU's Harbor Branch and Georgia Aquarium Establish Research and Education Partnership FAU’s Harbor Branch and Georgia Aquarium Research Center to Establish Formal Research and Education Partnership ---Partnership to initially focus on coastal ecosystems of the southeastern United States with eventual expansion to other regions more info |
| Senate Envisions Interior, EPA Budget That Improves Drilling Safety The Senate's omnibus appropriations bill for the Interior Department and U.S. EPA would push key Obama administration goals of improving the safety of offshore and onshore oil and gas drilling through extended reviews, more inspection personnel and new industry fees to pay for them. more info |
| Tiny protozoa may hold key to world water safety SBS’s big advantage is that it provides virtually instantaneous feedback on the water supply’s safety, Gallager says. “It’s a very rapid approach to providing a continuous monitoring for the potential presence of toxins,” he says. more info |
| Seaweed: The new trend in water purification Charles Yarish is, by his own definition, a seaweed enthusiast. Over his 35-year career, the Stamford professor of ecology and evolutionary biology has followed his marine algae instincts around the world, studying seaweeds’ relationships, their physiology, and their interactions with the world around them. more info |
| FWC Presents Renovated Offshore Vessel To Public The vessel was ceremonially christened on Aug. 17 in Dania Beach and recently arrived in Carrabelle for duty. The vessel and its captain, Lt. Scott Pearce, will patrol the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, focusing on resource protection, public safety and boating-regulation enforcement. more info |
| Gustavus Students Dissect Fish Affected by Gulf Oil Spill The fish came to Gustavus because Assistant Professor of Biology Joel Carlin has partnered with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its research vessel Oregon II. The ship surveys the diversity and health of the marine environment in the Gulf of Mexico from Veracruz, Mexico to Miami, Fla. more info |
| Shelters will be moved to new locations in Biloxi on the Gulf of Mexico Emergency managers say tonight may be the coldest night of the season, with freezing temperatures and possible freezing rain expected overnight. Inclement weather is prompting a hard freeze warning from the National Weather Service. more info |
| Forecast System to Warn of Toxic Algal Outbreaks Along Texas’ Shoreline Texas officials and coastal managers will now receive early notice of outbreaks of toxic algae that threaten public health and affect beach and fishing activities along the coast. Weekly bulletins generated by the NOAA Harmful Algal Bloom Operational Forecast System are based on observations from state partners, coupled with models, imagery and data from NOAA’s powerful tide and current and weather systems. more info |
| An Alert on Ocean Acidity Carbon dioxide emissions from man-made sources are causing the acidity level of the world’s oceans to rise at what is probably the fastest rate in 65 million years, threatening global fisheries that serve as an essential food source for billions of people, according to a new United Nations report. more info |
| Marine Institute at JU is a great addition for the city Through tours and summer camps, younger students can get excited about learning about the marine environment that is so important to the Gulf Coast area. more info |
| Over 8,000 birds died so far in the Gulf of Mexico because of BP oil spill For, Nov. 30, the FWS reported that 8,000 birds (of numerous species) had been collected in the Gulf of Mexico. Of this number, over three quarters - or 6,039 - were collected dead or died after collection. more info |
| Forecast system to warn TX residents of 'red tide' Texas officials will now receive early notice of outbreaks of toxic algae — including the “red tide” occasionally found in the Gulf — that threaten public health and affect beach and fishing activities. more info |
| Louisiana recovers from oil spill effects While the blowout admittedly harmed the state's economy and environment, the demand for the industry's forefront experts gave the University an opportunity to not only showcase the department's research and efforts but also provided a current case study for students to discuss, Sears said. more info |
| As water temperatures drop, concern grows for fish kills, manatee deaths As the water temperature in the Gulf of Mexico and in area lakes and ponds continues to drop, the concern for the fish and wildlife living in those bodies of water climbs. more info |
| Gulf Seafood Safe, Says Fed Gulf scientists applied the procedure to 1,735 tissue samples, more than half of which were collected from closed federal waters in the Gulf. Only 13 of the 1,735 samples showed trace amounts of DOSS, according to the agencies, and these were well below the safety threshold of 100 parts per million for finfish and 500 parts per million for shrimp, crabs, and oysters. more info |
| Seafloor Samples Show Troubling Effects Of Oil Spill Back onboard the Atlantis, the scientists went to work, examining many dozens of seafloor samples collected by Alvin and by a shipboard instrument called a multicorer. more info |
| New Sanibel Sea School campus brings marine education to life at South Seas Island Resort Popular since its inception five years ago on Captiva’s sister island, Sanibel, Sanibel Sea School has opened its second campus at South Seas Island Resort, exclusive to resort guests. Offering programs for children and adults, as well as private sessions for families, guests of all ages are encouraged to take a front seat in learning about the wonders of the ocean, with either a full-day or half-day session. more info |
| Students create art for a cause Their art work was featured in an art show that resulted in $115 in donations to the Audubon Society. more info |
| What's Going On At The Bottom Of The Gulf It's been several months since the BP capped its blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, researchers are diving to the bottom of the Gulf in search of leftover oil and residue, and to determine what it's doing to the ecosystem. NPR science correspondent Richard Harris traveled tagged along. more info |
| Dives To Gulf Seafloor Turn Up Sea Life Near Well Scientists have been diving in the Gulf of Mexico on a miniature submarine to see how the ecosystems there are coping with the BP oil spill. The expedition gradually edged toward ground zero — the BP wellhead. more info |
| Fungus outbreak hits Alabama marshes; could oil spill sheens be to blame? A widespread fungal outbreak is affecting one of Alabama’s key marsh grass species, potentially rendering much of this year’s seed crop sterile, according to scientists. more info |
| Hunting for missing oil in Gulf of Mexico Starting Monday, researchers will begin a 9-day search for oil on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico near the site of the BP Macondo well disaster, and the public will be able to watch daily updates of their work. more info |
| U.S. wetlands in climate change risk Many coastal wetlands worldwide, including some on the U.S. Atlantic Coast, are at risk of disappearing by the end of this century, scientists say. more info |
| Time to Reconsider Rio Grande Management? If there is anything the US and Mexico has in common, it is the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo. A meandering ribbon that marks a huge chunk of the boundary between the two neighbors, the river provides millions of people with drinking, irrigation and recreational waters. more info |
| USM researchers: Effect of Gulf spill on whales still unknown The research team of USM professors and students returned last month from their four month expedition to the Gulf of Mexico where they tested the effect of the Deep Horizon oil spill on whales and their prey. more info |
| Giant Tar Mat Threatens Parts Of Orange Beach A giant tar mat...nearly an eighth of a mile long...is washing up west of Cotton Bayou in Orange Beach. Clean up crews rushed to the scene when they were notified and brought in heavy equipment to remove the oil. A clean up crew supervisor tells News 5 the tar mat was "submerged"...and wasn't visible until the incoming tide pushed it on shore. more info |
| WHOI Website Will Take Viewers Deep into the Gulf Newswise — It may take years before scientists determine the full impact of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But, utilizing the human-occupied submersible Alvin and the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Sentry, researchers are about to investigate—and view first-hand—the possible effects of the spill at the bottom of the Gulf. more info |
| Louisiana oyster beds remain empty after BP disaster Louisiana's oyster beds have not recovered from the US's worst environmental catastrophe, the Deepwater Horizon oil-rig disaster, and some fishermen fear they never will. more info |
| A year on the job, she takes pride in disaster response When she took over in November 2009 as the first female director of the U.S. Geological Survey, geophysicist Marcia McNutt already had her work cut out for her in streamlining and modernizing a historic scientific agency. That was before a string of natural disasters—earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, a volcanic eruption in Iceland and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill—made her job an even bigger challenge. more info |
| Ground Shifts Again on Offshore Drilling Even so, few were expecting this week's announcement, in which Interior Secretary Ken Salazar declared that the administration would not allow offshore drilling off the Atlantic or in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Offshore oil leases are granted in five-year chunks, and Salazar told reporters that the decision to remove those areas from the 2012-17 plan was "based on our nation's experience with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill." Instead of opening up new areas to oil and gas exploration, the United States should "focus and expand our critical resources on areas that are currently active," Salazar said. more info |
| In Just 6 Months NOAA and FDA Scientists Created a Test for Finding Dispersant in Gulf Seafood On October 29, the public learned of a new seafood safety test that is now being used before officials re-open federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico to fishing. The time frame for developing new testing procedures like this one is usually measured in years, not months, which is why this new test is especially noteworthy. more info |
| Dr. Larry McKinney Reveals his Latest Research Findings at Aquarium of the Pacific on Thursday Dr. McKinney is the executive director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, where he leads an interdisciplinary team that integrates science, policy, and socioeconomic expertise to help assure an economically and environmentally sustainable Gulf. He also acts as state lead for the Ecosystem Assessment and Integration Team of the Gulf Alliance. more info |
| Vitamins Identified as Key Nutrient Which May Promote Harmful Algal Blooms in Coastal Waters Harmful algal blooms, which negatively affect coastal ecosystems, public health, economies and fisheries around the world, may be promoted by vitamins B-1 and B-12 according to Stony Brook University scientists, whose findings were published in an early online edition (Nov. 10) and in the current issue (Nov. 30) of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS ) in an article entitled "Most harmful algal bloom species are vitamin B1 and B12 auxotrophs" more info |
| Taking individual, unusual action toward sustainability There is also another important point to be made about spreading awareness through individual action. The awareness and education must be positive. When people seem like they are being forced to participate in sustainability efforts or constantly hear how bad we are to the world, people will ignore the message. The message behind sustainability education must be a balance of concern and optimism. more info |
| Tips to keep kids science smart A recent nationwide survey cosponsored by the National Science Teachers Association and pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim found nearly all science teachers wish their students’ parents had more opportunities to engage in science with their children— and many parents said they need help. Parents also said that access to materials and community resources would help them get more involved. more info |
| Pier Aquarium's Ocean in Motion (OIM) 50-gallon Mobile Touch Tank Moves to Local School The Pier Aquarium’s Ocean in Motion (OIM) 50-gallon mobile touch tank has a temporary, new home at a fifth grade classroom at Woodlawn Elementary School and will be housed there until right before the Christmas break. more info |
| Not Just for Kids: an Interview with the Banana Slug String Band For 25 years the Banana Slug String Band has been performing around the world—spreading a message of eco-hope and teaching children the magic of our blue and green orb. more info |
| Scientists Debate Real Impact of Oil Spill Each year the Bays and Bayous Symposium put on by the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium focuses on the health of the Gulf of Mexico. So understandably the main focus of conversation at this year’s event held in Mobile was the impacts for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. more info |
| Surfboard-shaped research vessel rides on wave power When BP deployed two unmanned ocean-monitoring vessels in the Gulf of Mexico last summer, it had Roger Hine’s bathtub to thank. more info |
| Minn. gets $8.8M for conservation projects Minnesota will receive more than $8.8 million in federal funds for conservation projects and water-quality improvements in the Mississippi River Basin. more info |
| HIGHLY ACTIVE 2010 HURRICANE SEASON SPARES GULF COAST "Fortunately for us, the Gulf of Mexico was spared this hurricane season," said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett. "However, constant activity in the tropics kept us on guard." more info |
| NOAA Announces Fishing Rules to Protect Gag and Red Grouper NOAA’s Fisheries Service has announced a temporary rule that will prohibit recreational fishing for gag grouper in Gulf of Mexico federal waters. The six-month rule becomes effective on January 1, 2011, and can be extended an additional six months if necessary. more info |
| Geological Survey report: Corn crops for biofuels may have unintended consequences for the gulf A new report by the U.S. Geological Survey shows that growing corn for biofuel production is having unintended effects on water quality and quantity in northwestern Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Pilot program will remove hazardous anchors used to secure oil spill boom The permits also require that within 30 days of receiving a permit, the permittee provide the corps with a restoration plan to remove the boom. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone: Mitigating the Damage This article will profile hypoxia and present simple solutions that can be found in keener agriculture practices, in US environmental policymaking, and in public awareness and enthusiasm to amend the problem. more info |
| Fishing Banned in Stretch of Gulf Tests are under way to determine whether the tar balls from the shrimper’s net are from the BP spill, which released about 4.9 million barrels of oil into the gulf. more info |
| Was the Sea Turtle Rescue Operation in the Gulf a Success? Yet the fate of the loggerhead, Kemp’s ridley, and green turtle hatchlings that swam into open water is unknown. The government agencies working on the rescue decided not to notch the hatchlings’ shells before releasing them, leaving researchers no way to identify the individuals if they were ever found again. There were so few turtles that finding the ones rescued from the oil spill “would be akin to finding a needle in a haystack,” says MacPherson. more info |
| In wake of oil spill, damage in the deep The search for what the BP oil well blowout did to the Gulf of Mexico already has gone to extraordinary lengths: more than 125 research cruises covering hundreds of square miles and taking thousands of water and sediment samples. more info |
| USDA Funds Conservation Projects for Water Quality Improvements in the Mississippi River Basin Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture will fund existing conservation projects in 41 eligible watersheds in 12 states this fiscal year as part of its Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative. The initiative supports USDA's continuing efforts to help landowners and farmers protect and improve water quality in the Mississippi River Basin in selected watersheds from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Ask A Scientist Question: What is the process of bioremediation? more info |
| Novel Ocean-Crust Mechanism Could Affect World’s Carbon Budget The researchers are not sure just how much of these greenhouse gases remain in the sediment and the water, how much they affect the biological communities, and how much CO2 and methane escapes into the atmosphere. But they do know they have observed a novel mechanism in creating ocean crust. more info |
| Deep-Water Dive Reveals Spilled Oil On Gulf Floor We see this brown stuff on coral fans, hit like pine trees along a dusty dirt road. More slimy brown stuff hangs over some of the odd formations of frozen natural gas here half a mile below the surface. Crabs here normally pick at worms that actually live in this methane ice. more info |
| Dauphin Island Sea Lab's Skimmer Newsletter for November 2010 Scientists at Alabama's Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL) confirmed a telling impact of the oil on the coastal marine food web in a recent scientific report titled "Oil carbon entered the coastal planktonic food web during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill," published today in the scientific journal IOP Publishing's Environmental Research Letters. more info |
| Living to fish another day The need for caution and common sense among mariners was a central topic discussion on the docks and boat launch ramps last week after a deadly pair of boating accidents off the Sonoma and Mendocino coasts claimed the lives of two men, a recreational crab fisherman and a kayaker. more info |
| How Do You Teach Kids to Live Sustainably on an Island? Sandra Tapia, CDRC's Education Specialist, wanted to integrate more environmental education into the public education system in the Galapagos, which is overseen by the government on Ecuador's mainland. So she started developing a curriculum that was focused on not just teaching kids about sustainable living and the environment, but about sustainable living and the environment on an island. more info |
| Our Gulf art show in Lakewood Ranch Finally, she decided that maybe artists could join in an art show to benefit some facet of the recovery process. more info |
| Oyster production could rise with new method Researchers John Supan, with the Louisiana Sea Grant and LSU AgCenter, and Bill Walton, with Auburn University, aim to get Louisiana to adopt off-bottom oyster culturing methods to supplement the state’s traditional harvest. They say the method produces more efficient and faster harvests. more info |
| Fishing Nations Fail to Safeguard Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Government delegates from 48 fishing nations today failed to protect the spawning grounds of the vanishing Atlantic bluefin tuna, either in the Gulf of Mexico or the Mediterranean, although they did approve some protections for whitetip and hammerhead sharks. more info |
| Iowa receives $8.4 million to improve Mississippi River Basin U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced Monday that more than $43 million will be provided to 12 states along the Mississippi River to help fund more than 70 existing conservation projects in 41 eligible watersheds. The initiative supports the USDA’s continuing efforts to help landowners and farmers protect and improve water quality from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Healing Journey: A Costly Coastal Legacy for the Gulf of Mexico . National Geographic Education Fellow Jon Waterhouse writes from Louisiana's Gulf Coast that, for some residents who rely on marine life for a living, reports that we're past the worst of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill's consequences don't ring true. more info |
| Farm drainage partly to blame for dead zones in Gulf The tile drainage systems in upper Mississippi farmlands -- from southwest Minnesota to across Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio -- are the biggest contributors of nitrogen runoff into the Gulf of Mexico, reports a Cornell/University of Illinois-Urbana study. more info |
| Exploration - balance a must Even after memories of the Gulf spill pale or Haynesville Shale hoopla dissipates, there will still be oil and gas wells, pipelines and other infrastructure crisscrossing Louisiana lands and waters. All need to be maintained and monitored with sufficient oversight to assure the safety of our citizenry and the integrity of our environment. more info |
| Flooding predictions have dramatic implications for Grand Isle Grand Isle and similar low-lying locations along Louisiana's central coastline could be inundated with floodwaters for half of each year by the end of the century, thanks to the effects of rapidly sinking soils and rising water levels in the Gulf of Mexico, according to new estimates from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. more info |
| Are farmers hurting the Gulf of Mexico more than BP? One solution, according to the authors, may be installing artificial wetlands to filter the farm waste. Another possibility is fertilizing in the spring instead of the fall. more info |
| NOAA’s Enforcement Actions in the Gulf of Mexico Help Ensure Safe Seafood Eight shrimp trawlers have been charged by NOAA with allegedly fishing this summer in the area of the Gulf of Mexico that was closed due to the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. The notices of violation and assessment (NOVAs) were issued as part of NOAA’s effort to help ensure the seafood reaching America’s dinner tables was safe – and to protect the livelihoods of Gulf fishermen who were respecting the closures. more info |
| Questions linger about seafood safety, but FDA says consumers have little to fear Every Gulf fish that the government has tested since workers shut off the oil spewing from BP’s ruptured well in mid-July has shown toxins far below what is dangerous, federal authorities say. more info |
| Scientists start to piece together damage puzzle of BP spill In recent weeks, scientists have reported finding a garden of dead and dying corals covered in brown gunk, and evidence that petroleum compounds moved up the food chain from bacteria to plankton. More research voyages are planned, and labs are busy as scientists try to pull together a more complete picture of the damage below the surface and chart a recovery plan. more info |
| Researchers Use Bacteria as Environmental Sensor A UT Dallas student team has harnessed common bacteria to quickly detect the presence of potentially hazardous petrochemicals in water or seafood. more info |
| NOAA's first tests show clean shrimp Royal red shrimp pulled up from the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico show no traces of hydrocarbons according to the preliminary test. NOAA tells FOX 10 News the samples are being sent to Seattle for further testing. The results should be back by mid-week. more info |
| Aberdeen to host international oil and gas technology summit this week Senior executive from global firms will meet to discuss technology gaps and challenges for the industry going forward more info |
| Experts: Gulf Coast seafood industry faces perception problem Walker and Calvin Walker, a toxicologist at NOAA's National Seafood Inspection Laboratory in Pascagoula, spoke to scientists from 28 countries attending a conference this month in Biloxi. more info |
| Green sea turtles cleaned from spill in north Fla. Twelve green sea turtles, cleaned of oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill, are waiting to go back home. more info |
| NOAA Closes 4,200 Square Miles of Gulf Waters Today, out of an abundance of caution, NOAA has closed 4,213 square miles of Gulf of Mexico federal waters off Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama to royal red shrimping. The precautionary measure was taken after a commercial shrimper, having hauled in his catch of the deep water shrimp, discovered tar balls in his net. more info |
| Scientists puzzle over fish increase after oil spill fishing ban Scientists said it was too soon to draw a direct link between the lack of fishing pressure and an increased numbers of sea creatures currently in local waters, given the natural variability seen year to year. more info |
| BP Deep-Cleaning Beaches Amid New Worries With its Macondo well dead and few visitors on the coast during the offseason, BP has launched its biggest push yet to deep-clean the tourist beaches that were coated with crude during the worst of the Gulf oil spill. Machines are digging down into the sand to remove buried tar mats left from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. more info |
| Deepwater Horizon oil entered food web The team found that the ratio of carbon-13 in the plankton samples from the middle and inner shelf decreased during the two initial slicks, indicating that they had absorbed carbon from the oil. It took 2 to 4 weeks for the ratios to return to normal. Similarly, the sites furthest offshore also saw a change in carbon ratio in mid-August, following the pulse of residual oil in late-July. more info |
| Manatees migrating from Gulf Coast waters With two manatees sighted in Alabama waters Wednesday morning, scientists are asking the public to be extra vigilant and report any animals seen in the next few weeks. more info |
| Manatees are on the move in Alabama waters Researchers with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab’s Mobile Manatees Sighting Network (MMSN) are closely monitoring the movements of manatees in Alabama and Mississippi to be sure the animals make their normal seasonal movements following the exceptionally cold winter of 2009 and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. more info |
| Sea Life Flourishes in the Gulf According to Valentine, the last word will come in the spring — before heavy commercial fishing begins again — with a follow-up study. Already, however, anecdotal reports support the finding: Darrell Carpenter, president of the Louisiana Charter Boat Association, was recently quoted as saying, “The fish are off the charts. There are no fewer fish. There are more fish, because they’ve been un-harassed all summer. There are more and bigger fish.” NOAA has said there have been no fish kills tied to oil, has certified seafood in the Gulf as safe, and has reopened most of the water there for fishing. more info |
| Dauphin Island's Katrina Cut could be filled by Thanksgiving week Thompson has a $13 million contract to bridge the gap caused by Hurricane Katrina five years ago. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave an emergency permit for the work as a way to protect marshes and oysters from oil washing in from the BP spill over the summer. more info |
| South Florida Wyland Living Green Fair Drew and Inspired Thousands The free regional interactive community experience brought together art, community involvement, and awareness about the environment to share how individuals and families can do better for the Earth and live a higher quality of lifestyle. Passionate about the fair’s mission, Wyland (www.wyland.com) -- who was hailed a “Marine Michelangelo” by USA Today --lent his name and commitment to the fair as the City of Boca Raton lent the green space and hosted the regional event. more info |
| Texas A&M University at Galveston Dedicates Ocean and Coastal Studies Building Designed by WHR Architects At a special ceremony on November 11, 2010, Texas A&M University at Galveston (TAMUG) dedicated its new Ocean and Coastal Studies Building (OCSB). Designed by WHR Architects, the highly sophisticated, 110,000 square foot building is the largest and best equipped marine research facility on the Gulf Coast, and among the finest facilities of its kind in the nation. Located on Pelican Island in Galveston County, overlooking TAMUG’s marina, the facility houses the Texas Institute of Oceanography, Center for Texas Beaches and Shores, Texas Seafood Safety Laboratory, Laboratory of Oceanographic and Environmental Research, Coastal Zone Laboratory, and the university’s Marine Biology and Marine Sciences academic departments. more info |
| FAU projects selected to receive $725,000 from New Florida Initiative Florida Atlantic University has been awarded $725,000 in Clustering Grants and a Scholars Boost Grant provided by the New Florida Initiative—the State University’s collaborative effort together with business and government to deliver the economic talent and innovations that Florida needs to be globally competitive. In January 2010, the New Florida Initiative was developed to ensure that Florida’s knowledge and innovation economy was sustained by high-technology, high-wage jobs in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or “STEM”). more info |
| Protection on the way for Lafourche’s ‘economic engine’ Port Fourchon will be the primary beneficiary of fines stemming from the oil spill. Through the money BP is required to appropriate to the affected areas, the eastern and western flanks of the parish’s “economic engine” will be fortified through the Caminada Headland Restoration and West Belle Pass Barrier Headland Restoration projects. more info |
| Khaled Bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Prepares for Launch of Four-Year Global Reef Expedition in 2011 Having recently observed its 10th anniversary, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation is preparing for its next scientific research and education project, the Global Reef Expedition, which will launch in 2011 and continue through 2014. The primary scientific goals of the Expedition are to map and characterize coral reef ecosystems, identify their current status and major threats, and examine factors that enhance their capacity to resist, survive and rapidly recover from major disturbance events. The resulting scientific findings will be shared freely with participating countries and scientific and regulatory organizations, and will be used by countries for developing sound management strategies for coral reefs. more info |
| Animal Quiz: How Much Do You Know about Migration? The Great Migration is an amazing series and I highly recommend it! The series isn't like other ones; It covers animals that people know little about. The monarch segment is especially inspiring. They literally fly until their wings degrade! I couldn't believe some of the footage on Feast or Famine. They captured a great white shark devouring an elephant seal. Graphic, but cool! more info |
| BP scientist makes shallow water claims “We had two objectives in this program. One was to monitor for fresh oil. So we were looking for oil coming from the Gulf. We also looked for remobilized oil. That is oil that came on the surface and landed on the shoreline,” Murphy said. more info |
| Discovery Kingdom's sawfish off to New Orleans Such is the case for Buzz, a 14-foot sawfish from Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo. Not only is Buzz one of the oddest looking creatures on the planet, but he's also one of the loneliest. Only five sawfish exist in captivity and his species, once abundant in the Gulf of Mexico, is hovering near extinction. more info |
| Florida's Oyster Season Heats Up As Weather Cools Down Florida's oyster industry is based on the Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica), which is found from the Yucatan Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico to the St. Lawrence River in Canada. Ninety percent of Florida's oysters are harvested in Apalachicola Bay in Franklin County, one of the most productive, pristine estuaries in the country. In the warm, nutrient-rich waters of the bay, oysters grow quickly and can reach market size in less than two years. more info |
| DEP official: No more oil detected “They’re not seeing any detectable levels of oil itself,” Boudreau said. “What is left down there is being attacked and eaten by microorganisms.” more info |
| Louisiana: Tests Begin on Blowout Preventer Testing started Tuesday on a key piece of evidence in the investigation of what led to the huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill in the spring, federal investigators said. The device, a blowout preventer, is a 300-ton steel contraption that sits at the wellhead of exploratory wells and is supposed to lock in place to prevent a spill in the case of an explosion. Investigators will try to determine why it did not stop the flow of oil to the sea from BP’s Macondo well. more info |
| Coastal campus to provide educational classes The Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, or LUMCON, has started a new adult-education program, Gulf Lagniappe, to help people learn more about Louisiana and its coastal issues. more info |
| Oil Discovered In Gulf Food Chain A new study by scientists at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab shows oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster made its way into the Gulf food chain. more info |
| Oil harder to find in Alabama and Mississippi waters “While intermittent tar mats have been identified adjacent to some Gulf beaches, and are being addressed through a removal process, the offshore assessment activities have not confirmed the presence of submerged tar patches in Mobile Bay or the Mississippi Sound,” reads a statement from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. more info |
| Money 2 schools = sainthood Part II The grants are to be used to enhance local schools’ math and science classes and will purchase science lab supplies, math and science-related field trips and buy iPads and cameras, according to a school system press release. more info |
| Marine Renewable Sources Could Meet 50% of EU Electricity Needs According to the Marine Board of the European Science Foundation, by 2050 approximately 50% of Europe’s electricity requirements could come from marine renewable sources. more info |
| Oil traces found in Gulf food chain, scientists say Scientists tracked a particular isotope of carbon identified with oil and found it turned up in zooplankton. The study concludes that oil was consumed by microbes, or oil-eating bacteria, which were then consumed by micro-organisms in the plankton food web. more info |
| Resilience of Gulf remarkable Scientists interviewed by the Press-Register of Mobile note that the results of the reduced fishing pressure show the astounding resilience of the ecosystem. It almost works too well, they said, because the growth in marine life populations may make it hard to gauge the full scale of the negative effects of the spill. more info |
| Introducing the new Auburn Aquarium "I want people to understand that you don't have to have a giant aquarium," Arington says. "To educate students, you need quality stuff. I want to educate people on what these fish are and where they come from—they're not from Petco." more info |
| Oil hydrocarbons ingested by GOM plankton communities Depletion of δ13C can also be caused by increased freshwater input (e.g. from nearby Mobile Bay), phytoplankton blooms, or even physical presence of oil in the water column. However, the researchers were able to rule out all these possible causes for isotope depletion–bay outflow was low during the sampling period, chlorophyll in the water column was not especially high, and direct oil contamination could be ruled out by normal C:N ratios (which would be ‘anomalously’ high if micro-droplets of oil were present in the water or attached to the exterior of plankton). more info |
| Core Samples Reveal Strange State Of Seafloor In Deepwater Horizon Aftermath Scientists studying the Gulf of Mexico in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig catastrophe have found evidence that some amount of crude oil from the massive spill remains spread across the seafloor for dozens of miles around the former Macando well. While studies indicate that much of the disastrous oil pollution on the surface and in the water column appears to have been consumed and metabolized by ocean bacteria in the months since the breached well was sealed, the situation appears to be far different on the seafloor. more info |
| All the Oil Became Food The researchers found that non-toxic compounds from the oil spill had worked their way into the base of the food chain. “We showed with little doubt that oil consumed by marine bacteria did reach the larger zooplankton that form the base of the food chain. These zooplankton are an incredibly important food-source for many species of fish, jellyfish and whales,” says Graham. more info |
| EPA Finds Minimal Dioxin Risk from Oil Burning in the Gulf of Mexico But two new reports by the EPA appear to ease those fears. One found that dioxin levels were roughly comparable to those produced by residential wood stoves or forest fires, and below concentrations the agency considers dangerous. more info |
| NOAA opens more Gulf waters to fishing after BP spill The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on Monday it had reopened more than 8,400 square miles of Gulf waters to recreational and commercial fishermen, leaving only a fraction of the area still closed because of the spill. more info |
| 'Shadow' of oil spill seen in Gulf of Mexico plankton It is possible to trace oil from the BP spill as it moved through the first several levels of the Gulf’s food chain, starting with the microbes that broke the oil down, according to a scientific paper released today. more info |
| How a 7-year-old Inspired Me Today She reminded me of the very reason I came to work today. Simply put, I want Kaeden to grow up in a world filled with the wonders of wildlife – from sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico to polar bears in the Arctic. more info |
| Making Climate Change Cool in the Classroom Williams is a senior educator for the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE), a nonprofit based in Oakland, Calif., that sends speakers — armed with an original video produced by ACE — to schools to talk a little basic science. They're prepared for an uphill struggle. "We do this in a way you've never seen it," says Williams, a Brooklyn native and lawyer. "We know you have to engage them from the beginning." more info |
| US EPA at Inaugural U.S. Science & Engineering Festival – Safe Chemicals There were science-based performances, games and activities, all geared to showing the fascinating and fun side of science. This festival was in response to the steadily decreasing leadership role of the U.S. in science, which the organizers hoped to change by stimulating an interest in science for kids at a young age. more info |
| U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Releases Annual List of Candidates for Endangered Species Act The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) today released its Candidate Notice of Review, a yearly appraisal of the current status of plants and animals considered candidates for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). One species has been removed from candidate status, five have been added, and four have a change in priority from the last review conducted in November of 2009. There are now 251 species recognized by the Service as candidates for ESA protection. more info |
| Coral reefs under siege from acidic oceans Ocean acidification, a potentially disastrous consequence of global warming, is threatening the early life cycle of coral reefs near Florida and throughout the Caribbean, according to a new study published Monday. more info |
| Tar Balls Continue Washing Ashore in Florida I took this photo at Florida’s Perdido Bay State Park, just west of Pensacola in Escambia County. Oil had just started to arrive on the beach, mixing with the area’s famous white sand to form brown clumps. more info |
| New ocean acidification study shows added danger to already struggling coral reefs A new study led by scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science suggests that over the next century recruitment of new corals could drop by 73 percent, as rising CO2 levels turn the oceans more acidic. The research findings reveal a new danger to the already threatened Caribbean and Florida reef Elkhorn corals. more info |
| Lafourche choosing site for saltwater-control structure Lafourche Parish officials are debating where to place a new structure to block saltwater from creeping up Bayou Lafourche and threatening local drinking water supplies. more info |
| Spill prompts call for safety institute Now, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar wants to replicate that collaboration by creating an Ocean Energy Safety Institute that would bring together government scientists, environmentalists, drilling experts and industry leaders focused on advancing offshore safety, spill response strategies and exploration techniques. more info |
| Kings Bay Manatees Are Off Limits for 4 Months The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has prohibited human contact with manatees in Florida's Kings Bay for four months to preserve the animal's natural habits while the agency develops a permanent solution to the human-manatee clash brought about by the creature's popularity. more info |
| NPR Duo Wins AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award NPR Science Correspondent RICHARD HARRIS and Editor ALISON RICHARDS have been awarded the 2010 AAAS KAVLI Science Journalism Award for the radio category by the AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. The award, which includes $3,000 and a plaque to be awarded at the AAAS annual meeting in FEBRUARY, was given to HARRIS and RICHARDS for a series, "Follow the Science: Calculating the Amount of Oil and Gas in the GULF Oil Spill," that challenged the first estimates of the size of the oil spill in the GULF OF MEXICO. more info |
| Macondo oil spill highlights gulf coast vunerabilities Entergy Corp., a nuclear power provider, used the conference as a forum to release a study entitled “Building a Resilient Energy Gulf Coast.” America’s Energy Coast and America’s Wetlands Foundation supported the study. Entergy helped commission the study done by McKinsey & Co. and Swiss Re. more info |
| Ozone depletion could be damaging whales' skin: scientists A closely-studied community of whales, including the threatened blue whale, showed worrying signs of sunburn, possibly because of ozone depletion in the atmosphere, biologists reported on Wednesday. more info |
| Riley: Feds are demanding control over oil spill recovery funds Referring to NRDA, Mabus, who also serves as Navy secretary, wrote, “we are working closely with your representatives, and those of other affected states, to identify major restoration projects in each of the states that can be launched without delay, when agreed to by the responsible parties.” more info |
| Marine facility opens for public education Holly Hebert, public information officer at LUMCON, said over the years, many people have expressed a desire to take a class at the facility. Now, with the help of a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, LUMCON is able to offer some adult classes, Hebert said. more info |
| Researcher: Fish numbers triple after oil spill fishing closures Instead, ongoing research suggests the federal closure of the richest portion of the Gulf to all fishing through the spring and summer months resulted in dramatic increases in the abundance of numerous marine creatures, from shrimp to sharks. more info |
| NOAA Announces Environmental Literacy Grants for Science Education NOAA’s Office of Education announced today that it has awarded grants totaling more than $8 million to seventeen institutions across the country to engage the public in science education activities that improve understanding and stewardship of the local and global environment. Included are projects that enhance or expand museum exhibits using data visualization, expand citizen science networks, develop family programs for underserved/underrepresented audiences and enhance teen education programs more info |
| Officials gather in Florida for first meeting of Gulf oil spill restoration task force U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson will preside over the first official meeting of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force in the aftermath of BP's Gulf of Mexico oil well blowout. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Foundation Newsletter: Gulf News GMF's Suraida Nanez-James was one of three US representatives to take part in a regional workshop for Gulf of Mexico environmental education held September 8-10 in Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico. more info |
| Translating the wonders of science at Florida Tech Florida Tech has received $450,000 of a $2.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation to train graduate students, post-doctoral candidates and research scientists how better to communicate science to K-12 students and other non-scientific audiences. more info |
| Philippe Cousteau carries on mission to save the oceans But his biggest passion, he said, is to work with young people around the world, teaching them about the importance of our seas and oceans, empowering them with knowledge and tools. And the latest EarthEcho programme will train young people to be citizen journalists, and provide them with cameras so that they can tell the stories that are important to them. more info |
| Restoring the Gulf, one turtle at a time Specialists at the Audubon centre cleaned the turtles and dolphins brought to them that way and rehabilitated them at their inland facility, essentially a warehouse filled with black plastic tubs and several pools. The society handled a variety of turtle species, including green, hawksbill, loggerhead and Kemp’s Ridley, the most critically endangered sea turtle in the world. more info |
| Aquatic lab amazes students This weekend, the lab opened its doors to about 60 students of Sarasota's Fruitville Elementary and more than 150 family members. more info |
| Elmer's Island welcomes coastal restoration volunteers for the first time since oil spill The goal on this recent Saturday was to get 6,000 new plants in the ground and 600 more feet of sand fence stretched across the beach. The sand fences slow the wind column just enough to knock the blowing sand down, thus accelerating the natural process of dune building, Fine said. The plants then keep the dunes from eroding. more info |
| Florida Tech researchers to study effects of BP oil spill Bostater will use special cameras to examine the "spectral signature" of plants to see how much seagrass and marsh were killed. He can decipher the types of plants and their die-off based on the wavelengths they reflect. more info |
| Researchers work with BP to monitor the Gulf of Mexico "This radar provides a new source of ocean current data in a region of the Gulf of Mexico that has always been data-sparse," NOAA HF Radar Project Manager Jack Harlan said. "It's a great example of a private-academic partnership providing data that NOAA will distribute through its Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) benefiting spill response, U.S. Coast Guard search and rescue operations, harmful algal bloom tracking, coastal water quality monitoring and a host of other critical uses." more info |
| Coastal Big Bend returning to normal six months after the spill “Over the past two weeks, we have been averaging about 20,000 pounds of product in the form of tar balls per day most of which was picked up in Escambia,” said DEP emergency response chief Phil Wieczynski. “BP has committed to continue to clean up oil as long as oil is present and we are doing our best to hold them to it.” more info |
| Kayaker Leads Mon River Cleanup Efforts "When you toss a water bottle or water cap that can kill an albatross in the Gulf of Mexico. So, I want to teach young people because older people should know better," he said. more info |
| Baldwin County Impact 100 awards Outward Bound program $150,000 grant for at-risk youth program The grant will allow Outward Bound to take 150 at-risk students on eight-day expeditions in the wilderness followed by two days in the classroom, he said. Each group of eight to 11 students is accompanied by three adults, he said. more info |
| NOAA Launches Education Website With New Look and Content To better connect educators and students who are interested in NOAA’s education and science resources, NOAA has just completed a major update of the agency’s primary education resource portal, https://www.education.noaa.gov. more info |
| Greenpeace to Document Climate Change in Gulf of Mexico The Arctic Sunrise, one of the ships in environmental group Greenpeace’s fleet, has docked in the Mexican port of Veracruz on its journey to document environmental damage to the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Citizen "Scientists" Track Birds in BP-Spill Zone . Millions of birds winter on the Gulf of Mexico coast. Now volunteers are counting the animals to help scientists determine the oil spill's effects on resident populations as well as on the migratory populations. more info |
| Gulf Seafood Is Safe to Eat, FDA and NOAA Say As of Nov. 1, 96% of relevant Gulf of Mexico waters became available for commercial and recreational fishing — up from 37% during the worst of the Gulf oil spill — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said. The agency based its decision on federal testing confirming the safety of Gulf-area seafood. more info |
| USM's Gulf Coast Research Lab studying oil spill impact Large, colorful crabs may provide clues about the oil's impact on animals that live in the deep, cold waters of the gulf. more info |
| Oil and water Carron points out, however, that he doesn’t have much time to spend on regret or nostalgia right now, and for good reason. As the executive director of NGI — a nonprofit marine research think tank that includes five area universities, a regional center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and several other environmental research groups — Carron is now leading a massive scientific effort to understand the ecological impact of the spill on the millions of sea creatures that live in and around the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Students study Gulf oil spill In science class, they did experiments that involved cleaning up the oil spill that polluted the water and beaches. The kids at OLPH even developed their own ideas to clean up a beach spill and tested their theories. The students thought that cat litter in a sock worked the best absorbing the oil. more info |
| Iowa Environmental Council: Report says EPA must set pollution limits in Mississippi river and the gulf In a new report, a committee of scientists and experts at the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences says swift government action is needed to reduce damaging fertilizer pollution in the Mississippi River basin and the northern Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| CANADIANS CELEBRATE OCEAN WISE™ MONTH Throughout the month of November, Ocean Wise partners are encouraging consumers to eat Ocean Wise and help ensure the health of our oceans. Ocean Wise makes it easy for consumers to feel good about eating sustainable seafood—here are five ways to celebrate Ocean Wise more info |
| Whale shark, the world's largest fish, thrives on tiny crustaceans and worms How do the largest fish in the world survive on a diet of tiny crustaceans and worms? That's what 12 researchers from five institutions - the University of South Florida; the Georgia Aquarium; the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Fla.; the University of California at Irvine; and Proyecto Domino, based in the Cancun, Mexico - set out to find when they studied whale sharks in the wild. more info |
| Hydrological illiteracy stops utilizing of valuable resource The water cycle and the life cycle are one and same, and both depend on your ability to maintain them. All creatures, including humans, are largely water. more info |
| Miracle migration: Tagging helps track monarchs’ magnificent journey From the 1950s on, thousands of volunteers like the ones who accompany Julie to the Sloughs Wildlife Management Area near Geneva every September have been assisting in the tagging of the creatures. more info |
| Tough Ride For FL Seahorse The fate of the dwarf seahorse species that calls Florida seagrass beds home is up in the air after all that oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico this past summer. Experts say it will take time to figure out how the oil affects the population of these small, fragile creatures that live off Florida's shores. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico "dead zone" caused by ethanol production "Subsidies are driving farmers toward more corn," said Gene Turner of Louisiana State University. "More nitrate comes off corn fields than it does off of any other crop by far. And nitrogen is driving the formation of the dead zone." more info |
| Shipwreck near Fort De Soto may receive state designation Roughly two miles west of Fort De Soto Park, in about 18 feet of water, lies what's left of the USS Narcissus, a Civil War tugboat that exploded after hitting a shoal in 1866, killing all 29 people on board. more info |
| Definitely algae, not oil, scientists conclude of Gulf substance But Dr. Sibel Bargu, an algae specialist at LSU's Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, said lab tests confirmed the substance was algae, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries reported. more info |
| What's Really Going to Destroy the Gulf Coast Viles hopes that if there is an opportunity to be seized in the BP oil disaster, it's that the money the company pays in fines and penalties could be used to build a system that could keep the Mississippi River delta alive. more info |
| Louisiana oyster industry struggles to cope with oil spill, coastal restoration efforts But the months-long assault of oil in Barataria Bay -- and more importantly the state's decision to unleash fresh water from the river to beat back oil -- has wiped out more than three-quarters of his crop, leaving the next five years an open question. more info |
| Southeast Missouri farmers enroll in wetlands habitat program Farmers in southeast Missouri have put 90,000 acres into a federal program aimed at providing more wetland habitat for birds. more info |
| Art & Soul: In 'Spill' artists share their views on the high price of oil The result is "Spill," a thoughtful collection of original works by 24 different artists, on display at Indigo Sky Community Gallery. Each artist meditates upon oil's devastating environmental impact, using a wide range of media to explore the topic. A total of 84 works were submitted for the exhibit, with local artists Betsy Cain and Harry DeLorme serving as jurors for the show. more info |
| Feds: New tests confirm safety of Gulf seafood In all, 1,735 tissue samples were tested, including more than half of those collected to reopen Gulf of Mexico federal waters. Of those, 13 showed trace amounts of dispersant residue. But the agencies said all the samples were well below the safety threshold for fish, shrimp, crabs and oysters. more info |
| Area Students Get Rare Glimpse at Life Undersea The National Association of Black Scuba Divers (NABS) and NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries joined forces to present “Aquarius 2010: If Reefs Could Talk,” a program designed to educate students on their connection to the ocean. On Oct. 12, Bancroft Elementary School students participated in this program that allowed them to travel deep into the world’s only undersea research laboratory with the help of high-tech video equipment. more info |
| Texas A&M Experts To Provide Perspectives On Gulf Oil Spill Impact Oct. 28 Oceanographers and other scientists from Texas A&M University and other parts of the Texas A&M System who were involved in research and related endeavors in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill earlier this year will gather here Thursday (Oct. 28) to assess various aspects of the disaster and contemplate what the future holds for the Gulf, its sea life and the region generally. more info |
| Prize Winners Can Help Response to Natural Disasters From my research, it is my belief that disaster and crisis management and response are set to be a key growth area of the future. The severity and impact of disasters are on the rise. The ability of nations and regions to pull together international rescue efforts at short notice in the first few hours and days of a disaster critically shapes the success or failure of any subsequent rescue efforts. National efforts are usually not enough—both in scale and in scope—to cope with its widespread aftermath. more info |
| Six Months After The Leak, We Survey The Deepwater Horizon Disaster Up Close Late last week I had the unique opportunity to spend a day on one of Greenpeace’s three ships, the Arctic Sunrise, in the Gulf of Mexico during the final leg of the group’s three-month-long oil spill campaign. A helicopter picked me up near Gulfport, Mississippi, and transported me directly onto the ship just 20 miles north of Deepwater Horizon ground zero. I spent the next 24 hours observing life onboard, chatting with scientists, and, oh yeah, watching a million-dollar manned submersible get launched into the water. more info |
| Philippe Cousteau’s EarthEcho International Partners with Discovery Education to Launch Water Planet Challenge An unprecedented national call-to-action, the Water Planet Challenge engages and empowers youth to bring about environmental change starting with water-focused projects at a local level. This web-based program provides interactive tools and resources for middle and high school-aged youth to design, create and implement service-learning projects that address environmental concerns in their communities, from water conservation to beachfront cleanups. more info |
| The Joys of Making a Difference in Science Little did I know, however, the extent to which that oil spill, and the demands it made on my time and expertise, would rekindle my enthusiasm for my research—something that by April I had thought was fading. I've studied pollution ever since earning my bachelor's degree. Later it became a topic of my Ph.D. dissertation, and for a long time I found the subject rewarding and challenging. more info |
| Recovery Commission pushes for seafood marketing group A new organization to promote Alabama’s seafood industry could be the first step to creating a regional institution to research and market the fish and shrimp caught and processed across the Gulf Coast region, members of Alabama’s Coastal Recovery Commission said Tuesday. more info |
| BP spill threatens a third of Canadian gannets Bird biologist Bill Montevecchi of Memorial University of Newfoundland says more recent research with satellite tags suggested many more of the thousands of birds from eastern Newfoundland are at risk. more info |
| Little Change in Opinions about Global Warming The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Oct. 13-18 among 2,251 adults reached on landlines and cell phones, finds that 32% say global warming is a very serious problem while 31% think it is somewhat serious. more info |
| Manatee deaths up in 2010 "It has been an exceptionally tough year for endangered manatees and their aquatic environment. Through September 30th, 656 manatees have been confirmed dead, which represents nearly 13% of the species' estimated population," said Patrick Rose, executive Ddrector of the nonprofit Save the Manatee Club in a prepared statement. "This far surpasses the record of 429 deaths set in 2009, and the year isn't over yet. The population suffered record-setting mortality in the first part of the year from cold stress, and we're still uncertain as to what the long-term effects will be on the manatee's habitat from the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico." more info |
| Turtles Overcome Hurdles in Gulf A group of 33 young Green, Kemp’s Ridley, Hawksbill and Loggerhead sea turtles returned to paddle the briny waters of the Gulf of Mexico on Oct. 21. They are the first group to be released into an area near where they were rescued, about 40 miles southwest of Grand Isle, Louisiana. more info |
| Shrimp survey aims to help local seafood industry Researchers at Southern Miss are determining what impact the oil spill disaster has had on public perception of Gulf of Mexico shrimp. more info |
| Jean-Michel Cousteau: 'I am convinced we can change' Ocean environmentalist Cousteau expresses both concern and hope for the future of the world's oceans in a discussion about the BP oil spill with alum and NPR science correspondent Richard Harris more info |
| Robots of the Gulf Spill: Fishlike Subs, Smart Torpedoes During the spill—as workers skimmed slicks, lay booms, and cleaned oiled beaches above—muscular minisubs known as work-class ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) battled a mile (1.6 kilometers) below the waves to control the worst underwater oil spill in U.S. history. more info |
| Doubts Persist on Gulf Sand Barriers What happens next with the berms is not completely clear. The lead agency overseeing the project is not the Coast Guard or the unified command, which are in charge of the oil spill response, but the Army Corps of Engineers, which regulates offshore engineering projects but has little oil spill experience. more info |
| Monster storms and tornadoes decimate homes from Midwest to Gulf of Mexico Scientists believe the abnormal weather is the result of climate change caused by global warming. more info |
| Mississippi Panel to Guide Road to Gulf Recovery The Commission will work closely with the Gulf of Mexico Alliance and various state agencies to develop a plan to submit to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, the former Mississippi governor tapped to lead the long-term restoration of the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Environmental Education Program for Expanding Conservation and Stewardship of the Gulf of Mexico "A major goal of the project is to increase citizen awareness of the value of natural resources in the Gulf of Mexico and its coastal regions, and to promote conservation and restoration of the waters of the Gulf," said Milla at the press release on Saturday. "The project will be developed, in collaboration with partners from Gulf coastal states, through a multifaceted approach, including K-12 teacher and student experiential education opportunities, public education and outreach activities." more info |
| Paddleboarders quietly observe nature Ochoa said she likes paddleboarding both in the Gulf of Mexico and in the back bays and inlets. In the calmer canals and inlets, she likes sneaking up on wildlife and getting a close view of all the creatures living below the surface. more info |
| Gulf Corals In Oil Spill Zone Appear Healthy Just 20 miles north of where BP's blown-out well spewed millions of gallons of oil into the sea, life appears bountiful despite initial fears that crude could have wiped out many of these delicate deepwater habitats. more info |
| Climate Science Round-Up: Ocean Fertilization (or Climate Liposuction) Climate science can be confusing. I'm the climate science guru for ACE :: Alliance for Climate Education, and from time to time I'll be checking in to clear up climate science conundrums. Today's topic: Geoengineering more info |
| Round Island restoration scrapped; Supervisors divert funds to Gautier, Ocean Springs After multiple cutbacks in Coastal Impact Assistance Program funding, the Jackson County Board of Supervisors decided last week to scrap a Round Island restoration project and divert its funds to Ocean Springs and Gautier projects. more info |
| Louisiana Builds Berm "Islands" to Trap Oil “Circumstances have changed considerably,” said Thomas L. Strickland, assistant interior secretary for fish and wildlife and parks. “And that would seem to warrant a revisiting of whether or not a continuation of the berm-building is the best use of limited resources, when we’re looking at such substantial restoration needs that exist in the gulf.” more info |
| The life & times of a ... Forensic Birdman Pepper Trail of Ashland lab does 'CSI'-type autopsies of birds from disasters such as the BP spill and in criminal cases such as poaching. more info |
| Coast Guard says substance found floating in Gulf is algae, not oil Lt. Cmdr. Chris O'Neil said a Coast Guard pollution investigator has collected samples near the mouth of Tiger Pass and, while those samples need to be tested in a lab, "based on his observation and what he sees in the sample jars, he believes that to be an algal bloom." more info |
| Massive stretches of weathered oil spotted in Gulf of Mexico Overton said it is important for the state to discover the mechanism that is causing the oil to reappear because even this highly weathered oil poses a serious threat to the coastal ecology. more info |
| Texas Could Win “Race to the Water” In contrast to the rest of the United States – where federal jurisdiction begins three miles from shore – the Gulf of Mexico is the property of the state up to three leagues (10.35 miles) out. As a result, the same level of federal approval is not required for wind projects within the extended three-league boundary. more info |
| Sharks show worth to ecology, despite dwindling Quantifying exact shark numbers is not possible. But Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine, said shark stocks around Florida have dropped about 50 percent since 1975 primarily because of overfishing by commercial boats, and to a lesser degree recreational fishermen. more info |
| Our Thirst for Oil: A Deeper Dive This summer's Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico called attention to the world's thirst for oil and the hazards of that dependence. It also heightened concerns about the health of the world's oceans. We asked experts in these areas to recommend books that shed light on these topics. more info |
| Purdue developing oil spill website The Journal & Courier reports that the site at www.oilspillHUB.org contains a video archive that will provide resources for researchers and educators. more info |
| Dauphin Island Sea Lab's Skimmer Newsletter for October 2010 Sixteen educators from across the Gulf region came to the Sea Lab for an action-packed weekend to hear some of the latest news and research as well as explore lesson plans and activities on global climate change. more info |
| iRobot gets Seaglider contracts from the Navy The Seaglider is a deep-diving Unmanned Underwater Vehicle that has the capacity to perform missions that last many months and covering thousands of miles. The Seaglider was recently used in the Gulf of Mexico to collect data for scientists researching the effects of the catastrophic oil spill from earlier this year, noted a press release from iRobot. more info |
| NOAA Joins Forces with Partners to Protect Sea Turtles in Face of Oil Spill Sea turtle experts at NOAA and among its federal, state, local and nongovernmental partners recognized they needed to work together to monitor for stranded sea turtles, rescue turtles from oiled waters, rehabilitate oiled turtles, and investigate turtle deaths. To prepare, NOAA and its partners readied four primary de-oiling and rehabilitation facilities and secondary facilities. more info |
| US, Cuba scientists cooperate on Gulf research Protecting our marine environment does not mean stopping at our borders. The ecosystems are connected. And so if we can help support the condition of those ecosystems in Mexico, Cuba, we’re really helping to support our own ecosystems. more info |
| Efforts to restore Gulf coastline follow BP disaster As the BP oil disaster unfolded, tens of thousands of people from all over the world signed up to volunteer in the Gulf of Mexico. But opportunities were scarce. Much of the clean-up was restricted to full-time workers with special training and professionals with wildlife experience. But some found ways to help the coastline, even if it wasn’t directly related to the oil spill. FSRN’S Katjusa Cisar signed up with one environmental group to help restore marshes in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana. She files this Reporter’s Notebook about her experiences. more info |
| Climate change could cost US Gulf Coast billions: study The joint research by insurance firm Swiss Re and energy company Energy Corporation warns that Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama face annual losses of two to three percent of GDP by 2030 if they fail to act. more info |
| Tiles, Farms and the Dead Zone These include: restoring wetlands, where possible; growing cover crops to absorb water in the spring, when runoff is heaviest; different methods of applying fertilizer; and even methods of treating the runoff before it reaches creeks and rivers. Sacrificing life in the gulf for corn in the fields is a trade-off that has to stop. more info |
| A sensible move to protect fish stocks The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published the proposed rule Monday. Starting Jan. 1, it would ban recreational anglers from taking gag grouper from federal waters, which begin 9 miles off the coast, for up to 180 days. more info |
| DHH Reopens 2 Oyster Harvest Areas The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals says oyster harvesting areas 12 and 13, originally closed May 20, will reopen at daybreak Tuesday. more info |
| Plaquemines Parish continues mopping up from BP oil spill in Gulf of Mexico Crews in Plaquemines Parish have collected thousands of gallons of oil-water from parish waterways and filled thousands more bags of oily waste and tar balls from parish shorelines in the last two months, the parish said in a news release today. more info |
| Microbes in the Gulf May Eat More Gas than Previously Thought Six months ago — just before the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill — a team of researchers studied the methane consuming microbes that live deep in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and found that they consume up to 100 times more gas than previously thought. more info |
| Tropical Storm Richard forms in Caribbean, could threaten Florida The biggest threat to the west coast of Florida this hurricane season became Tropical Storm Richard on Thursday and experts expect it to become a hurricane by the weekend. more info |
| 33 endangered, threatened sea turtles released into Gulf waters Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the Audubon Nature Institute freed the turtles Thursday in waters about 40 miles southwest of Grand Isle, Louisiana. more info |
| Baldwin poised to deal with stormwater runoff There has been a lot of talk about Baldwin County Local Amendment 1, which — if approved by the voters on Nov. 2 — will give the county’s legislative delegation the ability to create a countywide public corporation for financing stormwater management. more info |
| Gulf Shores student effort aimed at cleaner water The Citizens’ Enviro-nmental Organization, nicknamed “CEOs,” is selling Vapur water bottles with a label designed by the students and funds supporting clean water sources for the one billion people living in water-stressed areas around the world. more info |
| GCRL museum receives National Science Foundation grant The National Science Foundation awarded Southern Miss’ Gulf Coast Research Laboratory Natural History Museum a $190,000 RAPID grant to catalogue invertebrate specimens from the northern Gulf of Mexico and make that data available online more info |
| Investing in Civic Education about Climate Change: What Should Be the Goals? On Thursday, the National Academies will be holding the second in a series of roundtable events on climate change education. Registration is open to the public. more info |
| Adding Risk to the Emergency Management Equation Effective risk education includes three things: the potential for an extreme event; how your group is specifically vulnerable if the event were to occur; and what you can do about it now to reduce your risks. Physical scientists will often focus only on the potential for the extreme event. However, discussing the potential for extreme events in isolation may create a feeling that these events and their impacts are inevitable. Effective risk messaging involves discussing uncontrollable events that have controllable consequences. more info |
| Oceans, the Five Seas on DVD/Blu-ray Disney & Nature: Preserving the World We Share – Viewers get a deeper look into the conservation projects around the world being sponsored by The Walt Disney Company. more info |
| How NOAA quickly developed an in-depth view of gulf oil spill When the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon undersea oil well sent millions of gallons of oil spewing from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico April 20, the various responding agencies were pretty well set up to coordinate their response. But getting information to the public and scientific community was another matter. more info |
| Scientists Sniff-Test Gulf Seafood In the wake of the BP oil spill, scientists from a U.S. government lab in Pascagoula, Mississippi, are using a low-tech tool to analyze seafood from the Gulf of Mexico—the human sense of smell. Likening the sniff-testers to wine tasters, researchers say the nose can catch warning signs that chemical tests may miss. more info |
| Tennessee Aquarium Launches Two New Web Cameras The Tennessee Aquarium’s largest exhibit, the Secret Reef, offers 26 windows for viewing marine creatures found in the Gulf of Mexico’s Flower Garden Banks, one of 13 National Marine Sanctuaries. more info |
| Watershed issue means dollars The Baldwin County Watershed Coalition began in 2008 when 12 of the 13 municipalities in Baldwin County joined together to try to do something about the watersheds throughout the county that could not be handled by the municipalities or Baldwin County due to jurisdiction and monetary restraints. more info |
| State conservationist praises urban wetland State Conservationist Jane Hardisty visited the John Craddock Wetland Nature Preserve on Thursday to thank local officials for their efforts to improve water quality, not only here but in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Already Critically Endangered, bluefin tuna hit hard by BP oil disaster Given the perilous state of bluefin tuna worldwide, the US National Marine Fisheries Service announced in September, following the BP oil spill, that it would consider listing the species under the Endangered Species Act. more info |
| Enviros ask EPA to review use of oil dispersants Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to write rules on how chemical dispersants can be used in future oil spills. more info |
| Research Underway in Corpus Christi Helping in BP Gulf Oil Spill Scientists at the world renowned Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi are assessing the damage caused by the B.P. oil spill; taking samples of mud and water to determine where the oil is, and if it's toxic or not. more info |
| Gulf Coast restoration delayed is justice denied Two weeks ago, the Obama administration urged Congress to adopt the recommendations for long-term Gulf restoration contained in a report delivered by Navy Secretary and former Mississippi Governor Ray Mabus. The recommendations included creating a Gulf Coast Recovery Fund, funded with a "significant amount" of BP fine money. Under the Clean Water Act, BP will pay a per-barrel penalty for oil it spilled into the Gulf’s blue waters, onto the wetlands and barrier islands. more info |
| US launches drive to clean oiled Gulf beaches this year "We've developed a couple of mechanical devices, one's called "The Sand Shark," that can reach up to a meter (3.3 feet) deep into a recreational beach," Zukunft said. "It leaves sand in place but it removes that tar from the sand column." more info |
| Oil cleanup not over in Louisiana's Bay Jimmy Much of the Gulf Coast has returned to normalcy since the Macondo well 50 miles offshore of Louisiana was permanently capped last month, ending the worst marine oil spill in U.S. history. But in marshy areas such as Bay Jimmy, where the oil had some of its strongest impact, the fight against the crude onslaught continues, even as fewer workers fight it. more info |
| Peregrine Falcons Checked For Gulf Oil Taint All three species have since been removed from the federal endangered list, but scientists are concerned that some migrating Peregrine falcons passing through the Gulf from their nesting grounds in Alaska and Greenland may be affected by remnants of the oil spill. more info |
| Scientists Lower Gulf Health Grade The Associated Press initial survey in July asked Gulf scientists to give the region and several categories baseline grades for ecosystem health before the spill. The scale was 0 to 100, with 0 being dead and 100 being pristine. Seventy-five responded and the overall grade averaged 71, a respectable C. more info |
| NOAA webcasts corals research to nation's classrooms live from undersea lab The wonders of coral reefs and life thriving below the sea will be broadcast live on the Web to classrooms and communities nationwide during a NOAA science and education mission at Aquarius Reef Base, the world's only undersea research station, located within Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The 10-day mission starts today. more info |
| Volunteers sought for weekend Coastal Cleanup event Mississippi Coastal Cleanup organizers are still seeking volunteers for the Saturday event, which will focus on inland areas and waterways this year. more info |
| EPA Awards $2.4 million to Restore Coastal Habitats in the Gulf The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded more than $2.4 million to revitalize coastal areas along the Gulf of Mexico. Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program (CBBEP), and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) are the grant recipients. They will use the money to restore land lost in areas where commercial and industrial development has decreased natural areas causing habitat loss and land degradation. more info |
| Many Birds Still Face Threats From Gulf Oil Six months after the start of the BP oil spill, the Audubon Society reports that many species of migratory birds and shorebirds face continuing threats from oil and tar balls. NPR's Melissa Block talks to Audubon's chief scientist Tom Bancroft about the new study. more info |
| The 'SCOOP': Program seeks to eliminate dog waste on beaches The big scoop in the area is the Seacoast Canine Owners Outreach Program, or SCOOP, according to Steve Johnson, the self-proclaimed "Dog Poop King of the Seacoast." more info |
| Giant Oil Plume in Gulf The underwater plumes spreading in the Gulf of Mexico have emerged as the most worrisome and scientifically provocative environmental story following the Deepwater Horizon spill. But researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and affiliated with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) recently reported that one of the most dire predictions may not be accurate. more info |
| Undersea Art Springs to Life Hundreds of statues of men, women and children were sunk to the bottom of the sea near Cancun and Isla Mujeres in the Gulf of Mexico where they will slowly come to life as algae, coral and fish begin to make these statues their new homes. more info |
| Feds To Study Whether Oil Endangered Bluefin Tuna The National Marine Fisheries Service will study whether the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has depleted the population of Atlantic bluefin tuna to the point that the food fish should be placed on the endangered species list. more info |
| Massive dead zone may be intensified by oil “We predicted to have a large area of dead zone on the Louisiana shore, about 20,000 square kilometers," Rabalais said. "And that's exactly what it turned out to be. However, we would've had more if it weren't for Tropical Storm Bonnie.” more info |
| Hurricane Paula Should Stay Over Cuba, But Florida, Gulf Could See Action Paula, the ninth hurricane and 16th named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, is currently located close to the western tip of Cuba. Due to the small size of the storm, modeler Risk Management Solutions said only a small portion of the coast would be subject to Paula’s strongest winds. more info |
| South Alabama poll shows oil spill's disruptive impact The survey, conducted by the University of South Alabama's polling group, also found that 71 percent of those responding believe the oil spill caused permanent ecological damage to the Gulf. And 38 percent disagreed with the statement that seafood from spill-affected areas is safe to eat. more info |
| Earth Science Week begins Its objective is to engage students in discovering the Earth sciences, encourage Earth stewardship through understanding of science, and motivate geoscientists to share their knowledge and enthusiasm about the Earth, according to the institute's website. more info |
| Borderland students team up to analyze river water The relay team will stop at all of the 43 U.S. schools participating in the project. Seventeen Mexican schools are participating in the project, but, because of the border, those students will meet the relay team at ports of entry and turn their jars in there, Cortez said. more info |
| Science gives Gulf Coast people a welcome embrace "I want you to understand that NOAA's mission in the Gulf is not just about data and numbers, but about people. And restoring the Gulf means restoring the entire Gulf ecosystem, including its people's lives and livelihoods. "» Clearly, there is no separation between the well-being of Gulf residents and the health of the Gulf." more info |
| Iowa State to Develop Nutrient Reduction Strategy “Working with scientists at Iowa State, we are starting technical assessments needed for the development of a statewide strategy to reduce nutrients to streams and the Gulf of Mexico,” said Bill Northey, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. more info |
| Students test Rio Grande water quality Students took water samples at various locations along the 1,885-mile river, from its headwaters in Colorado to Boca Chica, Texas, where it meets the Gulf of Mexico. On Friday, the SFIS students handed over their water samples to volunteers from the Rio Grande International Study Center in Laredo, Texas, who are making their way down the length of the river in a "relay" to collect samples and data. The "Rio Research Roundup and Relay" was held as part of the 16th annual Dia del Rio celebration. more info |
| Louisiana Optical Network Used to Study Hurricane Effects on Spilled Oil Hurricanes are an annual dangerous threat to Louisiana and other coastal states. But this year, many coastal residents wondered whether the Gulf of Mexico oil spill would worsen the potential impact of storm surge on the Louisiana coast. more info |
| National Geographic oil spill special features USF Scientist Dr. Paul agrees it'll be years before we know the full extent of the spill and that's why research is so important. more info |
| New USCB degree teaches students to tackle monstrous problems It's computational science -- using computers to analyze and solve complex problems in several disciplines, often through mathematical models, algorithms and simulations. USCB's program is funded by nearly $600,000 from the National Science Foundation, as part of a $20 million statewide award. The grant is divided among 10 state schools. more info |
| Report: fertilizer overloading Earth's plant life Fundamentally, nitrogen from fertilizers has led to an explosion in "dead zones" in seas and oceans, upsetting a cycle of nutrients balanced with growth that has lasted for billions of years. more info |
| Local Gulf Coast groups push to take part in federal recovery plan Mary Lee Orr is the executive director of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network. She told FSRN that she welcomes the possibility to be more involved, but that during the first stage of the disaster response, many local groups were shut out. more info |
| On Our Radar: Turtle Egg Rescue Pays Off A monumental effort to relocate vast numbers of sea turtle eggs from oil-threatened beaches along the Gulf of Mexico to Florida’s Atlantic coast appears to have paid off, scientists said, with nearly 15,000 hatchlings released into the Atlantic since July. Survival rates were virtually identical to those in the wild, but some uncertainty remains over whether the newly hatched turtles will eventually return to their native beaches. [Nature] more info |
| Whale Sharks Killed, Displaced by Gulf Oil? An estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil (one barrel equals 42 gallons, or 159 liters) flowed into an area south of the Mississippi River Delta, where of one-third of all northern Gulf of Mexico (map) whale shark sightings have occurred in recent years, scientists say. more info |
| Oil well containment system progressing The U.S. oil industry is on schedule for developing a spill containment system to respond to potential accidents in the Gulf of Mexico, an executive said. more info |
| Birds are headed for the Gulf Coast “Raptors follow major rivers and mountain chains during migration and a lot follow the coastline,” said Julie Tilden, site coordinator for the Pack Monadnock Raptor Observatory. “They’ll hug the Gulf Coast because most species don’t like to cross large bodies of water, and a lot of them will be feeding during migration.” more info |
| Feds to study oil spill's effect on bluefin tuna The National Marine Fisheries Service will study whether the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has hurt the bluefin tuna population to the point that the fish should be placed on the endangered species list. more info |
| Long-Term Study of Gulf Oil Spill Health Effects Needed Regardless of who was at fault, the release of an estimated 4 million barrels of oil had a major environmental impact. But there has been relatively little scientific study of the long-term human health effect of this kind of event. more info |
| 10 Year Study On Marine Life Released The 10 year study out of Rutgers University found that scientists have only documented about 1/4 of marine life around the world. more info |
| Turtle rescue plan succeeds Scientists have revealed that a mammoth effort to move thousands of turtle eggs from beaches around the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill may have saved almost 15,000 of the reptiles. more info |
| The Texas coast is rich in birdlife Texas has nearly 400 miles of coastline between Louisiana and Mexico with amazingly active birdlife year-round. October brings in autumn migrants, and some of those migrants are settling in for the winter. more info |
| Impact of Gulf Oil Spill on Smallest Creatures Remains Unknown Under a grant from the National Science Foundation, Bik and a research team from the University of New Hampshire, Auburn University in Alabama, and the University of Texas, San Antonio, will now analyze the DNA from the samples she took to determine what species are present, and then compare the results to samples taken before the spill. more info |
| EPA criticizes ADEM over standards The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has threatened to take over enforcing part of the Clean Water Act if the Alabama Department of Environmental Management doesn't hold cities to higher standards for keeping waterways clean. more info |
| Obama orders Gulf restoration task force "Ecosystem restoration will support economic vitality, enhance human health and safety, protect infrastructure, enable communities to better withstand impact from storms and climate change, sustain safe seafood and clean water, provide recreational and cultural opportunities, protect and preserve sites that are of historical and cultural significance, and contribute to the overall resilience of our coastal communities and nation," the order said. more info |
| Kids learn about water at Springs Coast After following the travels of water droplets, the students followed Paradis out to see her crape myrtles and learn how she waters them without using water from the aquifer. She collects rain in rain barrels and showed the students how she distributes it to the plants using hoses. Then she invited the students to make a water conservation pledge and sign her rain barrel. more info |
| Can Oil-Eating Mushrooms Clean Up After a Spill? For more than a decade, mycologist and inventor Paul Stamets has known that mushrooms eat oil. There were still a few kinks to work out; bringing the technology to scale and winning the acceptance of government agencies were two of the most challenging. Yet the basic science was solid and had been replicated many times by other scientists. more info |
| Divers to Target Lionfish in Nov. 13 Lower Keys Derby Divers are to become undersea “anglers” during an innovative event designed to control the population of non-native lionfish in Florida Keys waters. Set for Saturday, Nov. 13, the Lower Keys Lionfish Derby is the final of three derbies organized by the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in partnership with the Reef Environmental Education Foundation. more info |
| Ocean Bloggers United for Education! Please join the ocean blogging community in supporting ocean and environmental education in US schools. Donate between now and November 9th to our annual Donor’s Choose drive. more info |
| Measuring number of dead ducks caused by oil spill proves difficulty That's just one of the challenges causing migraine-level headaches for biologists charged with measuring the impact of BP's gusher on waterfowl for the official Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA). Unlike dolphins, pelicans or sea turtles, ducks don't wash up on shorelines or float in the currents when they get sick and die. They head for cover inside the marsh, where they quickly become food for a long list of predators. more info |
| Experts offer lessons from the Gulf oil spill The Gulf of Mexico oil spill could eventually cost British Petroleum $35 billion for cleanup, penalties and habitat restoration, estimates a professor at the University of Rhode Island, and he predicted it would end the government’s complacency about the safety of offshore drilling. more info |
| UPS gives to HandsOn Network UPS (NYSE: UPS) said its partnership with HandsOn Network will create volunteer boot camps to train people to meet community-specific environmental and humanitarian recovery needs from the recent Gulf Coast oil spill. Training will be targeted at areas such as job re-training and job search clinics; restoring parks and open spaces; supporting kids with safe after school activities; and assisting small businesses to recoup losses or improve business sustainability. more info |
| UNH programmers lauded for web-based oil spill response tool In June, after securing additional hardware capacity, NOAA launched a public version of ERMA created by UNH ¿ www.geoplatform.gov to facilitate communication and coordination among a variety of users, from federal, state and local responders to local community leaders and the public. Beyond NOAA data, it includes data from Homeland Security, the Coast Guard, the Fish and Wildlife Service, EPA, NASA, U.S. Geological Survey and the Gulf states. It is designed to be fast, user-friendly and constantly updated. Geoplatform.gov had 3.4 million hits in the first day of its release. more info |
| Business, environmental leaders gather to plot oil-spill recovery strategies The forum today will focus on the spill’s impact on local governments and human health issues, and will feature several members of Gov. Bob Riley’s Coastal Recovery Commission. more info |
| Georgia State oil researchers back from the gulf Georgia State researchers are back from their trip to the Gulf of Mexico to study oil-degrading microbes in the marshes affected by the recent BP oil spill. more info |
| U.S. issues rules deep-water oil drilling rules; moratorium stands The rules also require that equipment intended to prevent a well blowout is strong enough to do the job. Such equipment, the last defense against a well blowout and spill, failed on the BP well in 5,000 feet of water. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico oil spill called a continuing threat to Louisiana coast Construction of sand berms along 40 miles of Louisiana Gulf Coast barrier islands needs to continue because oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico continues to threaten interior wetlands that make up some of the state's most fragile fisheries and wildlife habitats, Louisiana officials told the Army Corps of Engineers on Monday. more info |
| AU's Deepwater Horizon oil spill conference Day 2 This morning we heard about how people’s reservations concerning eating seafood can impact the psychological health of the residents along the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| EPA hails local focus of gulf task force The task force coordinates regional leadership in an effort to drive restoration planning and decision-making processes. more info |
| BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance Announce Implementation of BP’s $500 Million Independent Research Initiative BP and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance today announced plans for the implementation of BP’s $500 million Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GRI) to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon incident and the potential associated impact on the environment and public health. more info |
| The BP-Spill Baby-Turtle Brigade Volunteers have to get on the beach first thing every morning before any new crawls are obscured by tourists’ footprints, or beach chairs or college students dragging coolers of Budweiser up and down the sand (which, maddeningly, leave trails that look a lot like loggerhead crawls). This summer, on the Gulf Coast, the volunteers were also having to contend with the obliterating tracks of BP’s cleanup crews: the brigades of ATVs and tractors, which liked to get an early start. more info |
| Scientists excited about new GCRL marine environment laboratory Scientists at USM's Gulf Coast Research Lab are excited about a new research facility. The $2 million Marine Environmental Research Laboratory is located on the Cedar Point campus in Ocean Springs. more info |
| Gulf Sediment at Risk, Oceanographer Claims Most of BP’s spilled oil remains in the Gulf—with little sign of degrading, according to Ian MacDonald of Florida State University. And much of this surviving oil could be in sediment or on its way there, the scientist reported at a September 27 meeting in Washington, D.C. more info |
| Shell Collaborates With the X PRIZE Foundation to Advance Oil Cleanup Innovation Shell Exploration and Production Company, a subsidiary of Shell Oil Company, has pledged its collaboration and support to the $1.4 million Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE. The competition aims to inspire entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists worldwide to develop innovative, rapidly deployable and highly efficient methods of capturing crude oil from the ocean surface. As part of this collaboration, Shell will help with direct support for the technical, operational and scientific components of this competition, and strive to ensure that breakthroughs resulting from the X CHALLENGE will make it into the marketplace. more info |
| Marine science textbook to be corrected The antievolution sidebar in a marine science textbook recommended for approval in Florida will be removed. The textbook in question, Life on an Ocean Planet (Current Publishing, 2011), was under fire after the grassroots pro-evolution-education organization Florida Citizens for Science charged that its sidebar on "Questions about the Origin and Development of Life" was "simultaneously actively misinforming, at odds with state standards, and ultimately irrelevant to marine science." more info |
| Offshore world looks good after Gulf oil spill, scientists say One unanimous concern was whether a summer’s worth of oil had diminished the Gulf’s supply of sargassum to the point that it could negatively affect species such as tuna, wahoo and marlin. The young of about 170 species — ranging from sea turtles to tiny pipefish — rely on the floating seaweed at some point during their life cycles. more info |
| NOAA Administrator makes 10th trip to Gulf of Mexico Dr. Lubchenco will join volunteers at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge in Lacombe, La., to help replant coastal marsh and commemorate the ten-year partnership of NOAA’s Community-Based Restoration Program, Restore America’s Estuaries and the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. more info |
| Mote turns international to protect Gulf A meeting of U.S., Mexican and Cuban scientists wrapped up Wednesday at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota with an outline for a formal plan of action designed to better the health of the Gulf of Mexico and western Caribbean through a collaborative approach to management and conservation issues. more info |
| Deepwater Horizon Tragedy Enters New Phase Both the water column and sea floor sediments are being sampled and examined as part of the effort to learn from, and make specific recommendations regarding, the oil spill response. Areas of concern include the remaining amounts of hydrocarbons in the water column and on the sea floor as sediments, the manner in which undersea plumes of oil travel and disperse, and the rate at which such plumes and seafloor hydrocarbon sediments can be expected to break down over time. more info |
| Census of Marine Life: What's in our oceans The Gulf of Mexico is one of the most diverse oceans in the world. For the last decade, more than 360 scientists have cataloged marine plants and animals for the Census of the Marine Life study. more info |
| School Builds Lesson around oil spill "This project makes me think about everything I do in my everyday life and how dependent we are on petroleum," Laughton said. "Even the facial wipes I use have petroleum in them. I'm really excited to go to Mississippi because we get to see how people lived through the spill and how they were affected by it." more info |
| More dispersants research needed despite success in gulf, panel told More research into the long-term effects of chemical dispersants is needed despite their apparently successful use in fighting the massive oil spill from BP PLC's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said on Sept. 27. more info |
| Gulf oil spill: research voyage Halfway through a 10-day voyage, a government-sponsored expedition isn't finding any traces from the Gulf oil spill, directly contradicting findings by several independent research teams. more info |
| Large chunk of Gulf of Mexico reopened to fishing The 5,628-square-mile area is just west of the Mississippi River delta and about 75 miles south of the BP well that spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf. more info |
| The Nature Conservancy to Study Potential Effects of Gulf of Mexico Sea-Level Rise The potential impact of sea-level rise at five key estuaries in the Gulf of Mexico will be the focus of a two-year study led by The Nature Conservancy in Florida and paid for through a cooperative agreement with the EPA. more info |
| Cancer-Causing Compounds Multiply in Gulf After Oil Spill A report released by scientists at Oregon State University found that cancer-causing oil compounds increased by 40 times between May and June of 2010 in the waters bordering Louisiana. more info |
| Using Oil Spill Model to Clean Up Trash from Oceans Her organization is working with naval architects to repurpose oil skimming technology and redesign existing fishing technologies to start the cleanup. more info |
| Plan to help marine wildlife includes Gulf of Mexico “It’s pretty straightforward: The political borders we’ve established for our three countries don’t restrict the movements of wildlife,” said David Guggenheim, senior fellow of The Ocean Foundation. “We are connected through one large marine ecosystem. We can’t protect the wildlife in a vacuum. We have to collaborate.” more info |
| Residents displaced in hurricane-hit areas of Mexico More than 3,500 people took refuge in 19 Veracruz state shelters, and school classes were canceled Monday in 11 municipalities after flooding caused by Hurricane Karl, which made landfall Friday in southeastern Mexico, the government-run news agency said. more info |
| Panel Wants BP Fines to Pay for Gulf Restoration As a first step in the restoration plan, the president plans to soon sign an executive order creating a Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, which will led by Lisa P. Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator and a self-described “New Orleans girl.” The group will begin the longer-term tasks that the recovery fund is intended to address, with a particular emphasis on public health concerns, including many cases of stress and depression brought on by one of the worst environmental disasters in American history. more info |
| Oaklawn students engage in oily experiment Ott said the presentation was aimed at dispelling fear and rumors about the BP oil spill by empowering students with knowledge through experimentation. Other presentations at local schools are planned. more info |
| Devastating 'fish kill' found in Gulf of Mexico ... but the culprit is not who you might think But Louisiana's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries experts say low tide and high temperatures were to blame for the deatsh of such huge numbers of fish in Plaquemines Parish. more info |
| Hurricane season could be heating up in the Gulf of Mexico "This is the classic area for storms in late September and October to develop, and folks need to make sure they have a hurricane plan," said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the National Hurricane Center. "Any time you've got a storm to your south, you need to be watching it." more info |
| Atlantic bluefin tuna listed as endangered The National Marine Fisheries Service has agreed to study whether to list the Atlantic bluefin tuna, which has a major spawning ground in the Gulf of Mexico near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, as an endangered species. more info |
| Global Warming Reaches Deep Ocean Depths, Scientists Say The warming trend on the planet has reached deep into world oceans over the last two decades, particularly in the waters around Antarctica, according to a new study. While earlier studies have shown that the upper levels of the planet’s oceans are getting warmer, scientists with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say their latest research shows that waters at a depth of 3,300 feet and more have absorbed about 16 percent of the heat accumulating in the upper layers of the ocean. more info |
| Study backs U.S. estimate of Gulf spill as worst ever Nearly 185 million gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico from April 20, when the spill began, until July 15, when a new well cap stopped the flow, according to a study by two Columbia University researchers. They base their estimates on video of the oil spewing from the busted BP well. more info |
| LSU researchers receive Rapid Response Grants from National Science Foundation Faculty from the School of the Coast and Environment and the College of Science work to determine short- and long-term reaction of natural systems to chemicals more info |
| Crunch time ahead for Gulf oyster fisheries The event is the annual spatfall, when oyster larvae cement themselves onto old oyster shells and other material on the sea floor. After the spill, the Louisiana state authorities took an unprecedented decision designed keep the oil at bay and save the local oystermen, but which could also doom them: they maxed the flow of fresh water through the region's canals to three times usual levels. more info |
| Treat the Gulf right and it will return the favor The Gulf will survive the latest abuse. But its enriching presence in the course of human lives will be lost if we don’t rethink our relationship with this wondrous body of water. more info |
| Hurricane Karl takes aim at Mexican Gulf coast Karl strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday and was expected to gain more power before hitting Mexico's coast near a port and an oil hub Friday. more info |
| Lionfish found off Pensacola Beach threatens Fla. There are no major predators or diseases to control their population. But Dodrill says the fish are tasty, so maybe that can help control their numbers. more info |
| Sept. 28th Town Hall Meeting on the Economic Future of S. Mobile County The Gulf Coast Economy: Ready 4 Takeoff Coalition, a four state alliance between Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida, will be hosting its first in a series of regional town hall meetings in Bayou La Batre to highlight vital economic development projects, like the construction of the KC-45 Tanker in Mobile, various initiatives to bolster sales of wild caught Gulf seafood and efforts to boost local tourism. The meeting will include representatives from the Bayou’s seafood associations, Bayou La Batre Area Chamber of Commerce, Dauphin Island Chamber of Commerce, local elected officials and many more! more info |
| USF grant to get people thinking about rising sea levels He wants people to see the evidence around them - wells turning salty, beaches and mangrove islands disappearing, signs that billions of dollars' worth of waterfront property could be under water in the next several decades. more info |
| Cousteau scion touts ocean More than 60 years ago, French explorer and researcher Jacques Cousteau co-created an early underwater breathing apparatus, and helped open the world’s eyes to the wonders of marine science. Today, Philippe Cousteau is carrying on his grandfather’s legacy as a marine-life advocate, renowned diver and spokesman for environmental education. more info |
| The health of the ocean: What's at stake? Renowned oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle discusses why the health of the ocean should matter to everyone, and what individuals--including kids--can do to help make it better. more info |
| USA scientists' super sniffer tracks oil spill contaminants and pollutants USA scientists completed the first installation Friday of monitoring devices that will record and track the local effects of hazardous chemicals being released into the air by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill or other pollutant sources. The device will be installed at nine other weather station sites in Mobile and Baldwin counties. more info |
| Ships on mission to find hidden oil "So we can provide the public consistency in reporting, transparency in data to assure that the waters, verify the safety of the waters and most important the safety of the seafood," said Zukunft. more info |
| Lionfish sighted off Alabama coastline Lionfish have been sighted off Alabama and Pensacola within the last week, confirming suspicions that the predatory creatures have invaded the Gulf of Mexico and now pose a substantial threat to some native species. more info |
| Alabama Leads the Charge in the Gulf of Mexico Restoration Effort with the 100-1000: Restore Coastal Alabama Partnership coalition of leading environmental organizations has unveiled plans for a major Gulf restoration project with the launch of 100-1000: Restore Coastal Alabama Partnership (www.100-1000.org). Alabama Coastal Foundation, Mobile Baykeeper, The Nature Conservancy and The Ocean Foundation officially launched the project as a significant first step in restoring the coast of Alabama and struggling coastal economies via a public-private partnership. more info |
| The Oil and the Turtles Every year, Rancho Nuevo, 900 miles southwest of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, sees a spectacular phenomenon: the arribada—mass nesting—of the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, which has already neared extinction. This year, thousands of baby ridleys swam off toward a deadly new enemy. more info |
| Scientists Say Worst Hasn't Happened In Gulf President Obama called the Gulf of Mexico oil spill the "worst environmental disaster America has ever faced." Others made similarly dire predictions: Oil would kill thousands of birds, fish and other wildlife; coastal wetlands would be destroyed; and oil would travel through the loop current up to the Atlantic Ocean. more info |
| The top species of fish that are in danger of being overfished Fish are a renewable resource, a major source of food for the entire world. Keeping fish stocks renewable is the only thing that stands between much of the world's population and starvation. However, even a renewable resource can become unable to continue renewing itself. Here are some major species of fish which are in danger of being overfished. more info |
| 3,634 dead birds collected in Gulf, wildlife service says Of the dead birds, the largest numbers are laughing gulls (1,591), followed by brown pelicans (376) and northern gannets (182). Live birds are taken to rehabilitation centers in Hammond, Louisiana; Gulfport, Mississippi; Theodore, Alabama; and Pensacola, Florida. more info |
| Focus of hurricane season may soon shift to Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico Year in and year out, hurricanes that form in October in the Caribbean Sea present the most serious concern for the west Florida shoreline. more info |
| Bacteria in the gulf mostly digested gas, not oil, study finds Bacteria that attacked the plumes of oil and gas resulting from the Deepwater Horizon gusher in the Gulf of Mexico mainly digested natural gas spewing from the wellhead propane, ethane and butane rather than oil, according to a study published in the journal Science. more info |
| A look at the cause of dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico Going strictly by the oceanic definition, the region affected by the BP oil spill is technically not a dead zone. Although oxygen levels did drop as a result of the oil spill and the methods used to try to contain it, the Joint Analysis Group of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has now discovered that oxygen levels in the oil spill region never reached the critical levels associated with a dead zone. The Joint Analysis Group now believes that the immediate threat of hypoxia due to the oil spill has passed. more info |
| NOAA Reopens Nearly 8,000 Square Miles in the Gulf of Mexico to Fishing NOAA today reopened to commercial and recreational fishing 7,970 square miles of Gulf waters along the southern boundary of the federal closed area. This area is about 60 nautical miles off of central Louisiana and about 140 nautical miles off Mississippi, Alabama, and the western edge of the Florida panhandle. This is the sixth reopening in federal waters since July 22. more info |
| Thousands of marine animals still in danger from hidden oil in Gulf Days after the BP oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people, Joye got the wheels in motion to submit a proposal for a "Grant for Rapid Response Research" from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Her goal was to investigate underwater oil and gas plumes, and determine how this disaster was impacting deepwater organisms. more info |
| Several hundred crocs escape enclosure in storm At least 280 crocodiles have escaped from a Mexican refuge near the Gulf of Mexico after heavy flooding caused by Hurricane Karl, Mexican media said Tuesday. more info |
| Tracing Oil Reserves to Their Tiny Origins In 1913, as the automobile zoomed into American life, The Outing Magazine gave its readers a bit of background on what fueled the new motorcars in “The Story of Gasoline.” After a brief vignette describing the death of “old Colonel Stegosaurus Ungulatus,” the article explained that “yesterday you poured the remains of the dinosaur from a measuring-can — which, let us hope, held five gallons, full measure — into your gasoline tank.” more info |
| The US must show leadership on biodiversity This autumn, there are two important moments in our attempt to create a new paradigm for a global response to the world's biodiversity challenges. On 22 September, in observance of the International Year of Biodiversity, world leaders will call for the introduction of sustainable practices in land and resource use, an increase in protected areas around the world, and for plans to reconcile development with conservation. more info |
| Assessing The BP Spill's Impact In a special broadcast in front of a live audience, Talk of the Nation and National Geographic teamed up to explore the reach and impact of the spill in the Gulf. more info |
| Scientists seek insight on BP oil disaster's toll The Gulf of Mexico is morphing from disaster scene to giant science lab, as researchers begin analyzing everything from bacteria to bottlenose dolphins for damage caused by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. more info |
| La Nina to raise Gulf storm risk as it strengthens La Nina weather anomaly became stronger in August and the phenomenon could spark a rash of late-season storms that could menace the energy-rich Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center said on Thursday. more info |
| Rising ‘Dead Zones’ threaten US coastal ecosystem Over 300 of the 647 U.S. coastal water bodies were assessed for the new report, including the Gulf of Mexico, home to one of the largest such zones in the world. 307 of the 647 ecosystems now experience stressful or lethal oxygen levels, threatening commercial and recreational fisheries, the report said. There were just 12 hypoxic regions in US coastal waters prior to 1960. more info |
| Gulf Coast Research Laboratory to catalogue thousands of invertebrates Thousands of invertebrate specimens from the northern Gulf of Mexico collected at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory are to be catalogued and made available online. more info |
| Gulf oil remains below surface, will come ashore in pulses, can be captured Readings from WAVCIS indicate that the direction of the ocean currents near the middle and bottom of the water column are aimed offshore; in other words, this submerged oil will be pushed out to sea, where it will then rise higher into the water column and be washed onto land, particularly during storms. more info |
| Scientists monitor crucial seaweed for tar Lapointe's new research is looking at whether the BP spill increases the amount of tar in sargassum. The geyser of BP crude smeared an oil slick across hundreds of miles of the Gulf of Mexico in an area known to host some of the world's largest sargassum mats. more info |
| Outdated rules limit new drilling technology in U.S. Rather than erect regulatory barriers to markets, DOI and industry should examine how other nations address changing designs in wellhead control. Safer, simpler and more reliable designs for locking down casing and installing rigid annular seals between strings of casing exist. Why not open our doors to alternatives? Unleashing market forces that drive innovation is a remedy for poorly designed wells. more info |
| A look at the cause of dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico Dead zones are regions of the ocean that have become unusually depleted of oxygen and can no longer support oxygen dependent marine life. They can be caused naturally and are not necessarily permanent. The Gulf of Mexico has the second largest dead zone in the world, and the cause was the same as all the others. Ironically, dead zones are caused by too many nutrients. This can be due to upwelling, when deeper water full of nutrients comes to the surface, or run-off from rivers. Human use of fertiliser and disposal of sewage provides the nutrients for most of the ocean dead zones we now see. more info |
| The Gulf’s real enemy Instead of fouling the ocean from below, we’re fouling it from above, invisibly. And we’re doing it every day, harming the ocean in ways scientists have only begun to understand in the past decade or so. more info |
| U.S. and Cuba discuss alliance to save sharks A team of U.S. scientists and environmentalists met with Cuban officials this week to discuss a proposed alliance, including Mexico, to protect the Gulf of Mexico's declining shark population. more info |
| Ixtoc spill still contaminates coastlines; is that northern Gulf's fate? Tunnell said that harm caused by the lingering tar was evident, but also seemed limited. Algae coated it and crabs were not hesitant to crawl over it. But no corals were clinging to it, and sea grasses, killed by the crude’s initial incursion, had not returned. more info |
| Manatees spotted in Fairhope Residents of Fly Creek were delighted to find a group of eight West Indian Manatees swimming between the marina and about a quarter mile up the creek yesterday morning. The group included a large adult outfitted with a satellite tag and a young manatee swimming alongside its presumed mother. more info |
| “Fox Guarding Hen House” On Oil Spill? Environmentalists said the coastal crisis needs to bring big changes, and that it is time to act on the lessons learned from the Gulf Oil Spill. more info |
| BP's Missing Research Money For ocean scientists anguished about the oil gushing uncontrollably into the Gulf of Mexico, May 24 brought dramatic news. BP pledged $500 million over 10 years for a research program to determine the ecological consequences of the spill, with the money to be distributed through an independent panel to the "best marine biologists and oceanographers in the world." more info |
| Oil-delayed oyster reef project restarts A $2.9 million project to halt coastline erosion and create a 1.5-mile-long “living shoreline” got back on track Friday after a four-month delay caused by the Gulf oil spill. more info |
| Texas A&M Researcher Returns To Deepwater Horizon Site John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer who reported in June elevated levels of methane from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, returned to the area aboard the NOAA ship Pisces Sept. 9. The mission is part of the Unified Area Command’s ongoing efforts to monitor and study the location, concentration and impacts of subsurface hydrocarbons near the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. more info |
| BP resumes drilling relief well in Gulf as step toward permanent seal BP says it resumed drilling Monday on a relief well as efforts to permanently seal the previously leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well appeared to be entering their final stages. more info |
| Final shutdown of BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico adds a step With the well no longer spewing thousands of barrels of oil each day into the Gulf of Mexico, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said Wednesday that BP will take advantage of response ships on-site and take care of required "plug and abandonment" procedures in tandem with firing the final shot of cement into the Macondo well through the relief well. more info |
| The Senate and the gulf a ticking clock But the BP disaster was just the latest insult to the vast Mississippi River Delta, a region long under assault from environmental mismanagement. On average, 25 square miles of vital wetlands disappear each year thanks to the misguided re-engineering of the Mississippi River. For decades, our elected leaders chose short-term transportation projects and industrial and commercial development over the natural systems that replenish coastal marshlands and sustain long-term ecological health. With each disappearing acre, the region loses essential natural storm protection, vital habitat for birds and other wildlife and marine species, and the foundation of vibrant coastal economies and cultures. more info |
| Oil Inside Gulf Crabs May Be Shed Blue crab larvae, collected in the Gulf of Mexico near the BP oil spill, have been found to have oil droplets inside their shells. But scientists say the oil may leave the crabs when they grow and molt. more info |
| Dozens of Fires Occur in Gulf of Mexico Each Year, Data Show As Mariner Energy Inc. prepares to investigate the causes of its Gulf of Mexico platform fire, government statistics show that more than 100 fires and explosions have taken place in the gulf each year since at least 2006. more info |
| Atlantic bluefin tuna's fate in the Gulf of Mexico explored a timely book The Atlantic bluefin tuna “is a fish that when prepared as sushi is one of the most valuable forms of seafood in the world. It’s also a fish that regularly journeys between America and Europe and whose two populations, or “stocks,” have both been catastrophically overexploited. The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, one of only two known Atlantic bluefin spawning grounds, has only intensified the crisis.” more info |
| Oil Remains Below Surface, Will Come Ashore in Pulses Gregory Stone, director of LSU’s WAVCIS Program and also of the Coastal Studies Institute in the university’s School of the Coast & Environment, disagrees with published estimates that more than 75 percent of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon incident has disappeared. more info |
| Tampa workshop to shape study of the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies will hold a workshop in Tampa to determine design and methodology for the National Institutes of Health's Gulf Worker Study, or GuLF Study. more info |
| Panel Urges Tougher Offshore Regulation Regulators who are supposed to police offshore oil and gas drilling are spread too thinly, poorly trained and hampered by outdated technology, according to a study by an Interior Department review board appointed after the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Feds plan more sea turtle releases in Gulf Federal officials say they're stepping up plans to release sea turtles that were stranded and rescued during the Gulf oil spill and study how they've been affected. more info |
| Microbes haven't robbed Gulf of oxygen Federal officials say some underwater oxygen levels have fallen by 20 percent, but the levels aren't low enough to create 'dead zones.' They say that's good news because it shows the microbes are working, but aren't causing oxygen loss. more info |
| Deepwater Horizon: After the oil When oil stopped gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the ecosystems under assault started on a long road to recovery. Amanda Mascarelli meets the researchers assessing their chances. more info |
| Massive increase in coastal dead zones linked to farm pesticide runoff The report cites the commercialization of farming practices over the past 50 years with tile drainage systems that allows farmers to control subsurface water levels has benefitted U.S. agriculture through increased yields, but has negatively affected water quality by speeding water and its solutes—such as nitrogen, phosphorus, pesticides and sediment—into streams and rivers without allowing natural elimination processes to occur more info |
| Interview with Bill Nye the Science Guy The most successful science educator in America today is a bow tie wearing former mechanical engineer who originally set out to show kids how much fun science can be. He went on to become a house-hold name and is now known to millions as Bill Nye the Science Guy. But Bill is much more than a scientist, he is an engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, and he's a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society in which everyone understands and appreciates the science that makes our world work. more info |
| USM scientist studies oil spill effects on ecosystem In response to those concerns, Milroy’s oil-related research will investigate: 1) how coastal hypoxia (lack of oxygen) and ocean acidification events may be worsened by the effects of crude oil; 2) how the toxic effects of PAHs might affect the survival of larva and thereby influence future stocks of commercially important species such as shrimp, oysters and pogy fish; and 3) the extent to which toxic PAHs are being accumulated in the tissues of organisms at all trophic levels within the coastal food web. more info |
| Photographing below the surface Nick Coburn Phillips, a marine biologist and photographer, traveled from Snowdonia, North Wales to photograph the underwater world of the Gulf. more info |
| Severe Weather: How Ocean Storms Work Severe ocean storms in the northern part of the world usually develop in late summer or early autumn near the equator. Scientists call them cyclones when they develop over the Indian Ocean. When they happen over the northwestern Pacific Ocean, the storms are typhoons. And in the eastern Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean they are called hurricanes. more info |
| Scientists Say New Turtle Species Found Scientists say they've found a new species of turtle in the Pearl River, and they've named it, aptly enough, the Pearl map turtle. more info |
| USF to look for spill's effects on food chain The Weatherbird is heading to the DeSoto Canyon, a deep-water area in the northern Gulf where researchers will use nets to gather specimens from waters as deep as 1,000 meters. more info |
| Marine Scientists Seek Standards For Spill Research Much of the scientific effort that has followed the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has focused on how much oil escaped and where it's gone. But biologists want to know how that oil might affect marine life over the long-term, and many say they're puzzled by the lack of an organized research effort to measure the damage. more info |
| ymposium to examine legal and environmental effects of BP spill Loyola University New Orleans College of Law presents “The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill—A Billion Pound Dossier,” a legal and environmental examination of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The symposium will be held on Friday, Sept. 17, from 1:15 – 5:30 p.m., in Loyola’s College of Law, 526 Pine Street, Room 405. It is free and open to the public. A reception will follow. more info |
| Gulf Coast Communities Investigate Oily Sea Mist White says no trends have surfaced in their two months of testing. And with changing currents, tides and winds, he says, only long-term monitoring will give residents the answers they're looking for. more info |
| Strategies for measuring oil and dispersant in Gulf of Mexico discussed A species of seahorse unique to the waters of the Gulf Coast could face extinction because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, warns marine conservation organization Project Seahorse. Without careful intervention, the dwarf seahorse (Hippocampus zosterae) could virtually disappear within a few years, while many other fish populations, including several other species of seahorse, face a similarly bleak future as cleanup continues. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico oil spill threatens seahorse species with extinction: researchers A species of seahorse unique to the waters of the Gulf Coast could face extinction because of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, warns marine conservation organization Project Seahorse. Without careful intervention, the dwarf seahorse (Hippocampus zosterae) could virtually disappear within a few years, while many other fish populations, including several other species of seahorse, face a similarly bleak future as cleanup continues. more info |
| At least 205 coastal Alabama residents have been treated for oil-related health issues At least 205 people have gone to local emergency rooms, clinics and urgent care centers since May 14 complaining of ailments thought to be related to the oil spill, Alabama Department of Public Health officials reported this afternoon. more info |
| No reports of oil leaking from platform fire Daybreak brought no reports of oil leaking from an offshore oil platform that erupted in flames Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico, the Coast Guard said. more info |
| National Preparedness Month, September 1-30 September is National Preparedness Month (NPM). The goal of this thirty-day campaign is to encourage homeowners, business managers, and local officials to prepare for natural and technological disasters in their communities. National Preparedness Month is sponsored by the Ad Council, Citizen Corps, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) Ready Campaign. more info |
| Oil spill adds poignancy to Horn Island artwork The annual sojourn on the narrow Mississippi Gulf Coast island is designed to bring students, faculty and friends of the college into direct and intimate contact with nature and provide challenges to creating works of art in isolation outside of the studio environment. more info |
| Gulf Spill Reveals New Oil-Eating Bacteria Researchers reporting in the journal Science say they have discovered a new species of oil-eating bacteria living half a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico. Study author Terry Hazen discusses the finding and what these bacteria might mean for future oil spills. more info |
| Teaching out of the box For the next 10 months, interns John Armstrong of Ocean Springs and Randy Parson of Moss Point will rotate through the school working with teachers one-on-one to help them bring technology into education. The interns are there because of a $50,000 education grant from the IP Resort Casino and Spa. more info |
| Oil sheen spreading from Gulf platform explosion A mile-long oil sheen spread Thursday from an offshore petroleum platform burning in the Gulf of Mexico off Lousiana, west of the site of BP's massive spill. more info |
| USF researchers heading back into gulf Friday "As important members of the 'business-end' of the food chain, these deeper living species form a critical link in the ocean's economy," Torres added. "We will be sampling to look for evidence of exposure to sub-surface oil and to compare present abundances with those obtained in years past, prior to the spill. Using both strategies we should be able to get a good measure of the spill's impact." more info |
| National Marine Sanctuaries Highlighted at Blue Ocean Film Festival Aug. 24-29 America's national marine sanctuaries played a starring role at the BLUE Ocean Film Festival held August 24-29 in Monterey, California. The 14 federally designated marine protected areas were featured in many of the 80+ films screened during the festival, including the winner for Best Ocean Exploration and Adventure Film, "Jean-Michel Cousteau Ocean Adventures: America's Underwater Treasures," a feature produced by Cousteau's Ocean Futures Society. more info |
| Pepsi Refresh Project Doubles its Monthly Commitment to America's Communities The Pepsi Refresh Project has doubled its monthly commitment of $1.3 million to refresh America's communities by awarding $2.6 million in grants during the month of September. Each month, Pepsi awards up to $1.3 million in Refresh Grants to the 32 ideas that garner the most votes. Through the Pepsi Refresh Project: Do Good for the Gulf extension, Pepsi has allocated an additional $1.3 million to refresh communities in the Gulf Coast for the month. more info |
| Feds Reopen Fishing From Fla. Panhandle To La. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials said Thursday about 5,130 square miles of federal waters from Pensacola west through Alabama and Mississippi are open to fishing and shrimp harvesting. more info |
| Audubon Aquarium of the Americas turns 20 Originally conceived of as a tourist attraction and a breakthrough for the Audubon Nature Institute, the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas has relied on a core group of paid and volunteer support to become something more: For many local and out-of-town visitors, it's a primer on the Gulf of Mexico and coastal wetlands; and for injured animals in the wild, it provides a lifeline as the state's official "marine mammal and sea turtle stranding coordinator, " a role that has expanded significantly in response to the BP oil spill, said Karyn Kearney, senior vice president and managing director for the aquarium. more info |
| Scientists gather to exchange ideas, help shape plan for oil spill cleanup Scientists and others from the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, the Northern Gulf Institute and various government agencies under the Unified Command met in Biloxi on Wednesday. The meetings will conclude this week - the last is in New Orleans on Thursday - and a final draft of the plan could be complete by the end of next week. more info |
| Gulf's 'dead zone' swelled this summer to one of largest areas on record In a sense, the dead zone is a local issue for Minnesota and every other state flanking the Mississippi. From farms to cities, people throughout the mighty river’s basin contribute to the problem. more info |
| Oysters under scrutiny Meanwhile the AP reports that DHH, which has been testing oysters since the BP rig blew in the Gulf in April, has found no oysters with high levels of hydrocarbon contamination. “We have not found anything at a level of concern,” Olivia Watkins, a DHH spokeswoman told the AP. “What we have found is extremely low." more info |
| BP begins removing cap from Gulf well The cap has shut off all oil flow from the leak since July 15. Once it is gone, BP can remove a failed blowout preventer and replace it with another before plugging the leak through a relief well. more info |
| Weird Science-Focus on Funding & Research for the BP Oil Spill Studying such a complex event takes time even in the best of cases. BP and the government, gearing up for a potential court battle over how much the oil company will have to pay in fines and for restoration, are hiring researchers to find answers, but those who are trying to remain independent, like Hooper-Bui, are being caught in a hard place. They are outside the official Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process, but often without sufficient funding—or in some cases access—to conduct the research they believe is needed. At stake is the rigor and comprehensiveness of the data that will inform our ultimate understanding of the spill’s effects, and most important, that will determine how risks of future spills could be reduced and responses improved. more info |
| BP Assures Governors It Will Restore The Gulf State leaders want to be sure BP cleans up the mess and gets the region back on its feet. It was was one of the main topics being discussed at the Southern Governors' Association annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala. more info |
| How the Media Covered the Gulf Oil Spill Disaster Coverage of the disaster also required a significant amount of technical and scientific expertise. News consumers were introduced to a series of new terms and concepts as the media tried to explain the efforts to contain the spill and formulate reliable estimates of the extent of the environmental and economic damage. more info |
| Tiny Gulf Sea Creature Could Shed Light on Oil Spills Impact Using molecular techniques, Jenny and his collaborators will determine which genes in the anemones collected from oil-exposed sites have been affected and how this impacts various functions, including the animals ability to store energy and reproduce. more info |
| WALDROP EXHIBIT LOOKS AT COASTAL ENVIRONMENT A series of paintings and sculptures in the exhibit address some of the still unresolved environmental issues regarding the rehabilitation of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Waldrop said issues include the current state of specific ecosystems, the area’s marine biology, fortification of the coastline/landscape, and restoration of the barrier islands along the border of the Mississippi Sound. more info |
| Looking for Trouble on ‘Highway’ for Manatees Though that has not come to pass, another danger is yet to come when the manatees return home in late fall, said Ruth Carmichael, who leads manatee research at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Dauphin Island, Ala. Researchers who model the spill’s progress expect subsurface oil to collect in the shipping channel, which the manatees use on their migration, Dr. Carmichael said. more info |
| Deep Water Dead Zone Predicted in the Gulf Many researchers have been speculating that the deepwater plume would create a dead zone as microbes ate the undersea oil and gas, consuming oxygen in the process. The new work combines the best estimates for how much oil was released with detailed models of ocean currents and information about typical microbial oil degradation rates to show that the conditions in the Gulf should, indeed, produce one. more info |
| Officials: Lack of oxygen likely killed thousands of fish in Gulf Bloomberg pointed out that these fish kills occur every year when fish, crabs, eels and shrimp move toward the shoreline to escape the low-oxygen waters, but this year scientists have seen the kills occurring “in open water for the first time, raising concern that low-oxygen areas are expanding” because of the oil. more info |
| Invisible Disaster: Fall Migration Over the Gulf It’s not just oil-covered pelicans. Billions of birds -- some from your backyard -- face risks this fall. more info |
| Locals Track Gulf Oil Spill's Health Impacts, Paving Way for Federal Study But though the surveys may not yield a scientific conclusion about the oil leak's long-term fallout, local nonprofits such as the brigade -- one of several groups around the country that teach communities how to test for air toxics using little more than a bucket and a hand-held vacuum -- are poised to become key players as the federal government begins to track the health consequences faced by Gulf residents recruited into BP PLC's sprawling cleanup operation. more info |
| USA Scientists Receive National Science Foundation Funding The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded University of South Alabama scientists funding through grants to research the long-term effects of the BP PLC oil spill on the Gulf Coast environment. more info |
| Millions of birds at risk as fall migration to oil-fouled Gulf Coast nears .Millions of birds at risk as fall migration to oil-fouled Gulf Coast nears, conservationists worry Posted on August 31, 2010 | 0 Comments Tags:birdsCanadaconservationendangered speciesforestsmangrovesmigrationsNorth Americaoceanspollution Millions of Canada's migratory birds, representing more than a hundred species, could be at risk when they return this fall to areas in the Gulf of Mexico affected by the oil spill, the Boreal Songbird Initiative (BSI), a conservation charity, said today. more info |
| Helping coral reefs, oceans and ourselves President Obama's newly announced national ocean plan is an invaluable insurance policy on the future health of our oceans - providing us with the chance to make decisions on the use of our limited marine resources based on the best available biological, physical, economic and social sciences. As illustrated so dramatically by the tragic Gulf oil spill, today's mistakes will only increase the hardships felt tomorrow and become more costly to fix the longer we wait. more info |
| Experts: Submerged oil threatens organisms Two of coastal Alabama’s foremost marine experts agree that using dispersants to combat this summer’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill will cause problems in the northern Gulf of Mexico for years to come, but not because the chemicals BP PLC administered to break the crude into microscopic pieces pose any significant human health risk. more info |
| Shark Attacks: Worry More About Lightning Studies show that lightning is a far greater killer than sharks, at least in the United States. From 1959 to 2008 nationwide, 1,930 people were killed by lightning, while only 25 died from shark attacks. In Texas during that same time period, 208 fatalities occurred from lightning strikes compared to only 1shark attack death. The drive to the beach is far more dangerous than any shark encounter, says Texas A&M University at Galveston marine expert Andre Landry. more info |
| Students use model of Mississippi River for research Hoffmann is one of several graduate and undergraduate students who work on the model, which he said provides valuable data for research into preventing coastal erosion. more info |
| Managing Nitrogen For those of you who don't spend your time tilling fields, here's why you should care about how much nitrogen farmers use: if too much is added it can get into bodies of water. And that can cause environmental problems--even in areas far from Iowa's banks. “There's an area in the Gulf of Mexico that's called the hypoxic zone, a low oxygen zone and that's believed to be caused by the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus that go into that area and cause an area that makes it hard for sea life to live in,” said Northey. more info |
| Crist extends spill emergency for 7 Fla. counties Although the well has been capped, Crist noted those counties remain threatened by oil and tar balls still in the Gulf. more info |
| Morgan Freeman, Ted Danson support post-oil spill Gulf impact expedition At a news conference aboard the 170-foot research vessel "Oceana Latitude" docked in Gulfport, Oceana's CEO, chief scientist and many of its supporters -- including actors Morgan Freeman and Ted Danson -- shared details of the expedition, which is funded in part by a $100,000 donation by the apparel company Nautica. more info |
| Southern governors push for bigger cut of oil money Three Deep South governors, including Alabama's Bob Riley, urged Obama administration officials Monday to support efforts by coastal states to get a larger slice of off-shore oil drilling dollars to help cover the risk of spills. more info |
| Oily trash in landfills worries residents, experts A month after oil from the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion stopped flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, the emphasis has shifted toward cleanup and disposal of oily trash at government-approved landfills in coastal states. more info |
| WHOI: 22 Mile Oil Plume in Gulf Researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution say they've studied the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and found a 22 mile long oil plume 3,000 feet under the sea. One of the authors of the study, Chris Reddy, gives a detailed account of the study and the findings. He says even though you can't see the oil, it is there. more info |
| BP: Replacement Of Deepwater Horizon Blow-Out Preventer Still On Hold The bad weather is likely to delay the so-called "bottom kill" operation, which would mark the official end of the well. These final steps, which involve flooding it with drilling mud and cement from the bottom, were previously expected to begin around Sept. 7, after the installation of a new blow-out preventer. U.S. officials say the device is needed because the "bottom kill" could endanger a cement plug that BP installed in early August at the top of the well, and only a stronger blow-out preventer could stop a new leak from happening. more info |
| Modern Stewardship-Article from TCEQ Commissioner Buddy Garcia One note of concern is the potential elimination of Federal funding to coastal alliances throughout the United States in spite of current funding inequities. The current Administration is considering a new national method for spatial planning similar to the Alliances' existing framework and goals. I would hate to lose time reinventing the wheel when the current Gulf of Mexico Alliance is operating with efficiency and success. more info |
| Major Study Charts Long-lasting Oil Plume In Gulf A 22-mile-long invisible mist of oil is meandering far below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, where it will probably loiter for months or more, scientists reported Thursday in the first conclusive evidence of an underwater plume from the BP spill. more info |
| Good-bye Shark Week? Large sharks in decline due to fishing More than 90 percent of all elasmobranch species—the collective name for sharks, rays, and skates—live close to the ocean floor on continental shelves and slopes. This makes them especially vulnerable to trawling. Surveys in the Gulf of Mexico between 1972 and 2002 revealed steep population declines of shallow water species—up to 99 percent in one case—that turn up as shrimp by-catch. more info |
| EPA kept close watch on use of dispersants When BP approached EPA and the Coast Guard about using dispersant 1 mile below the water's surface — something never tried before — we required BP to conduct multiple tests to first ensure its effectiveness. We insisted BP agree to a stringent, daily monitoring plan that tracked dissolved oxygen levels — a key indicator of both the health of the water and sea life. And we made sure we could stop BP's use at any time. more info |
| Building a Ring Around New Orleans By 2011, the greater New Orleans area is scheduled to have a 350-mile ring of levees, flood walls, gates and pumps to defend against the effects of a severe storm. The comprehensive system will be a marked improvement from the patchwork of levees and walls that were breached during Hurricane Katrina. more info |
| Study of oil spill's effect on whales could show future of Gulf marine life Scientists hope that studying how oil and dispersants affect sperm whales could offer an idea about the future of all creatures in the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps even a guide for the long-range impact on humans. more info |
| Oil Spill Bills Stall in Senate And three bills in particular, created in response to the April oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, were high on the agenda of the industry’s lobbying interests: the Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources (CLEAR) Act, the CLEAR Act’s Senate counterpart and the Securing Protections for the Injured from Limitations on Liability (SPILL) Act. more info |
| Large fish kill found at mouth of Mississippi River Gulf outlet Thousands of dead fish and other marine life have been found at the mouth of the Mississippi River outlet into the Gulf of Mexico, according to the president of St. Bernard Parish in Louisiana. more info |
| Danielle becomes the second hurricane of 2010 The storm is expected to remain in the Atlantic for the next 5 days, and will likely strengthen. The official forecast track does not bring the system on a southeastern US approach. more info |
| Plastic Pollution in the Atlantic Ocean The largest amount of plastic—83%—is in an area known as the North Atlantic subtropical gyre, reaching from the latitude of Baltimore to that of the Bahamas. Most of the plastic collected on the sea surface is polypropylene, which is used in a wide variety of products that includes clear bags and rope; and polyethylene, which is primarily used for plastic shopping bags. However, the scientists found almost no PET, the substance used in plastic bottles, even though PET is commonly found littering beaches. This has led to speculation that the PET is sinking to the bottom of the ocean. more info |
| Haley Barbour appoints commission to develop long-term oil spill recovery plan The commission will work closely with the Gulf of Mexico Alliance -- a partnership by the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas that dates back to 2004 -- and various other state agencies. more info |
| University study says nearly 80 percent of spill still in Gulf waters Charles Hopkinson, a University of Georgia marine scientist who was part of the study, said plumes of oil dispersed underwater continue to be a threat. "One major misconception is that oil that has dissolved into water is gone and, therefore, harmless," he said in a statement. "The oil is still out there, and it will likely take years to completely degrade. We are still far from a complete understanding of what its impacts are." more info |
| Scientists: Toxic organisms, oil found on Gulf floor The researchers found micro-droplets of oil scattered across the ocean floor and they also found those droplets moving up through a part of the Gulf called the DeSoto Canyon, a channel which funnels water and nutrients into the popular commercial and recreational waters along the Florida Gulf Coast. The scientists say even though it's getting harder to see the oil the Gulf is still not safe. more info |
| BP Spill's Gulf Threat May Fade as Farms Pollute, Wetlands Sink Environmental scientists point to more serious and persistent (albeit less telegenic) dangers, including the continued loss of wetlands, the impact of global climate change, and the supercharging of the Gulf with fertilizer that flows down the Mississippi River from Midwestern farms. more info |
| President Obama's Trip to the Gulf The President speaks from Panama City, FL on the efforts that succeeded in containing the BP oil spill and reminds Americans that beaches along the Gulf Coast are open and that Gulf seafood is being tested and confirmed to be safe to eat. more info |
| Marine engineering, the rush for wind - and urban solutions Whether readers agree or not about the cause, the facts are the sea is getting warmer, and it is expanding. The Greenland icecap is retreating, adding more water to the sea. Sea levels are rising. The International Panel on Climate Change predicts a rise of 1.4 metres by 2099. Even at today's population levels, that would displace 146 million people from their homes. more info |
| Countries should shift focus to saving species, preserving biodiversity The International Union for the Conservation of Nature reports that the rate of extinction has surpassed the rate of evolution, for the first time in the earth’s history. This means that species cannot keep pace with the loss of biodiversity. In some ways, it is more serious than global warming because once we lose species, it is nearly impossible to get them back. By declaring 2010 the year of biodiversity, the United Nations is taking steps toward changing the conversation. more info |
| Corexit: 5 Questions About Chemical Dispersant Answered One of those issues might stem from the inordinate amount of chemical dispersant, called Corexit, that was pumped into the Gulf of Mexico at the start of the disaster. Today, the FDA and NOAA announced they would begin testing the gulf seafood supply for dispersants after concerns about their safety raised by residents, scientists and environmentalists. more info |
| Gulf oil spill adds facet to Katrina recovery The spill also puts a spotlight on the region, which could boost recovery, says Amy Liu, co-author of the Brookings report. BP and federal officials can help meet lingering needs, such as diversifying the economy and rebuilding the battered wetlands, she says. more info |
| NASA launching mission to study hurricanes Set to begin Sunday, the agency's six-week Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) mission will see a series of planes outfitted with sophisticated instruments take to the skies in an attempt to understand the birth of a hurricane, in order to give people a better chance to prepare for them. more info |
| Greenpeace and Ocean Alliance ships dock in St. Petersburg on separate courses to study gulf oil spill Both ships are doing work in conjunction with academic institutions hoping to assess the damage done by the spill. The Ocean Alliance has partnered with the University of Southern Maine to check whales in the gulf. Greenpeace is working with Texas A&M, Nova University, North Carolina State and Tulane University on various research projects. more info |
| Study warns of health effects from oil spill Their advice follows a report issued earlier this month by the US Institute of Medicine, an independent think-tank of experts, which summarised hearings with 300 experts held over the summer into the risks of the gulf spill, and also called for creation of a system to monitor short- and long-term potential health effects. more info |
| Trash your waste and you may save an animal “This is a thing we can actually solve, by prevention and education. It’s all about changing behaviour,“ she says. “Everyone has a footprint on the marine environment.” more info |
| Funding to Model Effects of Sea Level Rise in Northern Gulf of Mexico The study team, led by Scott Hagen, Ph.D., of the University of Central Florida, will develop sea level rise computer models to predict the impacts storms and rising water pose to the northern Gulf’s coastline, including shoreline and barrier island erosion. The results of the study will be incorporated into coastal ecosystem planning for restoration efforts and other natural resource management decisions in the region. It may also help oil spill responders better understand oil that may reside in the subsided ecosystems. more info |
| Open for Questions: Gulf Seafood Safety with Dr. Jane Lubchenco The men and women of the Gulf who make their livelihood harvesting fish, shrimp, and oysters have been among those hardest hit by this spill. Enjoying some local seafood is one simple way Americans can support the people of the Gulf who have been battered by this spill. If you have questions about the safety of seafood from the Gulf, be sure to tune in Monday at 2 PM at WhiteHouse.gov/live. You can also submit your questions ahead of time via Facebook or our webform. more info |
| Distinguishing between oil and algae At 1:00 Friday afternoon, the Chief of Natural Resources at the Gulf Islands National Seashore will be in Pensacola to help folks identify algae and naturally occurring materials that are often mistaken for oil. more info |
| NOAA, FDA to test seafood for dispersants Amid undying criticism over the large-scale use of Corexit in the Deepwater Horizon response, NOAA and the Food and Drug Administration are developing a lab test to detect traces of the chemical dispersant in seafood. The test, they hope, will finally put to rest concerns that poisons from the compounds used to break up the oil will linger in the food chain. more info |
| Wildlife losses continue, numbers reported The Federal Wildlife Service personnel are continuing their rescue and recovery missions in the gulf, and this week Deepwater Horizon Response reports the following: more info |
| Sea turtles hatching on Dauphin Island Experts say a hatching hasn't happened on the island like this one in three or four years. Share The Beach volunteers and staff from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab will be watching both of the nest 24 hours a day until all of the eggs hatch. more info |
| Projects selected for Gulf oil spill impact study The Florida Institute of Oceanography says 27 research projects have been selected to receive a total of about $10 million from BP PLC to study the impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. more info |
| Scientists dispute size of BP's spill clean up NOAA accounted for the oil from the spills in the following way last week: It said a quarter of the spill was captured, burned or skimmed off the ocean; another quarter was transformed into tiny droplets either naturally or with the help of chemical dispersants; another quarter dissolved. more info |
| Oceana Announces Launch of Gulf of Mexico Research Expedition Oceana, the largest international organization focused solely on ocean conservation, announced today the launch of its 2010 Gulf of Mexico Expedition that will assess the long-term impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Oceana will use remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), specialized divers and satellite tags to investigate the effects of oil in the Gulf on coral, fish, shark and other marine species. Oceana will also document areas that may be in danger if the oil is captured by sea currents and transported towards southern Florida or if another oil spill occurs in this area in the future. To date, an estimated 200 million gallons of oil has spilled into the Gulf since the explosion April 20, 2010. more info |
| Kids create mock oil spill at UWF camp The girls recently attended the University of West Florida's Summer Explore Program at Pensacola Beach Elementary School and set up a mock beach with an oil rig. more info |
| Facility at Florida university designated national marine energy center The SNMREC will collaborate with industry partners to investigate, refine, fabricate and test promising next-generation waterpower technologies to harness the ocean's energy potential. The new SNMREC is the third national ocean energy research center – the others are located in the Pacific Northwest and Hawaii. more info |
| Convincing public that Gulf of Mexico seafood is safe will take time, experts say FDA has also been criticized for not establishing a chemical test for dispersants in seafood, only a smell test. Robert Dickey, director of FDA's Gulf Coast Seafood Lab in Dauphin Island, Ala., echoed what many high-level FDA scientists have said about dispersants: that they are water-soluble and do not accumulate in the tissues of fish or other seafood that humans would eat. "We put so much work into making that determination, and we're continuing to study it," Dickey said. NOAA and the EPA are also doing studies on dispersants and their toxicity and ability to concentrate, or bioaccumulate, in different species. more info |
| IFAW and the USM Gulf Coast Research Lab Conduct Urgent Study of Endangered Whale Sharks International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) scientists are concerned that the protected whale shark, the world's largest fish, may be a quiet victim of the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. IFAW is responding to an urgent appeal for assistance from the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (USM-GCRL) to conduct research on whale shark biology, behavior and movement patterns in the Gulf before it's too late. more info |
| US agency rules out health threat from oil dispersants In a letter released Friday addressing concerns raised by a US lawmaker, the regulatory body said it was highly unlikely that the chemicals used to break up spilled crude into small particles would enter the food chain. The "FDA has determined that the chemical dispersant currently used to combat the Deepwater Horizon... have a low potential for bioconcentration in seafood species," the agency said. more info |
| Two nest openings scheduled Two turtle nests have hatched on Longboat Key and have been scheduled for excavation. more info |
| Nicholls State University initiates hurricane emergency plan With the approach of a tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico, the Nicholls State University Emergency Preparedness Committee initiated the first phase of its 2010 Hurricane Emergency Plan, school official said today. more info |
| Southern governors conference will be held in Alabama Riley said Southern governors, four of which have states directly affected by the spill, must play a leading role in dealing with issues surrounding why the oil spill occurred and what must be done to restore and enhance the environment and economy of the Gulf Coast. more info |
| Researchers firm on oil data On Monday, Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of NOAA, met with Hogarth and some USF scientists to try to get on the same page. Hogarth described the meeting as productive . Hogarth is confident the two sides can work together to share information and help determine the long-term impact of the oil in the Gulf. He and others say that things have improved in their work with NOAA. more info |
| Southern Miss: Consumers concerned with safety of Gulf Shrimp The trio of researchers plan a more detailed analysis of the data in the near future and are looking to conduct further surveys pertaining to Gulf seafood relating to the lingering effects of the BP oil spill. more info |
| Dead Zone Changes in the Gulf Scientists have found this year's Gulf of Mexico dead zone to be the fifth largest on record at 7,722 square miles — an area the size of New Jersey and near the upper limit of their projections. The dead, or hypoxic, zone is fueled by nutrient runoff from agricultural and other human activities in the Mississippi River watershed, which stimulates an overgrowth of algae that sinks, decomposes and consumes most of the life-giving oxygen supply in bottom waters. more info |
| Tropical depression forms over Gulf of Mexico The season is nearing its traditionally most active phase, which runs from mid-August through October. Hurricanes feed on warm water and the tropical Atlantic is warmest during that time. more info |
| In La., signs of regrowth seen in oiled marshes Whether it is a triumph of cleanup work, the marshes' resiliency or both, scientists have reported regrowth of grasses, black mangrove trees and roseau cane, a lush, tall cane found in the brackish waters around the mouth of the Mississippi River. more info |
| NOAA opens fishing lanes in Gulf of Mexico NOAA said testing of fish in the reopened area uncovered no detectable oil or dispersants. Closed fishing areas in the Gulf of Mexico cover 52,395 miles, or around 22 percent of the U.S. federal waters. more info |
| Mississippi River pours as much dispersant into the Gulf of Mexico as BP But what few in the public understood was that an equivalent amount of similar surfactant chemicals -- the active ingredient in Corexit and in household soaps and industrial solvents -- enters the Gulf each day from the Mississippi River, with more flowing in from other rivers and streams along the coast. more info |
| Final plug nears after crews cement oil well's top Engineers this week poured in cement to complete a plug at the top of the wellbore as part of a process dubbed a "static kill," but they needed to wait at least a day for it to harden. Once it does, crews can finish the last stretch of a relief well and inject more mud and cement into the bottom of well from deep underground to form a final plug. more info |
| Concerned Fisherman Given Voice at Gulf of Mexico Alliance Meeting Miller was one of a group of fishermen from across the Gulf who brought their concerns to the Gulf of Mexico Alliance Conference, and after speaking at the closing session on day one, were allowed time to address the crowd with their concerns. more info |
| Despite oil disappearance, scientists say dangers could linger in the Gulf That leaves more than 50 million gallons unaccounted for. And the oil that has been dispersed, dissolved and evaporated -- another 100 million gallons -- could still harm coastal residents and marine life, according to some local scientists. more info |
| Gov. Assures Consumers Gulf Seafood Safe To Eat Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said he wants consumers to get their seafood from the Gulf of Mexico, but business owners said some people are still skeptical. more info |
| Gulf diversity threatened even before oil spill The report disclosed that the Gulf of Mexico, where a battle is under way to clean up a massive oil spill, ranks fifth among 25 regions around the world for diversity of sea life. more info |
| Gulf Oil Spill Meets Dead Zone: What Lies Beneath About fifty feet below the healthy surface of the Gulf lay a murky layer... a turbid cloud of stirred-up sediment and dead sea creatures. Flaccid jellyfish floated on the flat currents of tiny corpses. On the sea bottom the waters were gray and terrifyingly empty. No coral, no fish, no algae, nothing but the noxious oily streaks of red tides and lethal plankton blooms. Everything in this 7,000-square-mile zone had died from lack of oxygen. It would be as if every person in a city were suddenly sucked dry of air and suffocated together. more info |
| Cruising this fall? NOAA still predicting a rough period for hurricanes While the first two months of the 2010 hurricane season only saw three named storms in the Atlantic basin, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week reiterated its early June forecast that it could end up being one of more active hurricane season on record in the region. more info |
| Weatherbird returning to Gulf to look for signs of oil That means, he said, scientists will be checking sources all along the food chain – the bacteria that eat the oil, the plankton that feed on the bacteria, the fish that feed on the plankton – to see what kind of impact the oil and the dispersants used to fight the spill might have more info |
| Hunting for leftover oil on Louisiana's Gulf Coast "When I first came here 60 days ago, you couldn't see water," said Jeremy Ingram with the U.S. Coast Guard. "It was all oil. I say it's a lot less than what was here, but if you see on the canes, it's still heavily saturated and wet with oil. So, the job is not done yet. As long as oil is coming in out off the Gulf, this job is going to be here because it's going to keep washing in. But our job is to try to keep what's in here contained. Clean it up and keep what's out there out of this area… and slowly get the job done." more info |
| Gulf fishermen say they're not convinced seafood is safe Gulf Coast fishermen say they chose Biloxi as their meeting place because the Gulf of Mexico Alliance Conference is underway here. Several of the fishermen told us they planned to attend the event to make their voices heard and express doubts as to whether the seafood is safe to eat. more info |
| Briefing on oil spill research today, research vessel to leave St. Pete tonight During the research mission, scientists will investigate the impact of the BP oil spill on the northern Gulf of Mexico ecosystem, particularly the plankton and microscopic organisms that make up the lowest levels of the food web. more info |
| Chemical dispersants used in gulf oil spill don't hurt seafood safety, FDA says Sensory experts working for the FDA and NOAA smelled samples of gulf fish to make sure there was no odor from oil or chemicals. If the samples passed that test, they were subjected to laboratory analysis to detect polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), which come from oil and some of which can cause cancer and other health effects in humans. more info |
| The Oil Spill’s Effects on Wildlife As of Aug. 4, more than 6,000 birds, sea turtles and dolphins have been found dead or debilitated in the gulf since the oil spill began. A majority of the dead were not visibly oiled, and officials have yet to determine why they died. But they have confirmed that many more animals are dying than during the same time period in previous years. more info |
| Feds, farmers create habitats for migrating birds Across eight states, farmers such as Gautreaux are inundating fallow fields to provide an alternative for some of the tens of millions of ducks, geese and shorebirds that are beginning to make their way south on a flyway that stretches as far north as Alaska and Iceland. more info |
| For 'oiled' marshlands, time may be the only balm "It is important to remember that even though this spill is not a natural event, oil is a natural part of the ecosystem, especially in the Gulf, and there are bacteria that have evolved to break down petroleum hydrocarbons," said MDEQ spokesman Robbie Wilbur. "So if we can limit the penetration of oil into these areas, Mother Nature will help us clean it up." more info |
| NOAA Announces Gulf Surface Oil NOT a threat to S FL, KEYS OR EAST COAST The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today that a new analysis shows Southern Florida, the Florida Keys, and the East Coast are unlikely to experience any effects from the remaining oil on the surface of the Gulf as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. No new oil has leaked from the Deepwater Horizon well in 15 days and the surface oil that remains is hundreds of miles away from the loop current and in the process of degrading. more info |
| Gulf Wildlife Still at Risk As the oil slick continues to dissolve, it reduces the risk of more animals being harmed or killed, but serious concern for these creatures remains. Rebecca Dmytryk, search-and-capture specialist for International Bird Rescue, said: "We have to see what the food chain does. Is there enough fish out there still alive for the pelicans and other birds to eat? It's not just the birds being affected. It's the chain of life out there in the Gulf." more info |
| Student gets first-hand look at oil spill Ryan Baldwin, a freshman at The Kinkaid School, didn’t realize when he agreed to participate in the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama that he would be studying an important piece of the Gulf history. more info |
| Update on NOAA’s Oil Spill Research and Response Missions NOAA Ship Pisces has been supporting the Unified Command in its Deepwater Horizon/BP wellhead integrity testing effort since July 14. The ship has been using sophisticated acoustic echo-sounders and water column profiling instruments to monitor for oil and gas releases in the immediate vicinity of, and directly over, the well head. Data from the mission are currently being analyzed by the National Incident Command, NOAA and the University of New Hampshire daily as they monitor the cap on the wellhead. The 209-ft. vessel is based in Pascagoula, Miss. more info |
| Fla. Audubon Helps Wildlife Affected By Oil Spill It doesn't have to be crude to affect the animals and trees; all bits of oil can be harmful to the eco-system. And though it doesn't look like South Florida will be struck, the Florida Audubon is helping support the animals that have been covered in the crude. more info |
| 4 Oil Firms Commit $1 Billion for Gulf Rapid-Response Plan The initiative is the first product of a larger discussion within the industry on how to improve safety in the gulf. Oil companies have set up an industrywide task force to consider new safety standards for offshore drilling, more frequent rig inspections, new requirements and certification for blowout preventers and improvements in well design. more info |
| BP Tries to Limit Release of Oil Spill Research Faced with hundreds of lawsuits and a deep need for experts, BP has been offering some Gulf Coast scientists lucrative consulting contracts that bar them from releasing their findings on the company's massive oil spill for three years. more info |
| Oil Spill Dispersants Shifting Ecosystem Impacts in Gulf, Scientists Warn The Obama administration sought this week to temper premature celebration of the shrinking surface oil. "What we have yet to determine is the full impact that the oil will have on not just the shorelines, not just the wildlife, but beneath the surface," National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco told reporters. "And we have a very aggressive research effort under way to determine exactly that." more info |
| How the Gulf of Mexico became the nation's 'toilet bowl' When Nazia Dardar looks at the seemingly endless lake of water behind her stilted bayou home, the 76-year-old sees what once was a farm. more info |
| Health officials lift swim advisories on Alabama coast Read more: Anniston Star - Health officials lift swim advisories on Alabama coast "With the improving beach situation, the department feels that we can lift our swimming advisories," Dr. Donald Williamson, state health officer, said. "However, we recognize that even in the absence of visible oil, oil products may still be present in the sand or in the water. The department will replace red swimming advisory signs with yellow signs that outline several precautions for beachgoers." more info |
| Wake Up and See the Dead Zones! With the Gulf of Mexico's oil gusher dominating the headlines since April, it's been easy to forget that agricultural runoff infused with fertilizers, and sewage from many treatment plants, has continued to wind its way through small streams and into the Mississippi River, then ultimately reaching the gulf. more info |
| Bacteria Help Clean Gulf Oil Spill Oil-consuming bacteria naturally help break down the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico. Now, scientists are studying how to encourage the microbes to work faster. more info |
| Scientists: BP dispersants have made spill more toxic Most recent scientific research has found that combining dispersants with oil makes the oil even more toxic. A review of more than 400 studies since 1997 showed that 75 percent of them found that the combination of oil and dispersant actually increased the toxic effects of the oil. more info |
| Sea Turtle Eggs Picked By Hand, Moved Away From Gulf To Clean Water VIDEO-The Sea Turtle Conservancy (STC) did the only thing they could: carefully lift out of the sand each unhatched egg by hand. The eggs are carefully transported in coolers (in a slow-moving truck) across Florida to be released into the Atlantic Ocean. Fed Ex has provided the trucks to STC free of charge. more info |
| Louisiana reopens fishing grounds after spill closure FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said the agency was "confident all appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that seafood harvested from the waters being opened today is safe." more info |
| Island's Recovery May Set Example For Gulf Residents For Galveston, Texas, this is nothing new. On June 3, 1979, an exploratory drilling rig off the coast of Mexico, owned by the Mexican government, blew out, caught fire, keeled over and plunged below into the wellhead area. The rig damaged the drill pipe as it sank, pouring oil into the sea. more info |
| Crews work to cap new La. oil leak near Gulf Oil, natural gas and water are still spewing from an abandoned well hit by a barge on a Louisiana waterway near the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Lawsuit targets BP's use of Corexit dispersant; attorney alleges chemical used in off-limits areas In the lawsuit, which also names Corexit manufacturer Nalco Co., Janille Turner and Glynis H. Wright seek to represent all Gulf Coast residents who live, travel or work in the area who "will suffer and have suffered the deleterious effects" of the dispersant. more info |
| Gulf Oil Spill: BP Says Time For 'Scaleback' Of Cleanup Efforts BP's incoming CEO said Friday that it's time for a "scaleback" of the massive effort to clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but stressed the commitment to make things right is the same as ever. more info |
| Dauphin Island Sea Lab's Skimmer Newsletter for July 2010 Dr. Tina Miller-Way, a scientist and educator with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and Principal Investigator for the Northern Gulf Institute (NGI) recently had the opportunity to fly over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill site and affected coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, courtesy of the Mississippi National Guard more info |
| Watershed News-EPA's Aug. Issue Watershed News is a publication of EPA's Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds. It is designed to provide timely information to groups working at the watershed level. more info |
| Crews in Gulf reconnect to underwater equipment through relief well Meanwhile, as crews continue their work in the Gulf, the oil is getting harder and harder to find from the air. The federal on-scene coordinator, Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, went looking for it in two flights over the weekend, finding only a large patch about 12 miles off Grand Isle, Louisiana. more info |
| Dispersant Discussion: Living on Earth Podcast Nearly 2 million gallons of chemical dispersants have been applied to the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the BP oil leak. Host Jeff Young reports that many of the country's leading marine scientists have signed a consensus statement against the use of dispersants on that scale. more info |
| The effects of the oil spill on human health The purpose of the workshop was to explore the potential short-term and long-term health impact of the oil spill, identify major concerns and appropriate ways to monitor and address the potential risks. more info |
| Where Oysters Grew on Trees Key to the gulf’s productivity are its marshes, the nurseries of the sea. Fed by the regular supply of sediment washed over them by the Mississippi and its distributaries, the marshes have built up over 5,000 years into the vast network of estuaries we know today. Tucked safely into its marshes, sea-grass meadows, oyster reefs and other critical habitats form the base of the marine food chain. more info |
| Smithsonian holdings to aid researchers in Gulf Smithsonian scientists began putting their collection to use just days after the oil spill, creating a digital map showing where each specimen was collected in the Gulf. Information from the collection could help settle conflicts about how much damage the spill caused, said Jonathan Coddington, head of research and collections at the National Museum of Natural History. more info |
| Full-featured Facebook game plans to increase environmental action and awareness Greenopolis, a subsidiary of Waste Management, a provider of environmental services and the largest recycler in North America, today at Casual Connect officially announced the opening of Oceanopolis, a new game that combines social gaming with real world calls-to-action for recycling and conservation of natural resources. The game, currently in beta, will receive a full launch in the coming weeks. more info |
| Students Selected for 2010 NOAA Scholarships Honoring Dr. Nancy Foster NOAA has selected seven graduate students as national recipients of the Dr. Nancy Foster Scholarships, representing graduate-level scholars in marine biology, coastal resource management, and maritime archeology. more info |
| From Oprah to Al Jazeera: Plastiki Got Its Message Out, Even in Stormiest of Seas With the job of bringing attention to the plastic bottle issue made a bit more difficult by the fact that the crew was bobbing around in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a boat made of puffed-up plastic soda bottles, I asked de Rothschild about the technical hurdles of running a wired environmental campaign in such a challenging work setting. more info |
| Oil Dispersants Used In Gulf Of Mexico Unlikely To Be Endocrine Disrupters With an urgent need for such information in the Deepwater Horizon spill, the scientists applied a rapid screening method using mammalian cells to determine the eight dispersants’ potential to act as endocrine disrupters and relative toxicity to living cells. The dispersants included a type widely being used to treat the Gulf oil spill. None of the substances showed significant endocrine disruption activity and cytotoxicity was not seen until dispersants were tested at concentrations above 10 parts per million, the scientists said. However, they note that “there are other routes by which chemicals can cause endocrine disruption, as well as other types of toxicity that have not been tested for here.” more info |
| Oil dispersants a threat to Gulf breeding grounds, fishery experts say The dispersed oil makes matters worse, because when it sinks to the ocean floor, bottom-dwelling organisms eat it and may in turn be eaten by larger organisms. Along the coast, droplets of oil are being found in the shells of young crabs that are a mainstay in the diet of fish, turtles and shorebirds. more info |
| How oil-damaged marsh grasses recovery could affect gulf's rebound The real proof of the grasses' success, scientists say, won't come until next spring. If oiled plants such as these survive, boaters in the marsh will see another waving expanse of green shoots. more info |
| FWC: 2 red lionfish collected from Gulf of Mexico Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission researchers say two juvenile red lionfish were collected from the Gulf of Mexico more info |
| Scientists check deep water reefs for damage from oil spill They use small submarines to reach the ocean floor. Water samples are collected, analyzed for oxygen levels and any evidence of oil or dispersants. more info |
| Progress continues after Bonnie blows over Q4000 is inspecting the yellow pad, which is the control device that's placed below sea level to operate hydraulics. Its valve was replaced and will be installed later today and then will begin preparations for the static kill operations. more info |
| Scientists Confirm Underwater Plumes Are From Spill The announcement by the Florida researchers came as federal scientists released their own report on the oil formations. The multiagency report describes the presence of large plumes of microscopic oil droplets within several miles of the wellhead at a depth of 3,280 to 4,265 feet. Oil concentrations there are as high as 10 parts per million, or the equivalent of one tablespoon of oil in 130 gallons of water. more info |
| Taking a dive in a research sub in the Gulf of Mexico A mini-submarine stationed on the Research Vessel Seward Johnson is looking at the effect on the coral reefs 200 miles from the source of the spill. more info |
| Foundation's grant to give a push to science and math The money will also enable schools to work with local businesses to provide internships for students, and some will be able to earn college scholarships to go on and study the sciences. Local businesses and professional groups, including Tervis Tumbler, Mote Marine Laboratory and area hospitals, have already offered their support in helping students earn experience in the sciences. more info |
| Important Insights to Gulf Oil Spill Gleaned From Modeling Past Hurricanes Clint Dawson and collaborators Joannes Westerink at the University of Notre Dame and Rick Luettich at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill are using the ADCIRC (ADvanced CIRCulation Model for Coastal Ocean Hydrodynamics) code on the Ranger supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) to model past hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav and Ike to see how a hurricane could affect the region. Dawson is head of the Computational Hydraulics Group at ICES and a professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics. more info |
| LSU researchers study impacts of oil spill The studies, funded by the National Science Foundation, seek to determine how people affected by the disaster cope with it and what effect the oil will have on bacteria that naturally grow in oyster beds. The two studies are among numerous projects involving researchers across the country. more info |
| oil spill events from Tuesday, July 20, 2010 Oil from BP's blown out well is again seeping into the Gulf of Mexico, but this time more slowly, and scientists aren't convinced the cap that stopped the flow last week is making things worse. The government said Monday that oil was seeping into the Gulf after days of warning that the experimental cap on the oil well could cause more leaks. Despite what at first seemed a setback, though, the federal government declared the development insignificant and forged ahead with BP's plan for finally sealing the hole in the ocean floor. At a Monday afternoon briefing in Washington, the retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said BP could keep the cap closed at least another 24 hours, as long as the company remained alert for leaks. more info |
| Women of the Storm Launch Campaign to Restore the Gulf "The Gulf Coast is an American treasure and its deterioration affects us all," said Sandra Bullock. "The solution begins with each American demanding the restoration of the Gulf of Mexico, its coastlines and its wetlands for ourselves and for future generations." more info |
| BP's $cience Project Even as it struggled to cap its damaged oil well, BP lawyers picked out scientists at the region's public universities -- including the University of South Alabama and the University of Southern Mississippi -- who study such topics as marine invertebrates, plankton, marsh environments, oceanography and sharks, to name a few, the Press-Register has reported. more info |
| Shrinking Coast, Expanding Oil: Shrimpers Clean Spill David Chauvin reminds his wife, Kim, to pick up some extra life jackets as she's rushing out the kitchen door to attend a BP safety meeting. Instead of selling shrimp from the dock behind their house, the former high school sweethearts are now running a fleet of 25 shrimp boats that have been converted to skimmers. more info |
| BP dispersant use makes 'A Whale' super skimmer ineffective in the Gulf Jonsson also quoted TMT Offshore spokesman, Bob Grantham, “This ship demonstrated that it can bring substantial volumes of capacity to bear in addressing oil spills quickly and with great maneuverability. That said, the particular conditions present in the Macondo spill did not afford the vessel to recover a significant amount of oil…..due to the highly dispersed nature of the oil in the Gulf.” more info |
| Planning for Our Oceans’ Future The Obama administration released the final recommendations of an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force yesterday, and the president immediately turned around and signed it into an executive order. The recommendations call for the establishment of a new national policy to protect and restore our oceans, coasts, and Great Lakes. Ocean conservation and industry groups have long identified a comprehensive national ocean policy as a priority. There is urgent need for more coordination between the multiple federal agencies with ocean management responsibilities and greater coherency between the numerous laws addressing ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes resources. The United States has now taken a major step forward in achieving that goal. more info |
| Before They Hatch: Moving Sea Turtle Eggs From Gulf In all, the government plans to move 700 to 800 clutches of eggs — by far the largest turtle nest relocation ever. Ingram says it's a big experiment dictated by extraordinary circumstances. more info |
| Oil spill produces educational experience? “Luckily, our oceanography teacher, Monty Graham, was very into getting us involved in the actual research processes involved with the oil spill,” she said. “In addition to our normal course work we learned a great deal about the properties of oil and its potential effects on the Gulf of Mexico.” more info |
| Camp explores the marine ecosystem There may be tar balls on the Coast shores but the students at the new Ocean Expo Summer Camp on Tuesday were merrily using seine and dip nets to catch fish and crabs in the back bay areas and marshes. more info |
| Balloons gathering data above gulf spill U.S. researchers are using weather balloons to take air samples above the gulf oil spill and improve weather forecasting in the affected region, officials say. more info |
| Dead zone in Gulf linked to oil The researchers measured low oxygen levels along the entire 40-mile stretch they sampled around Dauphin Island, Ala., from about 40 miles offshore to within a mile or two of the shoreline. The bottom layer of water was oxygen-depleted at depths of about 30 feet close to shore to 100 feet further out, along the continental shelf — a rim of shallow water tracing the coast from Mississippi to Florida. more info |
| Internet2 and NOAA Partner To Provide New High Capacity National Research Network Climate scientists around the country leverage these HPC resources to understand, predict, and explain changes in climate. This is accomplished by developing and applying state-of-the-art, computationally intensive coupled climate models for advancing climate research, predicting climate from weeks to decades, and projecting future climate out to several centuries. These climate predictions and projections are expected to generate approximately 80 terabytes of data per day to support decision makers regionally to globally with timely and authoritative information. NWave provides the critical high capacity network links that can support these large data flows between sites as well as provide the capabilities to allow NOAA scientists the ability to easily share computational resources with the U.S. Department of Energy and other U.S. government agencies. more info |
| Listening for Whales Amid Undersea Oil Clouds Out of sight, whales cruise the Gulf of Mexico depths -- their hidden world threatened by huge clots of drifting oil from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon well. At the same time, there is almost no data available to measure changes to the Gulf's ecosystem -- including whale populations -- caused by the massive leak. more info |
| Corals and Water Column Study for Gulf Oil Spill A science team on the research vessel Seward Johnson departed Fort Pierce, FL, USA, Friday for the eastern Gulf of Mexico to gather baseline data against which to measure change if oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill reaches the area. The expedition will use a submersible, a ROV and other technology to assess and record conditions in the water column and on the seafloor. more info |
| Online games at school and on holiday – how to keep students ticking over till next term In the few days left before the summer break, teachers seeking to keep their students occupied have a chance to introduce them to the ever-growing list of sophisticated and enjoyable online games and activities, designed to blend play with education and provide a fun experience in class and at home. more info |
| SW Florida beaches protected from oil spill by continental shelf Recent projections by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirm the sentiments of a leading local expert that there is a minimal likelihood of oil from the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill impacting the Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel in Southwest Florida. more info |
| The 3-minute interview: Brian Day Day is executive director of the North American Association for Environmental Education, a professional nonprofit association made up of professionals, students and volunteers who work to promote environmental education. more info |
| National Aquarium Initiates Natural Resource Damage Assessment (Nrda) For Sarasota Bay Ecosystem The National Aquarium, in collaboration with Mote Marine Laboratory and Johns Hopkins University, is conducting a comprehensive study designed to ensure that pre- and post- Deepwater Horizon oil spill impact status of Sarasota Bay is documented as rigorously as possible. This will enable scientists to demonstrate causality between the release of oil and injured resources and/or lost human use of those resources and services. The first phase of this research will provide vital information needed to evaluate the status of this sensitive aquatic environment before potential contamination by the Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil spill. more info |
| Fishers asked to help save turtles Fisheries biologist Carrie Horton talked to local fishermen Tuesday about the different species of sea turtles and their life histories, and techniques fishermen can use to minimize their chances of catching a sea turtle. more info |
| NASA Rescues Sea Turtles Endangered by Oil Spill Biologists dug up about 700 turtle nests near Panama City and Apalachicola, and brought them to KSC. While the nests were transported, they were buried in damp sand inside Styrofoam coolers and transported via a temperature-controlled truck to KSC. The turtles are being monitored until they hatch, and once they hatch are quickly brought to the ocean, where they feed exclusively along the line of Sargassum seaweed at the edge of the current. Most of the nests are made by the threatened loggerhead sea turtle, but other species include Kemp's ridley, leatherback, and green sea turtles. Each nest has 100-120 eggs. more info |
| Scientist Says Oxygen-Depletion Problem in Gulf Is Real Samantha Joye, an oceanographer at the University of Georgia who is studying the oil spill's potential effects on Gulf marine life, said water samples that she and colleagues have taken show a more worrisome drop in oxygen levels than was reported recently by a separate group of federal researchers aboard a different ship. more info |
| Animal Autopsies in Gulf Reveal Only a Mystery Despite an obvious suspect, oil, the answer is far from clear. The vast majority of the dead animals that have been found — 1,866 birds, 463 turtles, 59 dolphins and one sperm whale — show no visible signs of oil contamination. Much of the evidence in the turtle cases points, in fact, to shrimping or other commercial fishing, but other suspects include oil fumes, oiled food, the dispersants used to break up the oil or even disease. more info |
| BP oil spill has already altered the food web, putting future of Gulf marine life in jeopardy "You change the base of the food web, it's going to ripple through the entire food web," Rob Condon, a marine scientist, told The Associated Press. "Ultimately, it's going to impact fishing and introduce a lot of contaminants into the food web." more info |
| BP will begin testing new cap over Gulf oil leak The test involves slowly closing the valves of the cap, ultimately blocking the flow of oil entirely. High pressure is a good sign, because it means there's a single leak. more info |
| Vero Beach scientist listens to the rhythms of fish One of Gilmore’s colleagues, University of South Florida research scientist Jim Locascio, hopes to apply the science of fish sounds to damage assessment from the spreading Deepwater Horizon oil spill. more info |
| Hazelwood teacher learns lessons about oil spill firsthand She got that and more aboard the ship Pisces in the Gulf of Mexico. When students return to class next month, she'll be able to give them her insight into the disaster they've watched on the news. more info |
| Tar balls reveal the biological legacy of Gulf's early life Tar balls carry a biological legacy of the algae, plants and marine life that died and, over millions of years, formed oil. And this particular oil has much to tell us about the hot, dry and salty origins of the Gulf. more info |
| La Nina developing, could mean more hurricanes La Nina is marked by an unusual cooling of the sea surface in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Water temperatures in that area can affect air pressure and winds, resulting in changes in the weather in many parts of the world. more info |
| Perry forms team to fight oil spills NASA, the University of Houston and Rice University will be part of a coalition of scientists, policy experts, oil and gas engineers and state officials focused on preventing future oil spill disasters, Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday in Houston. more info |
| Researchers Predict Oil Spill's Long Term Travel Plans Researchers Axel Timmermann and Fabian Schloesser from the University of Hawaii at Manoa developed an ocean model that predicts how the oil spill’s surface flows could disperse over the year. more info |
| Dozens more pelicans affected by Gulf oil spill released in Florida The birds are from an area around Houma. They arrived at Fort De Soto Park on Wednesday afternoon and were released shortly thereafter. more info |
| Niko Ciglio's mural 'Heart Wisdom' speaks to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill "The time is now, " Ciglio wrote in the center of the mural. "This is our land. We must stand up for ourselves, hold ourselves personally accountable and take our power back peacefully." more info |
| Florida Releases July 8, 2010 Gulf Oil Spill Situation Update NOAA trajectory forecasts show portions of the oil plume slowly expanding back to the east through Saturday, but no direct coastal impacts to beaches are forecast. more info |
| Agency Agreed Wildlife Risk From Oil Was ‘Low’ Deborah Fuller, the endangered species program coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service’s office in Lafayette, La., led the team that reviewed the minerals service’s biological assessment. She said that her office recognized that a big spill would be disastrous to wildlife and that it made suggestions for increasing preparedness for the cleanup of a spill as part of an informal consultation on the biological review. more info |
| Tar Balls Found On Florida's East Coast The Coast Guard found the balls along Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral. They have sent it to a lab to see if the Tar came from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| New legislation announcement to help oceans Rhode Island environmental leaders at Save The Bay headquarters in Providence to announce new legislation establishing a “National Endowment for the Oceans.” Much like the National Endowments for the Arts, which was established by Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, Whitehouse’s legislation would create a reliable stream of revenue to fund projects aimed at protecting and preserving our oceans and coastal areas. more info |
| More Texas tar balls identified as coming from BP spill Tar balls continue to wash up along the Texas coast, and all of the testing since the weekend points to a single source: the gushing Macondo well. more info |
| Enviro groups stunned that govt ignoring 27K wells Leading environmental groups and a U.S. senator on Wednesday called on the government to pay closer attention to more than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico and take action to keep them from leaking even more crude into water already tainted by the massive BP spill. more info |
| Allen: Relief well timing depends on oil's spread A relief well being drilled deep into the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico to shut down the gushing well could be completed ahead of a long-set deadline of mid-August only if conditions are ideal, government and BP officials said Thursday. more info |
| EPA Takes 33% of US Refining Capacity Offline The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday officially overturned a 16-year-old Texas air permitting program it says violates the Clean Air Act, leaving some of the country's largest refineries in a state of limbo. more info |
| Fish Found Walking in Gulf Spill Two new species of pancake batfish, which walk using their arm-like fins, have been found at the site of the Gulf oil spill, according to a study published in the Journal of Fish Biology. more info |
| How Soon Can Gulf of Mexico Recover? Scientist Says Maybe 2-3 Years The workers trying to clean up the Gulf have several natural allies. The hot southern sun helps -- it causes some of the most toxic components of the oil slick, such as benzene and toluene, to evaporate. Wave action breaks the oil down as well. And microorganisms in the water slowly consume oil. more info |
| Costs, questions for Gulf promise Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, however, was concerned from the minute he heard “plan” in the President's Oval Office address. Citing the 2004 creation of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, a partnership between the Gulf Coast states meant to “enhance the ecological and economic health of the Gulf of Mexico," Barbour said he and other local leaders already have a blueprint for restoring the ecosystem. more info |
| Taking Science Lessons Home When it comes to understanding basic science, kids in the United States lag behind kids in other countries. Teachers have made science education a priority in the classroom, but there are things parents can do too, even when school isn`t in session. more info |
| Studying oil's hidden dangers The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been going on for 77 days, and a huge network of ships and equipment is in place trying to stop the leak and clean up the worst oil spill in the nation's history. But there are also many ships in the gulf doing scientific research to figure out how the oil is affecting animals, marine life and the water itself in ways we can't see. more info |
| BP gives Gulf of Mexico Corexit overdose Louisiana State University scientist, Ed Overton has been analyzing the submerged oil for federal officials since April, when the Deepwater Horizon exploded and fell to the ocean floor. He said, “The biggest threat posed by the submerged oil was the inability to contain it.” more info |
| Educating for Democracy: Is "Green Education" Possible? Begin structuring curricula that would encourage students to do gardening, develop healthy nutritional habits including low-fat cooking, basic energy-conscious hygiene, and socializing activities that don't focus on consumption. more info |
| How ethnoscience has been impacted by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill The people who have lived in the Gulf oil spill region have centuries worth of experience and knowledge that will have to be respected and mined as scientists seek to fully understand the impact of the BP oil spill on man and nature. The plants, animals and humans of the region are only fully understood by the plants, animals and humans who have lived and who will live in the region, and only the humans are able to do the talking. more info |
| Crying over spilt oil:Did BP sacrifice the future on the grave of the present? "As long as it is in the summer season, it (the oil) is going to keep going north and south with the net result moving north. That’s inevitable. We are going to be exposed to it. Nothing will change it till Mother Nature changes. Nothing will clean it but Mother Nature." more info |
| An overlooked success story at Piscataway Park The pair worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Restoration Center and got $1.1 million in federal stimulus money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the National Park Service. The Alice Ferguson Foundation then worked with the Chesapeake Bay Trust and the Keith Campbell Foundation to design a new "living shoreline." This shoreline features a self-sustaining ecosystem equipped with new natural wetlands, forests and beaches. more info |
| Scientists To Study Oil Spill Effect On Whales In their research and study, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research ship Gordon Gunter will be placing listening buoys on the sea floor, which would remain there for months together, letting the researchers know what are the changes found in the animals around the affected area, and what is their response to the oil spill. more info |
| Rodeo looks to future The Mississippi Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo survived the massive ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and has now turned its sights on the 2011 event. more info |
| From .com to .gov for oil spill response website The Obama administration is expected to take over control of the central information website on the Gulf oil spill response that has been run jointly by various agencies and BP for the 2½ months since the rig explosion. more info |
| Navarre Beach needs oil response volunteers to keep eye on beach Shoreline Users Resource Force, or SURF volunteers, will be stationed on Navarre Beach to help watch and report changing beach conditions. They'll also provide information and answer questions from beach visitors and residents about beach and water safety, coastal habitats, wildlife, cleanup response, beach conditions, seafood safety and the Navarre Beach “Leave No Trace Behind” ordinance. Volunteers will not participate in cleanup activities. more info |
| EPA Releases First Round of Toxicity Testing Data for Eight Oil Dispersants While all eight dispersants alone – not mixed with oil – showed roughly the same effects, JD-2000 and Corexit 9500 proved to be the least toxic to small fish, and JD-2000 and SAF-RON GOLD were the least toxic to the mysid shrimp. more info |
| Deep-sea mysteries: Why drilling in 'inner space' tests human limits "Every time we go, we discover something new and astonishing: Fluorescent sharks, new types of bioluminescence, new types of animals -- you name it," says Edie Widder, CEO and senior scientist at the Ocean Research & Conservation Association, a nonprofit based in Florida. "It's pretty incredible and beautiful really." more info |
| Dead zone in gulf linked to ethanol production The gulf dead zone is the second-largest in the world, after one in the Baltic Sea. Scientists say the biggest culprit is industrial-scale corn production. Corn growers are heavy users of both nitrogen and pesticides. Vast monocultures of corn and soybeans, both subsidized by the federal government, have displaced diversified farms and grasslands throughout the Mississippi Basin. more info |
| New Orleans seeing oil come in via back door For New Orleans, oil in the lake threatens the second major disaster to sweep in from the Gulf in five years. On Aug. 29, 2005, a massive storm surge driven by Hurricane Katrina swept into Lake Pontchartrain, contributing to the destruction of levees. An estimated 80 percent of the city flooded. more info |
| A wounded Gulf of Mexico, an elusive prognosis But, with key gaps remaining in their data, there is wide disagreement about the big picture. Some researchers have concluded that the gulf is being spared an ecological disaster. Others think ecosystems that were already in trouble before the spill are now being pushed toward a brink. more info |
| Naval blimp to help track oil flow in gulf U.S. Coast Guard officials said the blimp, known as the MX-3A, can carry as many as 10 crew members as it flies slowly over the region to track the direction of the oil flow and how it is washing ashore, CNN reported. more info |
| Weather Inhibiting Full Capacity of Superskimmer Though the total amount of oil and water mix in the Gulf remains unknown, the ship's capacity would vastly increase what is currently being skimmed by smaller vessels. more info |
| Gulf oil spill reaches Texas as tar balls wash ashore Tests identified the small amount of tar found on the Bolivar Peninsula, north-east of Galveston, as coming from BP's blown-out well off Louisiana. more info |
| USM, Tulane scientists find oil in Crab Larvae Harriet Perry, director of the Center for Fisheries Research and Development at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, has found droplets of hydrocarbons or oil, in blue crab and fiddler crab larvae. According to Perry, the oil appears to be trapped between the hard, outer shell of the crab and its inner skin. more info |
| Scientists dispel oil rig disaster myths "The idea that there could be a catastrophic cave in, or a methane gas explosion, that's not a reasonable worry," said Gary Byerly, a professor of geology at Louisiana State University. "The rock formations on top of this oil deposit have enough strength that nothing like that is going to happen." more info |
| Federal agencies, Gulf state officials unite to ensure seafood safety "Together, they will implement a comprehensive, coordinated, multi-agency program to ensure that seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is safe to eat," NOAA and the FDA said in a joint news release. "This is important not only for consumers who need to know their food is safe to eat, but also for fishermen who need to be able to sell their products with confidence." more info |
| World's largest oil skimmer heads to Gulf spill The ship looks like a typical tanker, but it takes in contaminated water through 12 vents on either side of the bow. The oil is then supposed to be separated from the water and transferred to another vessel. The water is channeled back into the sea. more info |
| Gulf Dispatch: Gulf oil disaster proves reform is needed now This spill reminds us we are in desperate need of a policy that recognizes that in our ocean environment, everything is connected - from industrial uses to the health of our ocean and the health of the coastal economy. more info |
| Wildlife rescue under way as oil gushes into Gulf "Typically with other spills, you have an acute release, and oil hits the shoreline fairly quickly. You have animals affected in the first week, and you have an end date," he explained. "With this spill, because the release is still going on, because it's so far offshore, we're not exactly sure where the oil is going to head, what shorelines are going to be affected, so it's been very difficult to plan to do searches and collections, where to establish facilities, how many people we need on-site, and which species are going to be affected." more info |
| Another 70-plus pelicans heading to Georgia A second group of more than 70 brown pelicans heads to Georgia after being cleaned of oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill. more info |
| Biden Visits Gulf, Discusses Seafood Safety "These vessels are providing a variety of seafood and water samples from locations throughout the Gulf--nearshore and offshore, shallow water and deep, oiled and unoiled," said Steven Murawski, who is leading NOAA's science response to the spillhttps://www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/07/vice-president-biden-visits-gulf-discusses-seafood-safety/, in a statement. "This is baseline information we need to measure any effects on seafood attributable to the spilled oil and to make sure our fishery closures are effective and in place for as long as they need to be, but no longer." more info |
| Pepsi's Refresh Project to help oil spill region The soft drink and snack maker said Thursday it will give an additional $1.3 million in grants next month to projects that will help communities in the five-state region — Texas, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. more info |
| Threatened whale sharks seen in Gulf oil spill Hoffmayer said three of the sharks, the world's largest fish, were spotted within four miles of the spill site on Monday. They migrate north in late spring from waters near the Yucatan to feed off the mouth of the Mississippi River. The Deepwater Horizon site is about 40 miles southeast of the river. more info |
| Dispersants appear to break up in Gulf, EPA says Paul Anastas, the agency's assistant administrator for research and development, told reporters Wednesday the agency is making no new recommendations until further tests are conducted. But he said there is no sign that dispersants are remaining in the water or settling to the bottom, and that the Corexit 9500 being used by oil company BP is among the least toxic to small fish and mysid shrimp of the eight products tested, Anastas said. more info |
| Tropical Storm Alex Batters Mexico, Texas It is expected to weaken to a tropical depression later in the day as it moves farther inland across Mexico. The storm flooded coastal towns in Mexico and forced thousands to evacuate. It also spawned two tornadoes in Texas. more info |
| Ala. Raycom stations hold statewide report on oil crisis Reporters from WSFA 12 News in Montgomery, WBRC Fox 6 in Birmingham, WAFF 48 News in Huntsville and WTVM Newsleader 9 in Columbus, Georgia gathered on the beaches of Gulf Shores for the report. Numerous other Raycom stations along the Southeastern Gulf Coast carried the report as well. more info |
| Oil spill brings push for wetlands habitat The conservation service said up to $20 million is available through three existing programs for farmers, ranchers and other landowners in eight states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Texas. more info |
| Gulf's coastal wetlands surviving despite oil For now, there has been nothing approaching wholesale saturation of Louisiana's estuaries, nesting grounds for brown pelicans, ducks and endangered least terns and a buffer that protects population centers from tidal surges during severe storms. more info |
| Gulf Coast beaches update The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has coastal states and visitors bureaus working hard to keep the public updated and reassure beach-bound travelers. more info |
| Thousands of Sea Turtle Eggs To Be Moved Out of Oil's Way For the tens of thousands of sea turtle eggs incubating in the sands of the northern Gulf of Mexico—and dangerously near the oil—it's come to this: Officials are planning to dig up the approximately 700 nests on Alabama and the Florida panhandle beaches, pack the eggs in Styrofoam boxes, and fly them to a facility in eastern Florida where they can mature. Once the eggs have hatched, the young turtles will be released in darkness on Florida's Atlantic beaches into oil-free water. Translocation of nests on this scale has never been attempted before. more info |
| Will Floating Seaweed Be Another Oil Casualty? Sean Powers, a marine scientist at the University of South Alabama in Mobile and Dauphin Island Sea Lab on Dauphin Island, Alabama, tracks sargassum spread out across the gulf by airplane. He studies how reducing the size of algae mats in a specific area, which can occur for reasons including exposure to pollutants and changes in temperature, affects the surrounding marine life. Now Powers has received a National Science Foundation RAPID grant to study how sargassum fares in oiled waters. ScienceInsider spoke with Powers about his research. more info |
| Proposed U.S. Policy for Ocean, Coast, and Great Lakes Stewardship The Deepwater Horizon–BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a stark reminder of the intimate dependence of coastal communities on healthy coastal and oceanic ecosystems and of the urgent need to revise policies to ensure wise stewardship of coasts, oceans, and Great Lakes. In the Gulf, and around the world, scientific evidence indicates that coastal and oceanic ecosystems are being disrupted and depleted, with serious consequences for human well-being (1, 2). Oil spills are but one threat. Overfishing, destructive fishing gear, nutrient and chemical pollution, habitat loss, and introduction of nonnative species threaten the health of these ecosystems. Climate change and ocean acidification interact with and exacerbate the impacts of these stressors. The result is the loss of many benefits that humans want and need from these ecosystems, including healthy seafood, clean beaches, resilient economies and jobs, cultural and recreational opportunities, vibrant coastal communities, protection against hurricanes, abundant wildlife, provision of drinking water, and the oxygen that we breathe (2). more info |
| Jellyfish infiltrate New Smyrna Beach Scientists aren't the only ones interested in jellyfish. St. Petersburg resident David McRee, who runs the Florida beach website known as blogthebeach.com, said he gets e-mails almost daily from people wanting to know more about jellyfish or sending in photos for identification. more info |
| Gulf oil spill: Air pollution a new health concern So far, air samples from about 400 canisters the group collected on a recent trip to the oil spill do not show levels above government safety thresholds. But the concentrations are higher than those found over heavily polluted urban areas, such as Los Angeles, Mexico City or Oklahoma oil tank farms. more info |
| Above Average Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone Forecast by NOAA Scientists Scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, Louisiana State University, and the University of Michigan predict that the Gulf Dead Zone is likely to measure between 6,500 and 7,800 square miles this summer--or about the size of New Jersey. For the past five years the average has been roughly 6,000 sq. miles, with the record area of 8,484 sq. miles set back in 2002. The standing goal is to reduce the area to 1,900 sq. miles. more info |
| Environmental anthropologist sees climate change impacts ahead “Education and regulation are definitely needed, but there is no silver bullet,” he said. “We can’t wait for the next generation. We better fix the current threats that we are certain about if we want any hope.” more info |
| City records its history in a new museum The archives are set up to tell more than 100 stories of the past, highlighting old families, the beginnings of the turpentine industry, 17th century discoveries and Native American artifacts. more info |
| How to get a job in marine conservation In 2007, Cohen began the program, a one-year full time intensive led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography and other UC San Diego faculty, designed to teach professionals about the science, economy and social aspects of oceanography while letting them shape a degree specific to their goals, be it public affairs for an oceanographic institution or scientists from other disciplines more info |
| RAE Systems Posts Educational Resource for Gulf of Mexico Spill Recovery Workers RAE Systems Inc. a leader in delivering innovative sensor solutions to serve industrial, energy, environmental, and government safety markets worldwide, announced the launch of new web content at www.raesystems.com to assist the more than 20,000 people deployed in various aspects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The site provides information to understand the potential risks from the toxic and flammable Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) being released in both the spilled and burned oil in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Fish and Wildlife Service releases migratory bird update in face of BP spill The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service this afternoon released the following statement intended to portray its thinking and planning regarding the fall migration of waterfowl and other birds in light of the ongoing BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| A floating city springs up to contain gulf oil spill This waterworld is hot, noisy and dangerous. Two flares create hypnotic focal points for the flotilla. The drill ship Discoverer Enterprise, parked directly on top of the well that exploded on April 20, is capturing oil from the well and burning gas separately. The other flare, larger, brighter, looking like an umbrella of fire turned on its side, shoots from a pipe on the well-servicing rig Q4000, which is burning both oil and gas. more info |
| Florida Tech students scout Gulf for oil, answers The more than three dozen students will monitor the three "Lagrangian drifters"-- as long as they stay afloat and maintain power -- and learn whether satellite-tracked devices go where federal models predict they will. more info |
| Scientists become celebrities in oil spill story Louisiana State University's Edward Overton once published a research article with the tongue-tangling title, "Effectiveness of Phytoremediation and Bioremediation of n-Alknaes as a Function of the length of the Carbon Chain in Wetland Environments." But recently the professor emeritus reached another milestone: He appeared on David Letterman's "Late Show" to talk in plain language about oil. more info |
| House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, Oceans And Wildlife Oversight Hearing The Gulf of Mexico Alliance is well positioned to play a significant role in the current oil event in the Gulf. The Gulf Alliance presently has teams of qualified people working together in the Gulf working on the projects outlined in Action Plan II. These folks have been working together now for almost nine years, and they are in place to respond to the research, monitoring, and remediation needs brought on by the Deepwater Horizon explosion and resulting continuing oil spill. more info |
| Storm Could Disrupt Effort in Gulf Together with BP, the company responsible for cleaning up the oil spill, Coast Guard officials are preparing contingency plans that would suspend the oil collection operation and delay the drilling of relief wells until the storm passes, steps that would allow even more oil to gush into the gulf. more info |
| It's their job to spot the oil To answer that question, you have to know where the oil is now. And that job falls to crews with the U.S. Coast Guard. Their helicopters and planes have been busy making daily flights from bases around the Gulf, probing the edges of the spill and turning that data over to NOAA for use in the forecasts. more info |
| Worry Underwater: Oxygen Levels Drop as Oil Continues to Flow Marine biologists say the sea animals flee the spill zone the way others would flee a forest fire. With thousands of gallons of oil contaminating their natural habitats, marine creatures press into oil-free waters. more info |
| Natural Disasters Happen. Will Your Home Be Ready? THE oil spill wreaking havoc in the Gulf of Mexico may be capturing your attention at the moment. But the odds are far greater that a natural disaster — a hurricane, wildfire or windstorm, for instance — will affect you. more info |
| NASA Radar To Study Gulf Oil Spill The same technology used to detect the effect of a Mexican earthquake on the earth's surface will help determine how oil has penetrated ecological zones in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| BP says Gulf relief well on target for mid-August Tests show BP is on target for mid-August completion of a relief well in the Gulf of Mexico, the best hope of stopping the oil that's been gushing since April, the company said Friday. more info |
| Panel to address Gulf oil spill The Pier Aquarium and the Marine Technology Society Florida Chapter are sponsoring a panel discussion to address the BP oil spill and local response efforts. more info |
| STEM Education Can Help Prevent the Next Disaster The oil spill is providing just such an opportunity, and educators have only to stretch out their hands and seize this potential gold mine of “real-world problems.” “Students may be hearing their families talk about the oil spill … and they’ll have some awareness of it, so the opportunities in the classroom are pretty extensive,” says Francis Eberle, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). Eberle notes the numerous issues to tackle in the classroom: the biological life affected, both plant and animal; the chemical components involved with cleaning up the mess; and the scientific vocabulary associated with this particular type of disaster. And most importantly, this is a chance to make science relevant, to show students why fields like engineering are so important. “Science doesn’t always have all the answers,” Eberle admits, “and part of the reason to pursue science is to answer questions and solve problems.” more info |
| Three Florida Sea Grant rapid-response projects target oil spill’s effects on Gulf As Floridians brace for more crude oil on the state’s coasts, University of Florida researchers are racing to complete several newly funded projects that will help assess the magnitude of damage done by the spill. more info |
| Missouri Teacher Sails in Gulf of Mexico Aboard NOAA Ship Pisces A teacher from Northwest Middle School in a suburb of St. Louis, von der Heyde boarded the research vessel in Pascagoula, Miss., on June 14 for the 19-day mission. She is writing logs that include information about research activities, life at sea, interviews with scientists, and photos. Her logs are being posted on NOAA’s Teacher at Sea website. more info |
| Baby Turtles Seize the Day I focused on Turtle No. 15, nicknamed Thelma by a National Park Service employee. (Thelma is a survivor in her own right: her mother laid her eggs on a beach that was covered by oil during the 1979 Ixtoc I spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the eggs were airlifted to safety.) more info |
| USF researchers continue to study loop current The crew of six aboard USF's Weatherbird II will deploy current and wind instruments to track the movement of the oil during their four-day trip. more info |
| Is the Oil Dispersant Helping? Official Says Yes If oxygen levels drop too low, dispersant injection would be suspended for fear of causing more environmental damage, the official said. The oxygen readings amount to “a gross indication of whether the bacteria are multiplying and eating,’’ the official said, but are not precise. “We’re not talking about fine bench-top science here,’’ the official said. more info |
| Dark Ecosystems Nurtured by Oil Natural seeps turned out to account for 600 kilotons annually, or 47 percent of the total. Consumption — from such activities as boating, urban runoff and industrial wastes — came in second at 480 kilotons, or 38 percent of the total. In third place were releases from such transportation-related activities as leaky pipes, tanker spills and cargo-hold washings. They amounted to 160 kilotons annually, or 12 percent of the total. more info |
| Dauphin Island Sea Lab's Skimmer Newsletter for June 2010 The National Science Foundation is awarding Rapid Response Grants in an effort to study the biological impacts of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Several DISL marine scientists have received these grants thus far. more info |
| Oil threatens key Gulf algae, its ecosystem The algae mats are critical habitats for marine life. Tuna, Mahi-mahi, dolphin fish, Billfish, shrimp, crabs and sea turtles use the algae to spawn, sunbathe or hide from predators, often while noshing on it, the story says. more info |
| Wildlife officials take aerial photos of oil spill Specialists with Florida Fish and Wildlife are flying over the gulf with the Florida Army National Guard in an attempt to document the spread of oil as it gushes from the leaking well. So far they've spotted oil floating on top of the water off the coast of the Panhandle. more info |
| Add fundraising to list of challenges presented by gulf oil spill After Erin Allweiss saw thick, black oil sludging up on the coast near her native New Orleans, she decided to do something. The 27-year-old Capitol Hill staffer scooped some of the sand, like melting fudge, into a Ziploc bag to take back to Washington, and she started organizing a fundraiser with friends. more info |
| On board a Gulf oil spill science ship The researchers are hoping to answer some basic questions about how much crude is flowing and where it is going. Although usually referred to as an "oil spill", the leak also contains large quantities of natural gas. more info |
| Hypoxia occuring in Gulf of Mexico as result of BP oil disaster According to scientists, if the spill is not contained and hypoxia (oxygen depletion) continues to occur, dead zones could be created that would prevent any life from inhabiting the area where those zones would occur. A report by Reuters puts methane pollution from the Deepwater Horizon disaster at up to 1 million times higher than “normal levels”. more info |
| We can give survivors of the spill a place in which to recover We know it can be done, because we’ve already started the process in Mobile Bay with great success. A team — including the best scientists at The Nature Conservancy, Dauphin Island Sea Lab, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA and the state of Alabama — has been developing these oyster reef and marsh/seagrass systems as quickly as funding allows, at the rate of about a mile a year. more info |
| Science funding: Science for the masses The US National Science Foundation's insistence that every research project addresses 'broader impacts' leaves many researchers baffled. Corie Lok takes a looks at the system. more info |
| National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium is Opening a $40 Million Expansion Dubuque, IA — The National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium is opening a $40 million expansion, the Diamond Jo National River Center, on June 26, 2010. The expansion will include a new Gulf of Mexico exhibit. However, the Gulf exhibit will not open as a celebration of a vibrant, life-filled Gulf, but will open empty, completely devoid of life. more info |
| Oil plumes invade a dark, mysterious world at Gulf's floor At the dark and cold bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, rich and strange forms of deepwater life proliferate -- and may be vulnerable to oil plumes from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. more info |
| Gulf Coast beach closings, oil slick and fishing ban map As the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico moves along the shoreline, check back to see beach closings, how the wildlife is affected and the spread of the fishing ban. more info |
| How a relief well works Typically, it is drilled parallel to the problem well through multiple layers of rock and sometimes salt. Then the drillbit curves to intersect with the problem well. This is how BP's relief wells are being drilled. more info |
| Young turtles swarm around oil spill Thousands of endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle hatchlings are congregating in areas near the BP oil blowout as predicted — with deadly consequences, a Florida researcher said Thursday. more info |
| Along the Texas coast, they’ve lived this before Amos is 72, but he remembers Ixtoc sharply. The year before, he had begun making detailed surveys of a 7-mile stretch of Mustang Island beach. Every other day, he recorded each bird, each patch of seaweed. On the day Ixtoc oil coated that beach, his notebook shows, he cried. more info |
| Obama names investigation panel President Obama named five panelists to a commission tasked with finding ways to avoid a repeat of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 men and started the nation's worst oil spill. They will be led by a former Florida governor and U.S. senator, Bob Graham, and a former administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, William K. Reilly. more info |
| A Texas transfer for oiled pelicans ARANSAS NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE — Tentative wing-flapping led to graceful soaring and convivial preening Sunday as 38 brown pelicans rescued from the worst oil mess in U.S. history explored new digs in the blue-green waters of San Antonio Bay. more info |
| Gulf oil spill: A hole in the world The experience of following the oil's progress through the ecosystem is a kind of crash course in deep ecology. Every day we learn more about how what seems to be a terrible problem in one isolated part of the world actually radiates out in ways most of us could never have imagined. One day we learn that the oil could reach Cuba – then Europe. Next we hear that fishermen all the way up the Atlantic in Prince Edward Island, Canada, are worried because the Bluefin tuna they catch off their shores are born thousands of miles away in those oil-stained Gulf waters. And we learn, too, that for birds, the Gulf coast wetlands are the equivalent of a busy airport hub – everyone seems to have a stopover: 110 species of migratory songbirds and 75% of all migratory US waterfowl. more info |
| Want to know more about the Dispersant Corexit? Dr. William Sawyer presented a worst-case analysis of the risks associated with Corexit. He claims that Corexit is known as deodorized kerosene, "a substance with health risks to humans as well as sea turtles, dolphins, breathing reptiles, birds, and any species that need to surface for air exchanges." The article also discusses why these dispersants bare the name. It is because, simply, the chemicals cause the oil to form globules and then those globules disperse via wind and wave action. "So instead of having the oil collect at the surface, dispersed droplets of oil can spread more quickly and in more directions. This means the droplets linger longer in the water, collecting on the seabed and harming the ecosystem offshore." more info |
| 'This is not the death of the Gulf,' biologist says of oil spill "It is going to be the economic death of a lot of human endeavor that is tied to the resource base of the Gulf," Crozier said. "Beaches next year should be just fine, but they may be serving pot roast instead of Gulf snapper. ... The ecosystem is a lot healthier and more resilient than the human system." more info |
| Monitoring the Manatee for Oil Ills Until recently, biologists believed that manatees rarely ventured west of peninsular Florida, where, so far, no oil has appeared. But in 2007, Ruth Carmichael, who leads the Dauphin Island team, began documenting a relatively large summer migration of manatees to Mobile Bay, Ala. — leading them directly into and through the path of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak. From a couple of dozen to as many as 100 come to Mobile Bay for the summer, out of a total North American population of 5,000, she said. more info |
| Submerged oil at Bon Secour shoreline The Press-Register found a number of patches of submerged oil 40 to 100 feet off the beach, apparently collecting along rip currents and sandbars. The carcasses of sand fleas, speckled crabs, ghost crabs and leopard crabs were spread throughout the oil, a thick layer of the material caking the bodies of the larger crabs. Their claws looked as if they been turned into clubs made of oil. more info |
| Gulf states’ economies devastated by BP spill The oil eruption in the Gulf of Mexico—the worst environmental disaster in US history—is devastating local economies. Tens of thousands of fishermen, tourist-industry and oil workers are directly affected. The indirect ramifications are incalculable. more info |
| For The Record Special: Gulf Oil Spill & its Impact on Alabama's Coast For The Record presents a special report on the largest oil spill in American history and the repercussions of this environmental disaster for Alabama and neighboring Gulf states. Broadcast live from Gulf Shores, the one-hour “For the Record” program hosted by APT’s Jon Beans and Lori Cummings will feature interviews with representatives from: Alabama Department of Emergency Management U.S. Coast Guard Alabama Department of Public Health Alabama Department of Conservation Dauphin Island SeaLab (discussing impact of oil leak on Alabama Gulf Coast ecosystem) Santa Rose Island Authority more info |
| Hundreds of jobs available in oil spill clean up effort Check out a new state website, www.floridagulfrecoveryjobs.com and you'll see dozens of job openings listed. The jobs range in pay from $10 to $32 an hour. Understandably, most of opportunities are in the panhandle where the oil spill has had the most impact. The positions include working on clean up crews, hazardous material removal, and bulldozer operators. more info |
| Transcript of Adm. Thad Allen's Thursday BP oil leak briefing To that end, we are doing a national inventory of skimming equipment. And right now in addition to the boom, which has always been a critical resource for us, the availability of skimmers is critical. We are in touch with the Department of Defense using skimming capability they have at naval installations. And we also put out a call for the various states and the on call response equipment they have to the extent we can bring that to the Gulf, we will as well. With that I’d be glad to go into any questions you may have for me this morning. more info |
| Local Boats to Be Added to Oil Spill Clean Up Efforts Allen said there are more than 2,000 boats ready to participate, reflecting the "willingness and passion of the local people." Allen said boats will work in the region between the shoreline and 50 miles offshore to keep oil from hitting beaches along the coast. He said that his team has placed orders for more boom and skimming equipment to assist with the effort. more info |
| Gulf oil full of methane, adding new concerns Representatives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration acknowledged that so much methane in the water could draw down oxygen levels and slow the breakdown of oil in the Gulf, but cautioned that research was still under way to understand the ramifications. more info |
| USF model projects oil spill will expand further southward toward loop current The University of South Florida's College of Marine Science and the Ocean Circulation Group and jointly produce a computer model that predicts the path of the oil spill. The latest run clearly shows the oil moving southeastward and pushing up against the current. This could lead to more oil entering the current over the next few days. more info |
| BP's 'war' against Gulf of Mexico oil leak As BP comes under increasing criticism over its management of the Gulf of Mexico leak, attempts to stop the oil flowing continue. more info |
| Oil spill causes concern for turtles on US Gulf coast In this First Person account, the Gulf Shores's "turtle tsar" Mike Reynolds says he is "concerned" at the initial numbers of turtles reaching Alabama's beaches to lay their eggs. more info |
| Gulf Oil Spill: Is There a Cure? But before you bet the clean-up on canned bacteria, you should know that the Gulf of Mexico already houses and feeds what must certainly be one of the world’s largest and most diverse populations of oil-eating microbes. There are oil-eating microbes in the marshes, oil-eating microbes in the water column, oil-eating microbes hovering around natural hydrocarbon vents in the deepest sections of the Gulf. more info |
| Scientists struggle to pin down scope of Gulf oil spill The group this week addressed whether it's possible for Mississippi to dodge the bullet that is this mega spill, what a hurricane west of Mississippi would do, why the sinking oil is important and what currents in the Gulf are doing and why they have concerns about whale sharks, large fish and birds. more info |
| BP Announces $25M in university research grants It says $10 million each will go to the Northern Gulf Institute led by Mississippi State University and the Florida Institute of Oceanography hosted by the University of South Florida. Louisiana State University will get $5 million. more info |
| Weathering the Oil Spill: Tar Balls, Streamers, and Eddies While it didn't make any headlines, a far more informative story played itself out yesterday for me in Washington, where I, along with a group of about 30 scientists, was briefed by Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of NOAA, the "leading scientific resource for oil spills, ... providing coordinated scientific weather and biological response services to federal, state and local organizations." more info |
| Remarks by the President to the Nation on the BP Oil Spill Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced. And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it’s not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes or days. The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic, one that we will be fighting for months and even years. more info |
| Obama Announced Gulf Coast Restoration Plan He said he has asked former Mississippi Governor Ray Mabus to develop a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan--to be funded by BP PLC. But he offered no specific details on short term action to stop the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf. more info |
| USGS Director Quietly Wages 'Fearless' War on Oil Spill McNutt is overseeing six teams of scientists who are trying to estimate the size of the leak -- a number that will be vital as the federal government seeks recompense from BP PLC based on how much oil it releases. New estimates released last night from the teams found that the well could be leaking 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil a day -- twice as much as some previous estimates. more info |
| Gulf Oil Spill: Animals at Risk One of the greatest costs of the oil spill may also be the most invisible. Plankton are the basis of the marine food web. The word encompasses everything from algae to animal larvae. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, oil affects algae in different ways. Some species may die, while others may bloom to excess. The loss of some species could leave fish and other ocean dwellers without a meal to eat, while the proliferation of others could use up all of the oxygen in certain water layers. more info |
| Alabama: What This Spill Could Do to Coastal Marshes The marsh’s productivity, its growth, its survival as the rough ocean daily gnaws on the shoreline depends on the trapping efficiency of these grasses. Everything in the marsh, the bacteria, the fungi, the fish, the young shrimp, the nesting birds, depends on the marsh’s great catch. more info |
| Fairhope High School teacher Megan O'Neill wins national award "I want to show my students how many things are possible in the sciences," she said. "I want to show them how important marine science and aquascience are to all of us." more info |
| 'Da' spill': Gulf oil crisis inspires Louisiana's Excel students to create The 30 students in the four-week summer program at the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts, called Excel, were inspired by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to write and perform an original play. more info |
| NOAA Announces Funding to Support Ocean & Coastal Observation Technologies A $4 million NOAA grant will help a university consortium evaluate the readiness of marine forecasts, such as flooding from storm surge or seasonal dead zones, along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts and improve those forecasts for use by emergency managers, scientific researchers and the general public. more info |
| Gulf oil spill: Sea turtle swims through oil to nest on Alabama beach One of the vehicles ran over the nest, said Mike Reynolds of Share the Beach, whose volunteers patrol the 47 miles of sandy beach west of the Florida border to find and protect new turtle nests. Then came the good news: Volunteers were able to find the nest, safely dig up the 127 new ping-pong-ball-sized eggs and rebury them in a safe location. The nest, which is the first to be laid in the area since the oil spill began, will be fenced off to protect the eggs until they hatch in about two months. more info |
| Coast teacher receives Presidential Award Ocean Springs High School chemistry teacher Linda Parrott is one of the 103 mathematics and science teachers President Barack Obama named Monday as recipients of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. more info |
| Oceanography library enters the digital era A pioneering project by Scripps and Google Books has figuratively unlocked the gate and made the institution’s vast resources available online. Over the past 1½ years, they have digitized an estimated 100,000 volumes from the La Jolla library as part of a broader effort to put texts online. more info |
| Scientists warn of oil spill kill zone in the deep Suspended in ocean water, oil pollution poses a serious threat to floating plankton, as well as to marine plants and animals living at the bottom, including deep-sea corals, said scientists from University of Miami (UM) Division of Marine Geology and Geophysics. more info |
| Alabama health department expands no-swimming areas Health officials now say people should avoid swimming in Alabama's coastal waters west of the Dauphin Island Bridge and in Bayou St. John, Cotton Bayou and Old River in Baldwin County. more info |
| Ban calls for greater awareness of the value of oceans to humanity Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged governments and citizens across the global to acknowledge the enormous value of the world’s oceans to humanity and ensure that pollution of the bodies of water by human activity is brought under control. more info |
| Gulf oil spill may cloud the future of Gulf state's public schools In Alabama, the spill's impact on tourism and fishing is hurting tax collections; especially the sales, income, and utilities taxes that fund public education. State Superintendent of Education Joe Morton said in a news conference that he intends to bill BP for the loss of education funding caused by the spill, and he will sue the company if it doesn't pay. more info |
| Many Ways to Dive Into Jacques Cousteau's 100th Fundraising, congressional honors and a reworked Google logo were just a few of the ways the world celebrated today's 100th anniversary of the birth of the late Jacques Cousteau, pioneering sea explorer and moviemaker. more info |
| Oil Plume Extending Toward Dry Tortugas "The good news is that the various approaches we are using to project its pathway seem to be yielding similar answers and guiding us properly. We need to maintain our vigilance and expand our efforts to determine the degree of risk to unique downstream resources like the Dry Tortugas and Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, which are vital natural environments that we need to protect," said Peter Ortner, UM Marine Biology and Fisheries professor and director of CIMAS. more info |
| Emerging Ocean Concern: Tiny Plastic Particles While scientists have documented the effects of large plastic flotsam in the oceans for decades — turtles trapped in fishing nets, albatrosses swallowing plastic cigarette lighters — very little research has focused on what happens when those bigger pieces break down into tiny specks, called microplastics. more info |
| Researchers Sail to the Spill Site The scientists will study issues like how the vast oil spill has affected the oxygen content of the gulf’s waters, an issue of crucial importance for sea life, and what is happening to the methane gas released by the leak. Because methane dissolves uniformly in seawater, scientists are hoping they can use methane measurements to arrive at a better estimate of the size of the spill. more info |
| No time to lose in researching the oil spill Two of the many perplexing issues about the disastrous gulf oil spill involve tracking the changing directions of the oil in the ocean currents and gauging its impact on the shoreline and in the water. A coalition of 21 Florida schools and marine science organizations has proposed a sophisticated monitoring plan to provide those answers, and BP should move swiftly to grant the $100 million request. The sooner this important research begins, the quicker Florida and the nation can respond and limit the damage. more info |
| Gulf Disaster Spawns Lab for Scientists The oil spill offers a potentially easier way to study this complex food web. Oil from the Deepwater rig has a carbon-isotope signature different from the signature usually seen in naturally occurring organic matter. When bacteria eat the spilt oil, they retain this signature, as do all the creatures up the food chain. The journey of the isotope can be traced from prey to predator along the food chain. more info |
| New spill estimate doubles oil flow rate into Gulf The government panel's new calculation shows an amount of oil equivalent to the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill could be flowing every 8 to 10 days, the New York Times reports. more info |
| BP gives $75M to 3 Gulf states for spill efforts BP COO Doug Suttles said in a statement Thursday that the energy giant was making the funds available at the request of the governors in each of the three Gulf states. more info |
| The Gulf Spill and the Limits of Science Only by openly and properly exposing the state of current knowledge for dealing with potential disasters can the public and politicians do reasonable risk assessment in deciding costs versus benefits. The job of scientists and engineers is not to make policy but to ensure that the state of current knowledge is known to all those involved in decision-making, including the public at large. more info |
| An SOS on World Oceans Day: Save our seas, save ourselves Oceanographer Sylvia Earle believes we can save our seas and ourselves with an intelligent attitude to the Earth's blue life-support system. Here she expresses her opinion for CNN. more info |
| Scientist Proposes Unleashing Mississippi River to Flush Oil From Delta G. Paul Kemp, a former marine science professor at Louisiana State University who works now with the National Audubon Society's coastal initiative, is proposing turning loose the mighty Mississippi River to flush oil out of the river's marshy delta. Kemp said in an interview that he has given his plan to U.S. EPA and has been assured that it is being reviewed at the "highest levels." more info |
| No Progress on Better Chemicals for Oil Disaster Cleanup Many questions surround dispersant use. They’re toxins on their own, their effects on sea life are largely unquantified, and whether they’d work in the gulf as elsewhere is unknown. Nor had dispersants been previously deployed in the volumes needed in the gulf. Their injection directly into the wellhead, a mile beneath the sea, is also unprecedented. Depth and pressure and temperature might alter the interaction of dispersant and oil in unanticipated ways. more info |
| BP oil spill Corexit dispersants suspected in widespread crop damage A mysterious "disease" has caused widespread damage to plants from weeds to farmed organic and conventionally grown crops. There is very strong suspicion that ocean winds have blown Corexit aerosol plumes or droplets and that dispersants have caused the unexplained widespread damage or "disease". more info |
| Low oxygen levels found off Ala. coast The discovery made by marine biologists at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab is one that most people would never even notice, but it's one they said could potentially make a huge impact on all marine life in the Gulf. more info |
| How bad could BP oil spill get for the Gulf and the nation? Now, 50 days after the BP rig in the gulf exploded, the range of scenarios for the toll of the environmental disaster are coming into focus: more info |
| State of the Coast Conference-Video Conference organizers agree. They're hoping this week's conference will bring the diverse group of people that live and work in the wetlands together. The conference runs through Thursday at the River Center in Baton Rouge. more info |
| Scientists mobilize to create new disaster response science With the highly accurate descriptions of the Gulf of Mexico’s coastline Dawson and his colleagues previously used for hurricane simulations, they hope to model the spread of oil into the complex maze of coastal marshes and wetlands – something other existing models simply cannot do. more info |
| Shining in the Dark: Finding Some Good in the Tragedy of the Oil Spill When facing fear and tragedy we can make a plan. We can make a difference. Because what the poet and the star -- and this oil spill -- are asking of us, is to rise up to a certain height, to witness and keep watch, to shine in the dark. more info |
| Ocean research funding gap Yesterday was World Ocean Day, marking the beginning of Capitol Hill Oceans Week. The disaster spreading in the Gulf should be a wake up call for Washington. If we want to operate in the deep-sea and continue to rely on our precious marine resources, we need to better balance use with conservation and safety, and recommit to investment in undersea technology, science, and related education. more info |
| Well near Deepwater Horizon has leaked since at least April 30 While the leak is decidedly smaller than the Deepwater Horizon spill, a 10-mile-long slick emanating from the Ocean Saratoga is visible from space in multiple images gathered by Skytruth.org, which monitors environmental problems using satellites. more info |
| Underwater oil plumes confirmed in Gulf by scientists "There's always a risk with oil in the water and it depends on the species we're talking about and their life stages," Murawski said. "What we know is that eggs and larvae of animals are much more susceptible to even relatively low concentrations." more info |
| Is it possible to make lemonade out the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? He suggests we make lemonade out of BP oil by using BP money, taxes and other economic incentives to turn this place we love so much into an "international campus for oil spill prevention, cleanup and recovery." more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, Federal Management Witnesses testified about the circumstances surrounding the ongoing spill of crude oil from the well site in the Gulf of Mexico. Federal officials and others talked about the federal response to the oil spill, the scope of the environmental threat, regulatory oversight issues, and continuing efforts to investigate the causes and threat. Start Video at 4:20 to hear Sylvia Earle's talk. more info |
| National Seafood Impact from Gulf Oil Fisherman in the Gulf are scrabbling to harvest before oil reaches further, effecting delicate wetlands and bays where oysters and shrimp are nestled. more info |
| UA scientists get grant for oil cleanup research Two University of Alabama scientists will use a federal grant to conduct research into using organic materials to help clean up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. more info |
| Gulf oil spill threatens sargassum, a vital floating habitat The same forces that push sargassum patches around in the Gulf are now pushing oil slicks and emulsified goop the consistency of Hershey's syrup. It is inevitable that the two will meet. When they do, scientists say, the sargassum will die. more info |
| Twelve (Imperfect) Ways to Clean the Gulf The chart below summarizes the various cleanup efforts being undertaken or proposed in the gulf and along the coast. more info |
| Coast Guard: Gulf oil spill response growing more complex Speaking from the White House, Allen said that response teams are no longer battling one monolithic spill but ``hundreds of thousands of patches of oil going in lots of different directions.'' more info |
| Gulf Wildlife Rescue Efforts Only Just Beginning "This really is the tip of the iceberg. They don't know how many animals will be affected," said Bell. "When they get the animals clean and they're rehabilitated and go back into wild, now the question is, where do you release them? If you put them back out here, they can come right back in covered with oil." more info |
| New oil plume evidence uncovered The University of South Florida recently discovered a second oil plume in the northeastern Gulf. The first plume was found by Mississippi universities in early May. more info |
| Coast Guard investigates 'oily substance' reports in Florida Keys as models show loop current taking spill to East Coast Meanwhile, computer models today showed that oil from the damaged Gulf well could wind up on the East Coast and even get carried on currents across the Atlantic Ocean toward Europe. more info |
| Gulf oil spill: Pilot fencing set in Ocean Springs A shield of hydrophilic oil absorbing fabric was placed at the beach outfall at the foot of Washington Avenue and Front Beach Road Wednesday as marshland protection against the Gulf oil spill. more info |
| Oil Spill Answers from Bird Conservation Expert on the Ground That human instinct to rush in to rescue can put more pressure on areas and birds and well-intentioned efforts can cause harm, so we’re trying to help direct volunteers so that their impact is beneficial. more info |
| Consolidated Fish and Wildlife Collection Report: Wildlife Impacted By Spill June 3rd PDF-These are the consolidated numbers of collected fish and wildlife that have been reported to the Unified Area Command from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), incident area commands, rehabilitation centers and other authorized sources operating within the Deepwater Horizon/BP incident impact area. more info |
| Dauphin Island battles with oil spill "The governor had a real aggressive plan. That material was not available in that quantity so we could do that. Now we have to go back and boom off every nook and cranny which is a detailed and time consuming situation," said Collier. more info |
| Oil Spill Wildlife Spotlight: Sperm Whales Deepwater Horizon oil has killed birds along a 100-mile stretch of Louisiana coast and led to fisheries closures near Florida but there is an endangered species known to feed in the murky depths right where oil is leaking: sperm whales. A 2004 count estimated there were 1,665 sperm whales in the northern Gulf of Mexico. They are slightly smaller than typical sperm whales and have a distinct dialect. Overall, very little is known about the population. With oil still spewing, they may be at risk. more info |
| From Kigali to Haiti - People around the planet gear up for World Environment Day From Hollywood stars to schoolchildren, millions of people on every continent will take action for the planet on 5 June for World Environment Day. Under the theme 'Many Species. One Planet. One Future', this year’s event will celebrate the incredible diversity of life on Earth as part of the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity. more info |
| View from the Gulf: The Dangers of Hidden Oil A supply vessel passes through the oil slick near the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico Jae C. Hong / AP CommentPrintEmailDigg FacebookTwitterMORE Add to my:del.icio.usTechnoratiredditGoogle BookmarksMixxStumbleUponBlog this on:TypePadLiveJournalBloggerMySpace.. 0 diggs digg Think of an oil spill and you picture a black tide engulfing beaches and drowning shorebirds and sea turtles in crude. These are the images of the Exxon Valdez accident, which spilled nearly 11 million gal. of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989. The oil that escaped from the tanker eventually coated 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of pristine Alaskan coastline and covered 11,000 sq. mi. (28,000 sq km) of ocean in an inky slick. The Valdez disaster was the biggest spill in American history — until now. Since April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and triggered an underwater well blowout, at least 20 million bbl. of crude — and counting — have poured into the Gulf of Mexico. And, yet, where is all the oil? (See the 50 worst inventions of all time.) On Sunday, I took a boat trip from the fishing port of Venice in the southeastern reaches of Louisiana, where the road ends and the marshlands begin. Traveling with Angelina Freeman, a coast scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), we saw no Valdez-style wave of crude drenching the bayou. We did see some oil ringing the tall wetland grasses near Pass a Loutre, La., by the mouth of the Mississippi River — the grasses looked as if they had been dipped in chocolate. I could smell the tang of hydrocarbons. But if this is really the "oilpocalypse," as some observers have dubbed the Deepwater catastrophe, it is not apparent on the surface. That is what makes the Gulf of Mexico spill so much more insidious than that of the Valdez in Alaska, and potentially much more destructive. The oil leaking from the broken well at the bottom of the ocean is everywhere — but nowhere you can see. While a tanker spills the entirety of its contents on the surface of the ocean at once, creating an avalanche of crude — and immediate and horrific photographic images — the Gulf spill gushes continuously, out of sight, from 5,000 ft. (1,500 m) below the ocean's surface. The busted well is a fountain that the Obama Administration recently admitted could flow uninterrupted until August. Think of it less as an acute trauma than a chronic, progressive disease that doctors can diagnose but cannot cure. (Watch the video "Portraits from the Oil Spill.") So where is the oil hiding? Scientists say some of it is spreading underwater, in plumes that extend thousands of feet below the surface. But BP CEO Tony Hayward disputes those claims. "The oil is on the surface," Hayward said on Sunday while touring a staging area for cleanup workers in Louisiana. He said there was "no evidence" that enormous reservoirs of oil were suspended undersea. (Comment on this story.) However, two independent university research teams — from the University of South Florida and the University of Georgia (UGA) — have reported direct evidence of underwater oil. Samantha Joye, a marine scientist at UGA, has been aboard the university's ongoing research voyage in the Gulf and blogging from the ship; she reported on Monday that the team could see oil in water samples collected from plumes nearly 1,000 ft. (300 m) below the surface. "Seeing is believing," she blogged, and after nearly a month of continual obfuscation by BP on the technical details of the spill, Joye's words carry a lot more weight than Hayward's. But seeing is exactly what will be hard to do with the Gulf spill, now and in the months ahead. The oil underwater will do untold amounts of damage, even if it's invisible. "It's out of sight and out of mind, but it will have a huge effect on the marine life that oscillates in that zone," says Doug Rader, the chief ocean scientist for the EDF. more info |
| Gulf Oil Spill: New Plumes EXPOSED In Video ABC News has new video showing oil plumes 40 miles out in the ocean, just southwest of the Deepwater Horizon. So far, three large underwater islands of oil have been discovered, some 20 miles long by 6 miles wide. The new found plumes will surely increase the outrage against BP as the company tries for the seventh time to stop the leaking oil. more info |
| Environmental, Economic Costs of Gulf Oil Spill The flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico continues unabated, after the failure of BP's latest attempt to cap the blown-out well. more info |
| Hello, Hurricane Season I suppose it’s normal to feel slight angst at the beginning of hurricane season because it can go either way: It can be a mild year, or it can be one that produces 10 to 20 named storms, according to Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. There’s just no way of knowing what will happen. more info |
| Oil Nears Florida as Effort to Contain Well Hits Snag The oil sheen appeared to be a small breakaway piece from a larger sheen measuring 50 feet by 20 feet that was still 46 miles off the coast of Pensacola on Tuesday afternoon, according to a spokeswoman at the unified command center in Mobile, Ala., that is tracking the spill. more info |
| Oil effects on marsh grass -informative video In this 10-min video, Dr Irv Mendelssohn, Louisiana State University School of the Coast and Environment, describes oil impacts on salt marshes. He describes factors that determine whether the marsh will die and factors to consider when deciding what action, if any, should be taken to decontaminate marshes. This is a must see for anyone who would like to know how to respond when asked what the oil spill will do to the marsh. more info |
| Oil 'Everywhere' On Alabama Beach John Zarrella is first on the beach in the early morning in Dauphin Island, Alabama, showing the blobs of oil that are washing up all along the shoreline. more info |
| Fears grow over oil spill's long-term effects on food chain As oil continues gushing from the ocean floor into the Gulf of Mexico, with no sign of stopping until a new well is finished this August, scientists, environmentalists and local residents are beginning to reckon with the reality of a massive annihilation of sea creatures and wildlife. more info |
| Obama orders more manpower to spill cleanup President Obama said Tuesday that he has directed federal authorities to triple manpower in the Gulf of Mexico in places where oil from a ruptured underwater pipe has hit shore or is close to impact. more info |
| Obama heads to Gulf Coast a second time as oil spill's impact grows Allen said on ABC's "Good Morning America" program: "They have been able to stop the hydrocarbons from coming up the well bore. I think the real challenge today is going to be to sustain the mud on top of the hydrocarbons and reduce the pressure to the point where they could actually put a cement plug in." He added: "We're very encouraged by the fact that they were able to push the mud down. The real question is can we sustain it. And that will be the critical issue going through the next 12 to 18 hours." more info |
| The Gulf's silent environmental crisis If scientists' worst fears are realized, the oil plume in the Gulf could choke off and kill coastal marshes in the productive Mississippi Delta and barrier islands, turning these verdant tufts of life -- which look like hairy putting greens floating out on the water -- into open ocean. That would snap the region's marine food chain, exposing and starving all kinds of organisms. more info |
| Oil spill notebook: Parks, Refuges at Risk Several state parks and wildlife refuges in Alabama and Mississippi are on the list of 15 places most threatened by the BP oil spill, according to a new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization. more info |
| Scientists find evidence of large underwater oil plume in gulf Scientists have found evidence of a large underwater "plume" of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, adding to fears that much of the BP oil spill's impact is hidden beneath the surface. more info |
| Obama denies government botched oil spill response "When you see birds flying around with oil all over their feathers and turtles dying ... that doesn't just speak to the immediate economic consequences of this -- this speaks to ... how are we caring for this incredible bounty that we have?" President Obama more info |
| Flow Rate Group Provides Preliminary Best Estimate Of Oil Flowing from BP Oil Well Based on three separate methodologies, outlined below, the independent analysis of the Flow Rate Technical Group has determined that the overall best initial estimate for the lower and upper boundaries of flow rates of oil is in the range of 12,000 and 19,000 barrels per day. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico 'Poisoned' Millions of gallons of British Petroleum oil have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. As Mark Strassmann reports, countless wildlife have already been threatened or killed as a result. more info |
| Oil spill is boon to bacteria The boon to bacteria most likely has ramifications that will ripple throughout marine food webs in the Gulf, especially at prominent nodes where commercially important species such as fish, crabs, and shrimp, reside. What those ramifications are, however, remain as murky as the huge plumes of oil recently discovered hovering just below the surface of Gulf waters. more info |
| It’s Official: A Fisheries Disaster Commerce Secretary Gary Locke declared the Gulf of Mexico a national fisheries disaster area this week, citing the havoc wrought on the region’s multibillion-dollar fishing industry by the Deepwater Horizon blowout. The fisheries of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are covered by the disaster declaration, making them eligible for federal relief funds. more info |
| In Louisiana, wildlife shows effects of gulf oil spill GRAND ISLE, LA. -- In the Louisiana marsh, oil-coated pelicans flap their wings in a futile attempt to dry them. A shorebird repeatedly dunks its face in a puddle, unable to wash off. Lines of dead jellyfish float in the gulf, traces of oil visible in their clear "bells." more info |
| Cousteau Jr.: 'This Is a Nightmare... a Nightmare' Philippe Cousteau Jr. and Sam Champion take hazmat dive into Gulf's oily waters. more info |
| Louisiana Fishermen Helping in Spill Cleanup Report Getting Sick Some Louisiana fishermen affected by the massive oil spill in the Gulf — including some hired by BP to help in the cleanup — are reporting cases of debilitating headaches, burning eyes and nausea, and some industry and public officials are pointing the finger at chemical dispersants as the cause. more info |
| Oil reaches Louisiana shores: The Big Picture Over one month after the initial explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, crude oil continues to flow into the Gulf of Mexico, and oil slicks have slowly reached as far as 12 miles into Louisiana's marshes. According to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, more than 65 miles of Louisiana's shoreline has now been oiled. BP said it will be at least Wednesday before they will try using heavy mud and cement to plug the leak, a maneuver called a "top kill" that represents their best hope of stopping the oil after several failed attempts. Based on low estimates, at least 6 million gallons of crude have spewed into the Gulf so far - though some scientists have said they believe the spill already surpasses the 11 million-gallon 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska as the worst in U.S. history. (39 photos total) more info |
| Mexico's Ixtoc 1 oil spill a distant mirror to BP disaster In terms of blowouts, Ixtoc 1 was a monster — until the BP leak, the largest accidental spill in history. Some 3.3 million barrels of oil gushed over nearly 10 months, spreading an oil slick as far north as Texas, where gooey tar balls washed up on beaches. more info |
| What are tar balls and what is their impact? "There is no magic trick to making tar balls disappear. Once tar balls hit the beaches, they may be picked up by hand or by beach-cleaning machinery. If the impact is severe, the top layer of sand containing the tar balls may be removed and replaced with clean sand," NOAA said. more info |
| BP pledges $500 million for oil spill research LONDON (MarketWatch) -- BP said it's pledging up to $500 million to an open research program studying the impact of the Deepwater Horizon incident, and its associated response, on the marine and shoreline environment of the Gulf of Mexico. A first grant of an unspecified amount was made to Louisiana State University. BP said it will appoint an independent advisory panel to construct the long-term research program more info |
| Mobile scientists' warnings about oil dispersants ignored by BP, Coast Guard Dispersant chemicals are used to break oil into tiny drops that become suspended in the water column. At least some of the water quality testing recently conducted by the EPA around the spill site suggests dispersed oil may have begun to impact oxygen levels in the water. more info |
| Oil Mars More Than 50 Miles of Louisiana Shore But they warn an aggressive cleanup could ruin the marshes and do more harm than good. The only viable option for many impacted areas is to do nothing and let nature break down the spill. more info |
| Gulf oil spill has 'perfect precedence' in 1979 disaster With top BP executives, scientists and Obama administration officials searching for a solution to capping the Deepwater Horizon blowout off the Louisiana coast, perhaps they could find a blueprint in the Ixtoc I experience, observers say. They also may find lessons from the Montara oil spill last August off the northern coast of Australia, where it took five tries and nearly three months to stop the flow of as many as 84,000 gallons a day into the Timor Sea. more info |
| DISL's Role in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Faced with what could become the worst oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL) through several State and federally funded programs of the Richard C. Shelby Center for Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management, is sending a series of cruises out to sample several critical conditions in the path of the massive oil spill threatening the central Gulf coast. more info |
| Scientists brace for oil impact Jim Franks, a fisheries biologist at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (GCRL), is heading out soon on a sampling trip to collect blue fin tuna larvae, his sixth data-collecting trip in as many years. "All of us who are going on the trip just concluded two days of hazmat training," he told The Scientist. "It was a requirement of all people here who are going to be involved with spilled oil in the coastal area." more info |
| Scientists Measure Fish Populations Before Oil Spill Hits Just off the Alabama coast, on Dauphin Island, researchers are hurrying to take fishing population samples, train people to help de-oil birds and ask hard questions about the containment operation and its effect on the environment. more info |
| Federal task force assembled to measure volume of Gulf of Mexico oil spill The agency is tracking the oil with helicopters and a research aircraft, typically used to track hurricanes. Probes that transmit data about the temperature and salinity of the current on the surface and subsurface are being dropped into the water, Lubchenco said. more info |
| Spill's impact on wildlife is like a "train wreck," scientist says One needs to think about these impacts in terms of not just lethal impacts but sub-lethal that can affect the capacity of species to successfully reproduce. more info |
| Oil Spill: One Month Later A light sheen of oil has entered the loop current in the Gulf while heavy, thick oil is washing ashore in La. Kelly Cobiella reports. more info |
| Pictures: Heavy Oil Seeping Into Louisiana Marshes When oil gets trapped underground in coastal sediments, it can stay there for decades, according to Gregory Stone, director of Louisiana State University's Coastal Studies Unit. In addition to killing seabirds, the oil spill is likely harming other animals less visible to the public, John "Wes" Tunnell, associate director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, said by email in early May. more info |
| Leaking Gulf Oil 'Washes Ashore On Marshland' And as a new Nasa satellite image shows the widening extent of the slick, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says a "small portion" of oil sheen has entered the powerful Loop Current, which could carry it down to the Florida Keys and even up the US east coast. more info |
| Oil Arrives on La. Shore, Edges Into Key Current "This is the heavy oil that everyone's been fearing that is here now," Gov. Bobby Jindal said during a boat tour Wednesday in southeastern Louisiana. The wetlands at the mouth of the Mississippi River are home to rare birds, mammals and a wide variety of marine life. more info |
| Photo Gallery: Gulf oil spill May 20th Here's a gallery of the best photos this week highlighting the Gulf oil leak's affect on the southern coast of the United States. more info |
| Governor Jindal Joins Officials for Flyover and On-The-Ground Assessment of Coastal Protection Plan Governor Jindal said, “DEQ reports as of this morning confirmed oil impact at Whiskey and Raccoon Islands in Terrebonne Parish – which further stresses the importance of our western coastal parishes getting the resources they need to be proactive and boom their coast to help protect their shoreline. more info |
| Governor Riley on the Scene and in Contact Throughout Gulf Crisis Governor Bob Riley and members of his administration have spent much of the past two weeks in Mobile and Baldwin counties and remained in frequent and regular contact with federal, state and local officials throughout the oil spill crisis in the gulf. On April 30, Governor Riley declared a state of emergency and directed state agencies to assist communities affected by the oil spill. He also directed the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, the lead state agency for this event, and the Alabama Emergency Management Agency to make appropriate assessments of damage and seek the necessary state, private and federal assistance for affected areas. more info |
| FLORIDA DEEPWATER HORIZON RESPONSE MAY 17, 2010 Under the leadership of Governor Charlie Crist, the State Emergency Response Team and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) are actively coordinating and responding to the Deepwater Horizon incident. more info |
| MS STATE AGENCIES UPDATE: OIL SPILL RESPONSE ACTIONS Sixty tar balls have been recovered along the Mississippi coastline by the Department of Environmental Quality. The latest reports indicate that the tar balls were located in Harrison and Hancock counties but none found in Jackson County. According to MDEQ, there is no apparent public health risk related to the recovered tar balls or the oil spill at this time. Teams reported no oil or sheen in Mississippi waters, and reported no fish kills. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite imagery indicated that the main oil slick from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil leak is approximately 57 miles from Mississippi beaches. more info |
| Worry that Gulf of Mexico oil spreading into major current Meanwhile, scientists warned of the effects of the oil that has already leaked into the Gulf. Researchers said miles-long underwater plumes of oil discovered in recent days could poison and suffocate sea life across the food chain, with damage that could endure for a decade or more. more info |
| Signs of oil spill pollution might be hiding underwater Even as the spill breaks into separate strands, a nasty environmental storm is brewing below the surface, in deep columns of water teeming with life, from shrimp and fish eggs to dolphins and whales. more info |
| President Obama on the Ongoing Response to the Deepwater BP Oil Spill The President speaks about the Administration’s commitment to help protect the Gulf Coast and the livelihoods of the people who live and work there from the effects of the Deepwater BP Oil Spill and calls on the companies involved to stop pointing fingers and take responsibility. Public Domain more info |
| Where's the oil? Model suggests much may be gone About 35 percent of a spill the size of the one in the Gulf, consisting of the same light Louisiana crude, released in weather conditions and water temperatures similar to those found in the Gulf now would simply evaporate, according to data that The Associated Press entered into the program. more info |
| Major US fishery takes a beating after oil spill One of the biggest victims of the huge oil spill slamming Louisiana's economy is the region's largest fishery, which has seen its catch drop 50 percent at a critical time in the season. more info |
| State releases photos of oiled brown pelican, tar balls on Fourchon beach The Governor's Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) released its most recent photos documenting the encroaching oil spill this morning. Shoreline Cleanup and Assessment Teams inspecting Fourchon beach yesterday found it littered with tar balls, some up to eight inches in diameter, according to the press release. SCAT teams are made up of representatives of federal and state agencies, including Louisiana's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and Department of Environmental Quality. LDWF biologists documented approximately 25 nickel sized tar balls per square foot from the southwestern end of Fourchon beach to the midpoint of the beach. One biologist documented more than a dozen tar balls on the far western end of Elmer's Island. more info |
| La. wildlife spokesman: 13 oiled bird deaths Louisiana's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says at least 13 oiled birds have died since the start of the Gulf of Mexico spill. Seven others that were recovered are still alive. more info |
| 600 Species Of Animals And 20 Wildlife Refuges Threatened By Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have issued verbal concerns for the fragile wildlife of the Gulf coast. As many as 20 National Wildlife refuges threatened by the oil spill, and rare and endangered species such as sea turtles, manatee, sea birds and Gulf sturgeon all in danger. The dangers to the birds of the area are so great because they are now nesting and turtles are starting to come ashore to lay eggs. more info |
| Louisiana wildlife authorities hope to reopen some fishing areas east of Mississippi River soon DHH officials have said early closings are necessary to protect both human health and the seafood industry because of the five-day lag time between sample collections and lab results. If closing were ordered only after a positive result, contaminated seafood could have been consumed for four days. more info |
| Oil spill threatens birds throughout the Gulf You've likely seen the heartbreaking pictures of birds covered in oil from the calamitous April 20 rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. But as the oil threatens coastal marshes, the long-term effect could be more devastating. more info |
| The Call in the Middle of the Night As I reported in Friday’s paper, serious questions are being raised about the government’s estimate of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The estimate of 5,000 barrels per day has not changed since April 28, and many scientists and environmental groups argue that it cannot be right, given the seemingly rapid flow from the undersea well, as seen in this video of the gushing fluid released on Wednesday. more info |
| Students Get First Hand Look at Oil Spill's Impact On Nature Close to 70 students from Maplewood-Richmond Heights Middle School were right in the middle of the disaster response in the Gulf of Mexico Tuesday. Fox 2 connected with the students through YouTube Tuesday night. They were on the their long-awaited "Expedition" trip: a tradition at their school. more info |
| The science of dispersants Massive use of surfactant chemicals turns Gulf of Mexico into a giant experiment. more info |
| On the Gulf Coast, Waiting for a Hurricane The last few days on the Gulf of Mexico's coast have been waiting for a hurricane's arrival. Take it from the mayor of Dauphin Island, Alabama, Jeff Collier. Usually at this time of year, the high-rise condos, hotels and docks that line Collier's island, are bracing for the arrival of summer eco-tourists. Last week, however, tar the dimension of golf balls — possibly products of the oil spill — appeared on the island's white-sand beaches. Now, Dauphin Island (pop. 1,300) reflects the region's angst. Everyone, it seems, is worried about when the oil will make "landfall," a term typically reserved for hurricanes. "You're watching the oil's progression, keeping your fingers crossed that it won't come," Collier says. more info |
| Oil spill science: Where’s the oil? This morning, while still several kilometres out from the spill site, we saw the largest concentrations of oil we've yet come across. Most of the water had an oily sheen, and there were large bands of dispersed oil thick enough that you could smell them as we passed through. more info |
| Middle-schoolers get up-close lessons on spill Amid one of the nation's worst oil spills, eighth-graders at Maplewood Richmond Heights Middle School are off the coast of Alabama this week studying ecology near the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Oil Spill preparations continue with focus on resource assessments The Superintendent for Gulf Islands National Seashore and Refuge Manager for Bonsecour National Wildlife Refuge were also on hand to answer questions. The press conference focused on the role of the Department of the Interior in responding to the oil spill by providing expertise to the unified command in evaluating public health risks, planning shoreline cleanup and wildlife recovery. As outlined in the May 10th Examiner article, Director Jarvis is now acting as incident commander for the DOI. more info |
| The Gulf Oil Spill Wildlife Edition All along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, rescue and rehabilitation groups are working to search for and clean wildlife fouled by oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill, and to prepare for additional animals that may be rescued in the coming days, weeks, and months. more info |
| National Wildlife Refuge system, National Park Service responding to oil spill The Deepwater Horizon rig accident and ensuing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico happened during peak bird breeding and nesting season on coastal National Wildlife Refuges, some of which are on barrier islands. Oil was confirmed on the Chandeleur Islands chain off Louisiana, home to Breton National Wildlife Refuge, which has been closed to the public. more info |
| ASMS students star in film for Mobile Bay National Estuary Program The 20-minute film was produced with a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance. It will be distributed as an educational film on nutrient loading and pollution. more info |
| Louisiana Oil Spill 2010 PHOTOS: Gulf Of Mexico Leak Reaches Land Here are the first photos of the preparations for the oil hitting coastlines, which pose a serious threat to fishermen's livelihoods, marine habitats, beaches, wildlife and human health. more info |
| Hundreds comb Alabama beaches for tar balls Hundreds of people are combing Alabama's primary tourist beaches for tar balls after the discovery of a few dozen of them in Baldwin County. more info |
| Tuttle Elementary 'Turtles' launch Save the Animals Oil Spill Relief project The students and staff of Tuttle Elementary School want to save turtles and other sea life from the possible effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Photographs document early damage done by Gulf oil spill Thanks to a few lucky breaks on the weather and currents, most of the oil spilled from the Deepwater Horizon tragedy has yet to make its way to shore. Mankind, the cause of the calamity, is also responding. NOAA reports that an estimated 10,000 people are already working to disperse the oil, halt its spread or mitigate the harm it does. more info |
| Texas braces for 'tar ball event' from gulf oil spill With a broken well spewing thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico — and with no immediate relief in sight, state officials say it now seems almost inevitable that residue will begin reaching Texas waters, probably in the form of tar balls or a frothy substance resembling chocolate mousse. more info |
| Gulf oil spill: Where things stand, what comes next The undersea oil well, following a drilling rig's April 20 explosion 50 miles off Louisiana's coast, is spewing up to 210,000 gallons of light sweet crude a day into the Gulf, officials say, and so far there's no answer in sight on how to fix it. more info |
| UN fears 'irreversible' damage to natural environment The third "Global Biodiversity Outlook" found that deforestation, pollution or overexploitation were damaging the productive capacity of the most vulnerable environments, including the Amazon rainforest, lakes and coral reefs. more info |
| Oil Spill Threatens Louisiana's Fragile Wetlands The oil spill is a tense day-by-day waiting game for environmentalists in Louisiana tracking how badly the state's wetlands and a small set of barrier islands, the first line of defense against hurricanes, are affected. Their continued erosion is considered just as catastrophic as the spill. more info |
| Massive oil spill threatens the Gulf of Mexico (PHOTOS) Los Angeles Times photographers Carolyn Cole and Rick Loomis document the disaster. more info |
| BP to hold oil spill clean-up classes MOBILE, Alabama Classes will be held at Mobile Civic Center. May 6, 2010 - May 21, 2010 more info |
| 40 percent of US coastal wetlands in Louisiana, right in Gulf oil spill's path About 40 percent of the nation's coastal wetlands are clumped along southern Louisiana, directly in the path of oil that was still gushing today from a ruptured underwater well. "No question we will see some widespread impacts," Garret Graves, chairman of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority of Louisiana, said after an observation flight. "If we allow this oil to get into our coastal areas and fundamentally change the ecosystem, the consequences are profound." more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Alliance Govenors Coordinate The Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) recognizes the ongoing and potential impact the current oil spill brings to the region. Each Gulf state is implementing an emergency response plan, and due to the strong Gulf States alliance, agencies are coordinating to address uncertainties the region faces in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Gulf of Mexico Alliance—Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas—was formalized in 2004 as the result of a shared vision for a healthy and resilient Gulf of Mexico region. more info |
| Chemical dispersants an unknown quantity in addressing oil spill The decision on whether to use chemical dispersants deep below the sea's surface to break up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill boils down to two central questions: Is it worth taking this unprecedented step to protect the region's sensitive and ecologically valuable wetlands, even at the potential expense of its marine life? And should federal officials conduct extensive new research before making the leap, since the scientific literature on this question is so sparse? more info |
| BP starts spraying chemicals on main oil leak A BP official is telling The Associated Press that the company has received federal approval to continuously spray chemicals underwater on the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Louisiana to bulk-up islands ahead of Gulf slick Estimates of how much oil is leaking from the well range from 5,000 to 26,500 barrels per day. Although chemical dispersants have kept any large oil slicks from hitting shore, oil globules and an oil sheen have come up on some of the barrier islands, and Nungesser said some have even moved beyond the barriers and closer to the marshes. more info |
| Resilience From the sky, the Earth’s water courses harken the human circulatory system. The resemblance is both troubling and appropriate as they serve much the same purpose: they carry liquids and nutrients to vital systems in both bodies, but they can also carry poisons. When a human being ingests poison, some is absorbed in the stomach, and much is distributed to the vital organs by the blood vessels. For the Earth, the constant motion of water through its passageways can take oil and chemical dispersants to its most vulnerable and essential systems. more info |
| Marine Science Review-Oil and oil spills: the Gulf of Mexico In order to support the response efforts to the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico SeaWeb has assembled relevant literature from the last three decades which provide insights not only to the impact of oil on the marine and coastal environment in the Gulf of Mexico, but highlights experiences, issues and research from similar oil spills in other regions of the world. more info |
| Nature loss 'to damage economies' An ongoing project known as The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) is attempting to quantify the monetary value of various services that nature provides for us. more info |
| Coastal Businesses Feel The Pain Of Gulf Oil Leak As oil company BP fights a leak deep in the Gulf of Mexico, cleanup is under way on some of Louisiana's uninhabited barrier islands, where oil began washing ashore Thursday, threatening wildlife and fragile marshes. more info |
| Giant box above oil leak site A spokesman for oil giant BP LPC, which is in charge of the cleanup, said the box was suspended over the main leak just after noon EDT Friday and was being moved into position. more info |
| Marine Food Chain Seen at Risk After Oil Spill Associated Press - As Americans anxiously wait for a slick in the Gulf of Mexico to wash up along the coast, globules of oil are already falling to the bottom of the sea, where they threaten virtually every link in the ocean food chain, from plankton to fish on dinner tables everywhere. more info |
| Napolitano talks spill clean-up efforts BILOXI, Mississippi (WALA) - Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was in Biloxi Thursday.Secretary Napolitano, along with Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, talked about the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Fishing Industry Hammered by Gulf Oil Spill The petroleum and fishing industries have a long and uneasy intertwined history in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Crews prepare to lower containment box Workers hope to have the device down at the seabed by Thursday evening, but it will likely be Sunday or Monday before it's fully operational and they know if it's working. more info |
| Americans face a choice: wetlands or greed? Rachel Maddow emphasizes the significance and necessity of the Gulf coast wetlands and the damage done to that vital ecosystem by greed and consumption. more info |
| Gulf Oil Spill a "Dead Zone in the Making"? That's because 5,000 barrels of oil (210,000 gallons, or 794,937 liters) a day are thought to be bleeding from a damaged wellhead at the nearby site of the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster. All that oil is poisoning the less photogenic creatures—plankton, sand crabs, and fish larvae, among others—at the base of the region's food web, Schweiger noted. more info |
| Oil burn set as huge cap ships out NEW ORLEANS - Favorable weather will allow for a controlled burn of part of the massive Gulf Coast oil slick on Wednesday, officials said, as a 100-ton chamber designed to temporarily siphon oil was being moved out to the accident site. more info |
| Does the oil spill put seafood restaurants at risk? STORY HIGHLIGHTS : 1. NOAA is restricting commercial and recreational fishing along the Gulf 2. Coast Restaurant owners who depend on seafood are worried about the oil slick impacts 3. About 40 percent of the U.S. seafood is harvested from the Gulf Coast 4. Louisiana's economy and culture relies heavily on the availability of seafood more info |
| Offshore Drilling Loses Support After Gulf Oil Spill May 4, 2010 Days into the oil spill, President Obama said he still supports offshore drilling so long as it's done responsibly and doesn't damage the environment. That view is becoming increasingly unpopular. more info |
| Gulf Coast Awaits Results Of Efforts To Break Up Slick May 4, 2010 Calm seas along the Gulf Coast on Tuesday allowed cleanup crews working to fight the oil gushing from the well a mile below the surface to put out more containment equipment and repair some booms damaged in rough weather over the weekend. more info |
| 1. Coast Guard gets ready for controlled burn of oil (with video) – AP story May 5, 2010 ROBERT, La. -- The Coast Guard is preparing for a controlled burn of some of the oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico now that weather conditions are more favorable. more info |
| Oil Spill's Potential Effect on Gulf's Wildlife As the massive oil slick continues its approach toward the shores along the Gulf coast, there's growing concern about the danger posed to local wildlife and its habitats. more info |
| Gulf oil spill: Oil may reach Loop Current within 24 hours Scientists say the Gulf oil spill could get into the what’s called the Loop Current within a day, eventually carrying oil south along the Florida coast and into the Florida Keys. more info |
| Gulf Coast states brace for nightmare cleanup from oil spill The official forecast track from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration kept the oil off the Panhandle for at least 72 hours, but Allen warned winds were shifting and state emergency managers considered the weather merely a postponement, not a reprieve. They predicted some impacts by Wednesday. It could affect South Florida if the oil gets swept imto the Gulf's powerful Loop Current, which could steer it into the Florida Keys and then north up the East Coast. more info |
| Environmental experts describe worst secnario The magnitude of the problem for fish and wildlife depends on how much of the spill gets close to shore and how long it stays. more info |
| Florida's Gulf Coast braces for oil spill's impact On one of the westernmost patches of Florida earth, the people of this beach community plucked litter from impossibly white sand -- lipstick-stained cigarette butts, bottle caps, straws, plastic cups -- in a frantic effort to protect the shoreline from an oil spill gushing in the Gulf of Mexico that is likely to arrive in days. more info |
| Gulf spill taints 'Mediterranean of the Americas' The gigantic Gulf of Mexico oil spill is the latest blow to a unique marine environment already fragile after decades of human encroachment and natural upheavals - at a time of year when some of its most vulnerable species are nurturing their young. more info |
| Crews attack Gulf Coast oil spill with old techniques The Coast Guard's Web site says, "Natural recovery is often misunderstood; in sensitive environments active cleanup activity may cause more harm than allowing the oil to slowly degrade naturally, as disturbance by activity can drive oil below the surface causing significant damage." more info |
| Oil Spill Threatens Marine Life A massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continued to grow on Monday, creating an environmental disaster along the coast. more info |
| Ecological calamity grows The growing oil slick is moving toward fragile wetlands, threatening fisheries, wildlife, the environment and businesses along the Gulf Coast. more info |
| Oil spill has little impact on human health While the rapidly expanding Gulf oil spill presents a serious danger to the local ecosystem, the oil itself poses little harm to the public, according to scientists and numerous government organizations. Oil can cause a rash if it contacts the skin, but oil by itself cannot kill or seriously harm a human. more info |
| Urgency increases as oil spill grows The industry of shrimpers, fishermen and oyster harvesters absorbed more than $1 billion of damage from Hurricanes Katrina, Gustav and Ike, he said. The industry generates about $2.4 billion a year, producing one-third of the domestic seafood consumed in the continental USA. more info |
| Gulf oil spill could impact non-coastal songbirds Even though they don't stop over in the Gulf of Mexico, many migrating songbirds could be impacted by the catastrophic oil spill in the area, warns the American Bird Conservancy (ABC). Of 500 Globally Important Bird Areas in the US, nearly 30 percent (149 in total) lie on coastlines which could be vulnerable to this or future oil spills from off-shore drilling. more info |
| Oil spill poses major threat to seafood industry, environment As oil from a massive spill caused by an oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico continued to pour into Louisiana's ecologically rich wetlands Friday, elected officials and experts wondered about the long-term ecological and economic effects the accident will have on the state and its inhabitants. more info |
| No oil contamination evidence found in 5 turtles Necropsies completed on five of the 25 dead sea turtles found along Mississippi beaches in the past few days show no evidence of oil killing the reptiles. more info |
| NOAA closes fishing in oil-affected portions of Gulf of Mexico The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has closed fishing to both recreational and commercial anglers for a minimum of 10 days, effective immediately, in more than 6,800 square miles of federal waters most affected by the BP oil spill -- largely between Louisiana state waters at the mouth of the Mississippi River to waters off Florida's Pensacola Bay. more info |
| BP Says Crews Make Progress Stemming Oil Leaks BP reported some glimmers of progress on Monday in its efforts to stem oil leaks from an undersea well off the Louisiana coast that have created what President Obama called a “potentially unprecedented environmental disaster.” more info |
| Alabama's 'Turtle Tsar' ready to help with Gulf oil spill clean-up As oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill continues to threaten the Alabama shoreline, Reynolds and his 300 Share the Beach volunteers are looking for other ways to help the beaches and the wildlife. more info |
| Gulf oil spill's wide environmental reach includes harm to animals, marshland Experts say it's not clear yet how much the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will harm the environment along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and other gulf states. But they say it is clear the harm will be great. more info |
| Towns Scramble To Protect Gulf Coast From Oil Spill Fishermen and oystermen in south Louisiana were preparing to thread miles of oil-absorbing boom through fragile marsh and wetlands Friday, as coastal communities in four states scrambled to protect shorebirds, marine life and sugar-white beaches from the massive oil spill headed for the Gulf Coast. more info |
| Government fears Deepwater Horizon well could become unchecked gusher "The following is not public," reads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Emergency Ops document dated April 28. "Two additional release points were found today. If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought." more info |
| Oil spill will affect spawning NOAA forecasts have the spill coming ashore over most of coastal Mississippi, including the barrier islands, on Saturday, and spreading east to the Alabama coast Sunday into Monday. more info |
| Gulf Islands National Seashore Officials Ready To Deal With Oil Spill ... If It Washes Ashore While officials monitor the forecast, they're also updating the seashore's "oil response pre-plans and tailoring them based on the specifics of this situation, should we need to implement them," he added. more info |
| Audubon Fears Imperiled Birds Will be Next Victims of Gulf Oil Disaster Audubon experts across the Gulf Coast are monitoring the spread of thousands of gallons of oil that threaten to turn last week's drilling platform explosion into a growing environmental disaster. more info |
| Alabama groups seeking oil spill volunteers The Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, Mobile BayKeeper and the Alabama Coastal Foundation are collecting contact information from individuals who are interested in assisting with cleanup efforts along the Alabama coast should oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill reach the state's shores. more info |
| Congress investigating oil rig explosion Lawmakers on Tuesday asked the owner and operator of the oil rig that exploded last week in the Gulf of Mexico for documents as part of a congressional investigation into the accident. more info |
| Oil to reach Louisiana coast by Friday Winds will shift as early as today to the south, which will push the expanding sheen toward Louisiana estuaries and potentially toward eastern Gulf beaches in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. more info |
| Obama calls Miss. governor after deadly storms The White House says Obama assured the governor that every effort is being made to minimize the environmental impact of the leak, which began last week after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank. Eleven workers who were aboard the rig are missing. more info |
| Miss. provides air monitors for oil spill response State agencies in Mississippi are working with federal authorities to "forcefully, aggressively" respond to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, an official from the state Department of Environmental Quality said Wednesday. more info |
| Alabama Coast Braces For Oil Spill Alabama’s coastline is bracing for what could become the worst oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. more info |
| Oil spill burn-off may affect Florida's west coast If a growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is left to drift toward shore, birds and other wildlife will suffer, in addition to tourism and businesses that make their living off the water. If the spill is set afire in a giant blaze designed to burn off much of the oil, the shore will be spared the brunt, but the air quality will suffer. more info |
| Crews to Set Fire to Oil Leaking in Gulf of Mexico Crews geared up to set fire to oil leaking from the site of an exploded drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, a last-ditch effort to get rid of it before it reaches environmentally sensitive marshlands on the coast. more info |
| New study says oceans' chemistry changing rapidly The chemistry of the oceans is changing faster than it has in hundreds of thousands of years because of the carbon dioxide being absorbed from the atmosphere, the National Research Council reported Thursday.The current rate of change "exceeds any known change in ocean chemistry for at least 800,000 years," the report said. more info |
| Nation's science students in Tampa for ocean bowl igh school science students from across the country are exploring the Tampa Bay area today, learning about Florida marine systems as they prepare for the National Ocean Sciences Bowl in St. Petersburg this weekend. more info |
| Alabama's Coast Impacted by Oil Rig Explosion? Dr. John Dindo, Senior Marine Scientist at Dauphin Island Sea Lab, says the oil does not appear to be threatening Alabama's coastline. "It is always something to be of concern about, but I think in this day and age these professionals are ready to deal with it right away," said Dindo, who insists the primary concern is wildlife that could be impacted. "The most important thing is critical habitats," said Dindo. "They know where the critical habitats are and what they have to do to make sure that never ends up in critical habitats." more info |
| Which fish to eat? Study finds low mercury in most top-selling seafood The reanalysis of the government-collected data could provide consumers in the United States with an easier method to evaluate dietary exposure to mercury through the fish they eat, making it more likely they will choose the types and amounts of seafood that are safest to eat. In particular, the calculation of a “mercury input factor” weights both the amount of a particular fish sold and its mercury content. more info |
| Underwater inventory Heyward Mathews knows the Gulf of Mexico like most people know their back yards. Mathews, the 69-year-old professor of oceanography at St. Petersburg College's Clearwater campus, has been diving local waters for nearly 50 years. The legendary father of the Pinellas County artificial reef program, Mathews has watched the fish and coral weather hurricanes, oil spills and more than one Red Tide. more info |
| Gulf Coast Research Laboratory still rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina Plans are under way to rebuild the J.L. Scott Marine Education Center and Aquarium that was lost at Point Cadet in Biloxi during Hurricane Katrina, he said. The facility would be relocated to the Ocean Springs site, he said. more info |
| Sea turtle survivors return to the wild The last two dozen or so turtles which survived a cold-stun event in St. Joseph Bay in January were returned to the warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday morning. more info |
| Gulfport marine rescuers prepare to respond to oil rig disaster When the Deepwater Horizon started to sink Thursday, crude oil spilled across the Gulf of Mexico. Dr. Moby Solangi immediately worried about the marine animals living in that area. more info |
| Only the strongest songbirds survive arduous trek to Texas For the birds to reach the Texas coast requires an arduous, exhausting journey. Some come from Ecuador and Venezuela, others from Costa Rica and southern Mexico. Most wind their way to the Yucatán Peninsula only to fly another 400 to 600 miles across the Gulf of Mexico to make landfall at High Island or other coastal points. more info |
| Wetlands restoration urged in wake of MR-GO damage The coalition is publishing its recommendations Tuesday in a new report titled, "Mister Go Isn't Gone Yet: Creating Community and Environmental Resiliency in the Wake of a Man-Made Catastrophe." more info |
| Cold spring could mean a 'jelly year' for jellyfish on the Gulf Coast Turns out they like cool springs and warm summers. That simple, seasonal recipe may be all that's required to send the Gulf's jelly population into overdrive, suggests research conducted by a pair of graduate students at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. more info |
| Gulf Of Mexico Oil Rig Sinking Increases Environmental Fears Officials previously had said the environmental damage appeared minimal, but when the rig sank Thursday that changed. The Coast Guard says the Deepwater Horizon carried 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel and could spill as much as 8,000 barrels of crude a day... more info |
| Giant deep sea jellyfish filmed in Gulf of Mexico Remarkable footage of a rarely seen giant deep sea jellyfish has been recorded by scientists. more info |
| Scientist awarded $595,626 grant to study coastal waters University of Texas professor Ed Buskey and his colleagues hope to figure out how much fertilizer and treated wastewater runoff is too much. more info |
| Are We Destroying the Oceans? Now imagine this destruction submerged deep under the ocean — perhaps off the coast of South America, near the remote Galapagos Islands. Flying over the open water, all you would see is clear, blue sea, untouched, not a boat on the horizon. You wouldn't know that beneath the surface, the ocean was hurting — or that humans were the cause. more info |
| Oil slick spreads from sunken rig "Obviously, our first priority remains the health and safety of our people," Jindal said. "We will work aggressively to mitigate any negative impact this incident could have on our land, air and water." more info |
| How to Win the War on Global Warming But for a country that rightly cites patriotism as one of its core values, we're taking a pass on what might be the most patriotic struggle of all. It's hard to imagine a bigger fight than one for the survival of the country's coasts and farms, the health of its people and the stability of its economy—and for those of the world at large as well. more info |
| DEP Awarded $535,294 To Increase Waves Of Ocean Literacy The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will receive a $535,294 grant for the project Gulf Alliance Partnership: Building Cultural Competency in Experiential Environmental Education from the Gulf of Mexico Program. more info |
| System aims to protect coastal Tri-parishes But what exactly is the Morganza-to-the-Gulf project? According to Morganza project manager and T. Baker Smith employee Mitchell Marmande, the answer is simple: "It's a risk-reduction, flood protection project to protect the citizens of Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes." more info |
| Carbon, nitrogen link may provide new ways to mitigate pollution problems A new study exploring the growing worldwide problem of nitrogen pollution from soils to the sea shows that global ratios of nitrogen and carbon in the environment are inexorably linked, a finding that may lead to new strategies to help mitigate regional problems ranging from contaminated waterways to human health. more info |
| Studies Aim to Resolve Confusion Over Mercury Risks From Fish The way it boosts neural development in babies and protects the hearts and minds of adults, fish could be considered a health food. Yet the methylmercury pollution that taints fish worldwide can erase these advantages and even trigger profound mental and cardiovascular harm. Several new papers now suggest strategies by which American diners can negotiate the mercury minefield to tap dietary benefits in fish. more info |
| Coastal restoration project is ill-advised, St. Bernard residents say Plans by the Army Corps of Engineers to build a freshwater diversion across an open stretch of land in St. Bernard Parish to restore wetlands and cypress forest areas in New Orleans, along the closed Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet and Lake Borgne ran into criticism from St. Bernard residents at a public hearing Tuesday night. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico fish farming pros and cons aired at New Orleans meeting As the federal government continues developing a national policy for fish farming, more than two dozen people from across the Gulf Coast showed up to weigh in Monday night in New Orleans. more info |
| SchoolMessenger Announces Sponsorship of Ocean Voices; Launches Nationwide Classroom Contest "The Ocean Voices project is designed to bring together a global community to emphasize the importance of ocean conservation as a global issue," said Dr. Nichols. "By focusing on the individual, and his or her thoughts about the ocean, we hope to make our message both personal and impactful. We appreciate the support SchoolMessenger has given and look forward to helping teachers and students lend their voices to a very worthy cause." more info |
| Why We Need A National Ocean Policy, Jane Lubchenco The task force that President Obama set up, called the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, recognizes that we have a responsibility to protect our oceans and coasts and Great Lakes, both for current generations but also for future generations. The president made it very clear in the memorandum that set up the task force that one of its charges is to recommend a National Ocean Policy. In September we delivered an interim report to the president that sets recommendations for a National Ocean Policy and it sends a very clear signal that as far as the administration is concerned, healthy oceans matter and they matter because they are vital to our health, to our prosperity, to our security, and also to our ability to adapt to climate change. They matter because they affect the quality of our life. From that policy should flow a way in which we think differently about the variety of practices and policies on land and in the ocean that affect the health of the ocean. I think it's a fortuitous opportunity for the government to take stock of what's happening in the oceans, why it matters, and how we can begin to turn things around so that we can protect and restore them so that they can provide the wealth of benefits that we want and need from them. more info |
| Close to a billion species: ocean exploration reveals shocking diversity Biologists worldwide may have to start re-evaluating their estimates of the number of species on Earth, since expeditions documenting the oceans' tiniest species have revealed shocking diversity: in the tens of millions of species, at least, and according to one researcher "closer to a billion". more info |
| Agricultural runoff has harsh impact on environment At the dawn of the environmental movement 40 years ago, “water pollution” brought to mind images of industrial chemicals flowing out of a factory drainage pipe directly into a waterway. Today, experts say, a large percentage of water pollution should conjure up a more pastoral image: that of a soaking rain pounding a farm field and sending rivulets of storm water snaking into ditches, creeks, rivers and lakes. more info |
| Report confirms Hudson Beach park is icky, so now it's time to act More than two decades ago, Pasco County reopened its newly renovated Hudson Beach park amid lingering concerns about the pollution that frequently closed the swimming spot because of high bacteria counts. more info |
| Crews still cleaning oil spill at wildlife refuge The Coast Guard says crews have laid more than two miles of floats to keep spilled oil out of sensitive marshlands in and near a remote national wildlife refuge. more info |
| Aveda walks to raise awareness of water-quality issues Tallahassee's walk, which circled Cascades Park, was only 2 miles, but there were plenty of other fundraising activities, including massages, raffles, an auction and more, all helping to raise money for the Gulf Restoration Network, a New Orleans-based nonprofit working to protect the Gulf of Mexico from pollution. more info |
| Mike deGruy: Hooked by an Octopus Underwater filmmaker Mike deGruy has spent decades looking intimately at the ocean. A consummate storyteller, he takes the stage at Mission Blue to share his awe and excitement -- and his fears -- about the blue heart of our planet. more info |
| Saving the great outdoors from the grass roots up It is the stories of these places, of these cooperative efforts, that I hope people will bring to Washington this week. From what we hear about the White House meeting, it is mostly about listening — about the leaders of the federal government’s natural resource and environmental agencies paying attention to the voices of citizens who know about the land. This can be a first step in finding a path to create new, more effective ways of using federal, state and private resources to help Americans restore and protect the places they value and which, in turn, are valuable in so many ways to all of us. more info |
| NOAA’s New “Hurricane Eye in the Sky” NOAA’s GOES-13 spacecraft today became the official GOES-EAST satellite, perched 22,300 miles above the equator in a prime location to spot potentially life-threatening weather affecting the eastern half of the nation, including tropical storm activity in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| EPA Studies Emissions from Houston-Bound Cargo Ship With next week’s arrival of an ocean-going cargo vessel at the Port of Houston Authority, the Environmental Protection Agency will conclude the data-gathering phase of a study on using lower sulfur marine fuels to reduce air pollution in the Gulf of Mexico. The study will collect stack emissions monitoring data before, after and during the use of lower sulfur fuels on the vessel. more info |
| Gulf’s Bounty Fills Birds Bellies At the far end of Whitney Beach on Longboat Key, Florida, are 80 shorebirds: 25 ruddy turnstones and almost all of the rest are red knots. While I’m used to seeing the knots in large numbers, I’ve never seen so many turnstones in one place. Scurrying along the sand as waves from the Gulf of Mexico recede, the birds plunge their small, dark bills deeply into the wet sand, which come up glistening. They feed on mollusks, crustaceans, tiny shells and other aquatic life brought in by the waves. more info |
| Obama launches 'Great Outdoors initiative President Barack Obama launched a new initiative Friday to conserve cherished land and encourage more Americans to enjoy the outdoors. more info |
| Marine Science Institute Receives $595,626 to Study Mission-Aransas NERR Nutrients The Gulf of Mexico Program recently announced that the Marine Science Institute will receive a $595,626 cooperative agreement for the project “Development of Pilot Nutrient Criteria for an estuary in the Western Gulf of Mexico.” more info |
| Texas Proposes $10 Billion ‘Ike Dike’ for Storm-Surge Shield The elected leaders of six coastal Texas counties are forming a public corporation to seek as much as $10 billion for a 100-mile (160-kilometer) network of levees, seawalls and football-field-sized floodgates that can protect the region from hurricane storm surges. more info |
| Ocean Conservancy Report: Trash in Our Ocean has Become One of the Worst Pollution Problems Today, Ocean Conservancy releases Trash Travels: From Our Hands to the Sea, Around the Globe, and Through Time – the only global snapshot of the marine debris problem facing wildlife, economies and marine ecosystems. Nearly 500,000 volunteers around the world combed their local beaches and waterways collecting trash and recording the data during the 24th annual International Coastal Cleanup – the largest volunteer effort of its kind. Volunteers removed and recorded 7.4 million pounds of trash in 108 countries and locations, 45 US states and the District of Columbia. The report features Ocean Conservancy’sannual Marine Debris Index – the world’s only country-by-country, state-by-state analysis of trash in our ocean and waterways. Trash Travels also shines a spotlight on the growing threat of marine debris – one of our greatest global pollution problems. more info |
| Oceans, The Book Oceans: Threats to the Sea and What You Can Do To Turn the Tide is being officially released on Earth Day (April 22) as a companion book to the new DisneyNature film Oceans. The book is an anthology of new essays by thirty of the most intriguing ocean thinkers and doers out there compiled by Jon Bowermaster. Jon is a six-time grantee of the National Geographic Expeditions Council and has a passion for the sea. more info |
| Coca-Cola Dives into New Social Media Campaign During Earth Month oca-Cola North America wants everyone to join "fins" in a new Facebook campaign to raise awareness of Earth Month and help support Ocean Conservancy, the nation's oldest and largest marine conservation organization. Through a new Facebook application, users can "oceanize" themselves into a playful underwater photo. For every person who dives into this new app, Coca-Cola will donate $1, up to a total of $200,000, to support Ocean Conservancy's marine debris program identifying policies and solutions to preventing trash from reaching our ocean and waterways. Also, through the Company's MyCokeRewards points program and a direct donation-matching program through LivePositively.com, Coca-Cola will contribute up to an additional $50,000. more info |
| New Sand Bag Design Used in Training Exercise, A New Advance for an Old Bag For three hours, firefighters from the Carrabelle, Lanark and Apalachicola, Florida, filled sand bags to build a forty-five foot long storm surge wall. The training exercise was conducted using newly developed bright blue and yellow high tech sand bags. more info |
| Active 2010 Atlantic Hurricane Season Likely, Gulf Coasts Vulnerable Impacts from a decade of extreme storms on the coastline of the northern Gulf of Mexico have left many coastal areas vulnerable to future storm events, scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey warned today. more info |
| Rio Grande Activists Call for Moratorium on Water Plan As it is, according to American Rivers, the Rio Grande-Rio Bravo is one of the most endangered rivers in North America. According the World Wildlife Fund, the Rio Grande-Rio Bravo is the seventh most endangered river in the world. more info |
| Work to start on maritime museum Site preparation will begin this week on GulfQuest, the $52 million interactive maritime museum scheduled to open in 2011 on the waterfront at the foot of Government Street. more info |
| Hurricane warnings to go beyond wind speed Storms will still be categorized from 1 through 5 based on their maximum winds. But as soon as a hurricane watch goes out anywhere on the coastal Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico, local forecasters with the National Weather Service will pinpoint the biggest hazards and post specific threat maps and scales on their Web sites. more info |
| Louisiana Oil Spill Highlights Continued Safety Concerns Early Tuesday morning, 18000 gallons of oil spilled from a Chevron-operated pipeline into a sensitive wildlife refuge on the coast of Louisiana. The oil has so far spread to an area of about 160 square miles, covering wetlands of the Delta National Wildlife Refuge, and the Gulf of Mexico. The refuge is the wintering home to hundreds of thousands of migratory birds as well as many other critters, including already threatened species such as the America alligator and the brown pelican. more info |
| Marine education festival returns to Pass Christian "We try to get kids to come down, and we try to get kids to bring their parents. Together they can learn the importance of keeping our Gulf of Mexico clean and healthy," says Jennifer Buchanan, Department of Marine Resources. more info |
| Supporters mark start of construction on Infinity Science Center "They can actually fly one of the satellites and go to moon or go to Mars, or they can go in one of those submarines and go to the bottom of ocean," Schloegel told a crowd of state dignitaries and supporters. more info |
| Why Are Children Rejecting Science? Scientific organizations for years have raised the alarm over the appallingly low level of scientific literacy in the United States, but efforts to correct the situation have achieved only minimal success. Why aren't young Americans more interested in science, and why don't more of them wish to become scientists? It's obvious that science has transformed their lives -- all those smartphones, video games, PCs and TVs. Why aren't youngsters as dazzled as their elders about these contributions? Why don't they find the scientific report card more compelling? Science advocates pull their hair out over these questions. more info |
| 21 critical future NASA missions Watching the ocean: Aquarius has been delayed over 12 months but when it launches this year it will have as its mission to measure global sea surface salinity. The satellite will provide a global view of salinity needed for climate studies, NASA said. The Aquarius / SAC-D mission being developed by NASA and the Space Agency of Argentina. more info |
| New EPA water quality rules But the nitrogen and phosphorus so effective at nourishing lawns is, at elevated levels, toxic for organisms living in and relying on natural water bodies. more info |
| See what's in the sea with new South Padre boat trip As it turns out, we saw plenty of sea creatures and learned a good bit about the ecology of the coast. more info |
| NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson to Map Ocean Floor in Gulf of Mexico NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson, one of the most technologically advanced hydrographic survey vessels in the world, will depart its Norfolk, Va. homeport on April 6 to conduct a five-month long effort to map the seafloor and look for hazards to navigation off the Gulf coast. more info |
| Set out the feeders: Hummingbird migration is here The most familiar hummer is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. In spring, this little bird, weighing no more than 3 paper clips, puts on a little weight (a half of a paperclip’s worth) and then uses that fuel to fly nonstop over the Gulf of Mexico. This trans-Gulf flight from Central America to the coast of the United States is some 600 miles long! You can be sure that that extra dab of fat is long gone by the time a Ruby-throat makes landfall in Texas. They really need quick energy, fast! You may save their lives by providing nectar in a feeder! more info |
| Up close with Fla.'s marine life On Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute will present MarineQuest, its annual open house where people of all ages will get to experience science through more than 60 exhibits and discussions with biologists. The free open house takes place at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, 100 Eighth Ave. SE in St. Petersburg, and will feature both indoor and outdoor activities. more info |
| Port of Iberia Prepares for Massive Dredging Project Imagine having to dredge nearly 50 miles of waterway. Officials in Iberia Parish are trying to do just that, and some in Vermilion Parish are hoping to benefit.The massive project is expected to take place sometime next year starting at the Port of Iberia and ending at the Gulf of Mexico. But, a compromise that was made back in 2007 may not be on the table any longer. more info |
| Amnesty says rights of Katrina victims violated Amnesty International has questioned the efforts of US government and US States along the Gulf of Mexico regarding the victims of Hurricane Katrina, reporting that the human rights of those affected by the natural disaster were violated. more info |
| Louisiana oil spill highlights need to protect Gulf from drilling After being noticed early on Tuesday morning, the US Coast Guard, State of Louisiana and the Cypress Pipeline Company have been working for days to contain a pipeline leak that has seen 18,000 gallons of oil released. more info |
| University of Alabama scientists study climate clues that could come from old shells Shells left in Peruvian tombs centuries ago as offerings to the dead are providing clues to understanding the weird weather experienced this year in the Southeastern United States. more info |
| Let's head off disaster in the Gulf “A watershed problem, like the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, requires a watershed approach, and watersheds pay no attention to political lines,” said Whitney Broussard, a researcher at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. more info |
| Gulf region remains critical For decades, the states of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Alabama have hosted the nation’s offshore oil and gas exploration and production and will continue to play a critical role in U.S. energy security for years to come. In spite of the region’s vulnerability to storms, sea-level rise and subsidence, the infrastructure along this coast and the ability of its communities to support production and transport of energy to the rest of the nation is critical to the economic well being of our country. more info |
| Volunteers sought to monitor turtle nests The kick-off meeting for volunteers will be held 6 p.m. Thursday at the Gulf Shores First Baptist Church, across the street from the post office. Volunteers are needed for the following sections of beach: Fort Morgan, Laguna Key, West Beach, Gulf Shores, Gulf State Park, Orange Beach, Alabama Point, and Dauphin Island. more info |
| We need a permanent solution The National Flood Insurance Program — which had been temporarily renewed through Sunday, lapsed when Congress took no action to again extend it. more info |
| Songbirds make a wondrous journey Every time I fly over the Gulf of Mexico between the Texas coast and South America, I'm amazed that small migratory songbirds make the same journey. more info |
| Giant, deep-sea bug surfaces in Gulf of Mexico Huge isopod hauled from the ocean darkness after it attached itself to a remote-controlled submarine at around 8,500 feet. more info |
| Male pipefish play the field, get pregnant In experiments with a species of pipefish native to the Gulf of Mexico, the researchers found that the pregnant males carefully nurture the eggs of the preferred larger females, but destroy the eggs of the less attractive females. The males either refuse to nourish those unwanted eggs and let them die of neglect or absorb their bodies as nutrients for themselves to build up strength for another mating encounter, the scientists found. more info |
| Lab takes on red snapper production A 5,260-square-foot building under construction on the University of Southern Mississippi's Cedar Point site is designed to play a vital role in red snapper stock enhancement. more info |
| A prescription for the ocean's ailing health The ocean is a beautiful, mystical world that covers more than 70 percent of our planet and supports a mind-bending array of life below the surface and above. But it's also a fragile ecosystem that is vulnerable to the strains placed upon it, which include pollution, increased acidification, and the warming of the water, all of which can harm the life supported by the oceans. more info |
| State of the Oceans Health: In Crisis Alison Barratt, from the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program discusses the health of the oceans in relation to native fish populations, and the decline of their ecosystems. In the last 50 years, industrial fishing practices have severely lowered fish populations, altering the balance of species diversity within ecosystems. Fishing practices have also led to destruction of native habitats, and increased collateral damage to unintended fish caught by accident (bycatch). Nitrogen pollution from agricultural runoff, sewage, and automobile and factory emissions, have created more than 150 different "dead zones," areas of water--under a one-mile square radius to as large as 45,000 square miles in size containing such depleted levels of oxygen--within each, no fish can survive. more info |
| Obama Proposes Opening Vast Offshore Areas to Drilling President Obama today proposed allowing oil and gas drilling for the first time in large swaths of water off the East Coast, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and potentially off Alaska. more info |
| Environmental groups seek fix for Gulf dead zone The Environmental Law and Policy Center and the Mississippi River Collaborative released a joint report this week called “Cultivating Clean Water.” The report examines the effectiveness of state regulatory programs that control agricultural pollution and recommends policies the groups say will result in cleaner water. more info |
| NOAA seeks comments on proposal to increase the red snapper quotas in the Gulf of Mexico NOAA Fisheries Service is seeking public comment on a proposed rule that would increase the commercial and recreational quotas of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. A recent red snapper assessment update projected overfishing ended in 2009, and therefore, the total allowable catch (TAC) can be increased. As evaluated in a regulatory amendment to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico, this increase would be from the existing 5.0 million pounds (MP) to 6.945 MP. more info |
| Report: Iowa needs to improve control of runoff Authors suggest improving regulations by leveling the playing field for all farmers; sufficiently funding agencies to oversee compliance; creating significant penalties to deter non-compliance; and having states develop monitoring programs to document improvements. more info |
| White House Releases Details Of 'Comprehensive Energy Strategy' The Administration's strategy calls for developing oil and gas resources in new areas, such as the Eastern Gulf of Mexico; increasing oil and gas exploration in frontier areas, such as parts of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans; and protecting ocean areas that are simply too special to drill, such as Alaska's Bristol Bay. The strategy will guide the current 2007-2012 offshore oil and gas leasing program, as well as the new 2012-2017 program that this administration will propose. more info |
| Mexican Eco-Blogging - How You Can Save Coral In The Ocean Sadly, coral is dying all along the Riviera Maya coast in Mexico because of over fertilization. Do something good for the earth - stop using chemical fertilizers!! more info |
| Cities slap fees on storm runoff The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has started issuing a series of limits on storm water pollution that will require local governments to spend large amounts of money on water quality and soon start slowly reshaping America's roads, housing developments and even the traditional lawn. more info |
| Whoopers work to survive One of the icons of Texas is in trouble. The whooping crane has been a symbol of Texans' love of the wild for many years. more info |
| Coral Reefs Face Extinction Within Century Coral reefs are dying, and scientists and governments around the world are contemplating what will happen if they disappear altogether. more info |
| 9 Problems Destroying Our Oceans In the fight for the environment, the health of our oceans should be a top priority. We've put together 9 of the biggest issues that threaten our oceans more info |
| Who will protect ocean coral? While this CITES conference was disappointing for marine species, the delegates should know that the world was watching. I hope that people will realize that owning a coral necklace or eating shark fin soup is not necessary but that protecting these species is vital to the health of all of us who live on this ocean planet. more info |
| Louisiana Oysters Recalled After Norovirus Outbreak Another recall of oysters over concerns regarding norovirus has been announced, Louisiana is recalling oysters harvested in part of Plaquemines Parish area following 11 illnesses in people who attended a seafood conference on March 1 in Mississippi, writes New Orleans City Business. more info |
| New Study: Ocean Currents Doing Fine For Now NASA scientist builds a bigger data set, and finds that the globe's heat transferring oceanic currents appear to be in good shape, and may be more stable than we previously thought. more info |
| Local wetlands project receives grant The state will provide $70,000 to continue a Terrebonne land-building project to keep the shoreline separating Lake Mechant and Raccouri Bay intact and slow the Gulf of Mexico’s march into interior parish wetlands. more info |
| As ocean life goes, so goes life on Earth The fundamental problem in the ocean, says Mitchell, is human behavior. Can we, will we, change our relationship with the ocean — a relationship, we are only beginning to understand? more info |
| Heart vs. brain: round 1 Isle de Jean Charles now amounts to a sandbar in the Gulf of Mexico, the front line in Louisiana’s battle to save its eroding coast from becoming the next Atlantis. Successive hurricanes and tropical storms have flooded the tiny community of mostly poor Native Americans, robbing them of almost everything they own. more info |
| Ecosystem Services HRI's Executive Director Dr. Larry Mckinney, Endowed Chairs Dr. Paul Montagna and Dr. David Yoskowitz, and research specialist Carlota Santos attended the first Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem Services Collaboratory (GOMESC) workshop at the EPA’s Gulf Ecology Division in Gulf Breeze, Florida, held January 14-15. more info |
| Seagrass Beds Declining The Gulf of Mexico is losing sea grass beds at an alarming rate. According to a new aerial survey, Mobile Bay has lost nearly 14-hundred acres of sea grass beds in the last few years. And as Tanya Ott reports, that could affect your dinner plate: more info |
| Students nurse mini-marshlands in project More than 280 students in Galveston County are nursing mini-marshlands in a unique project teaching hands-on wetland restoration. The children, in 14 classes in four schools, will end their lessons by wading into shallow waters on Nassau Bay Peninsula this spring to transplant cultured marsh grass. more info |
| Pew to Launch Urgent Effort to Protect Bluefin Tuna in Gulf of Mexico On Thursday, March 25 at 1 p.m. EDT, the Pew Environment Group will host a Web-based tele-press conference to detail its new campaign to protect bluefin tuna in its only known spawning area in the western Atlantic Ocean by prohibiting surface long-lining in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Mexican Eco-Blogging - An Adventure To Learn About The Environment In just a few days my family and I will be taking a fantastic journey to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. I'm flying you with me to experience this cool green eco-adventure. more info |
| EPA seeks carbon data from oil, natural gas sectors Most of the large U.S. oil and gas production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico would have to report their emissions under the EPA rules, according to Karen Ritter, spokeswoman for the American Petroleum Institute. more info |
| Texas A&M host annual sea camps in Galveston From wiggling their toes in marsh mud to harvesting oysters from Galveston Bay reefs, Sea Camp at Texas A&M University at Galveston (TAMUG) offers students 10-18 years old some of the most memorable days of their lives. more info |
| Structure generates great fishing, but few wetlands benefits Over the past decade, Terrebonne taxpayers have spent at least $750,000 to install and remove a system on Bayou Sale Road meant to monitor and control salinity levels in and around Lake Boudreaux. more info |
| A Stake in the Sand The sands found Destin first. They started off eons ago, from the Appalachian Mountains, washing their way down the rivers that flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Winnowed to pure, hardy quartz, the sediment moved with the gulf’s currents and gathered into the necklace of narrow barrier islands that buffer Florida’s Panhandle. more info |
| CITES Conference Fails to Widen Shark Protection On Tuesday, the Convention of the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, turned down U.S.-sponsored proposals to protect dwindling numbers of scalloped hammerhead and oceanic whitetip sharks. more info |
| Discovering Our Humanity at the Bottom of the Sea Guggenheim played a lead role in building the recently-formed Gulf of Mexico Alliance, a partnership among the U.S. Gulf states and 13 federal agencies and Mexico. Guggenheim is also working to introduce cutting-edge technologies for sustainable aquaculture practices to the Americas to reduce pressure on overfished wild fish stocks. more info |
| Information essential for planning There are massive amounts of preparation going on for Louisiana’s coastal future. The federal government is contemplating flood protection and coastal restoration even as it continues to examine the risks involved in living and working in our corner of the world. more info |
| Sarasota County considers work to improve beach access An Old Florida-style, cypress cottage with a stone chimney at a public beach access may be preserved and used for community groups, such as the Audubon Society. Also, a broken-down boardwalk over the site's dunes is to be repaired and made accessible for disabled people who want to view the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Texan wind energy protects wildlife using radar A California-based wind energy developer has acquired a 283 MW wildlife-friendly wind farm along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in southern Texas. more info |
| Progress is Being Made to Rebuild & Sustain Fisheries & Ocean Ecosystems Other areas of concern include the low populations of reef fishes— which grow slowly and reproduce late—in the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, where fishing has increased as human populations have grown. more info |
| Fact: Texas Coal-Fired Power Plants Release More Mercury It's not just Texans who are exposed to Texas power plant-emitted mercury. Some of the nearly 12 tons released each year ends up in other states, in fish of the Gulf of Mexico, and so on. more info |
| Study: Link found between hurricanes in Atlantic & Pacific Oceans Based on data that goes back to the late 1940s, the researchers found that when tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic basin increases, tropical cyclone activity in the eastern Pacific basin decreases, and vice versa. more info |
| The Secret of Sea Level Rise: It Will Vary Greatly by Region As the world warms, sea levels could easily rise three to six feet this century. But increases will vary widely by region, with prevailing winds, powerful ocean currents, and even the gravitational pull of the polar ice sheets determining whether some coastal areas will be inundated while others stay dry. more info |
| NOAA to Use New Way to Predict Hurricane's Punch This hurricane season, researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say they will use Global Positioning System technology to measure the dynamics of moisture far offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Survey shows lack of confidence in national hurricane response planninG According to a study recently completed by an LSU group charged with conducting studies on improving hurricane crisis communication in coastal communities, many families have a well-developed hurricane response plan of their own but have little faith in the preparation developed at higher government levels. more info |
| Climate Change Imperils All Ocean Bird Species, Threatens Many More, New Report Finds “Accelerated climate change as a result of human activities is altering the natural world as we know it, diminishing the quality of our environment. This report calls attention to the collective efforts needed to protect nature’s resources for the benefit of people and wildlife,” the authors write. more info |
| Jimmy Buffet Visits Gulf Specimen Marine Lab “Most humans are said to be composed of 90% water, but for those of us who grew up on the Gulf of Mexico, I think that the other 10% must be shrimp. The Rudloes leave the Living Dock behind for a voyage to the land of Pink Crustaceans, and I for one am happy to be aboard for that voyage.” more info |
| High schoolers visit the Big Easy to help Habitat for Humanity Over 135 students, parents, community and staff members are taking a different tack for spring break by boarding two charter buses Friday morning bond for New Orleans as part of the district’s Spring Break Senior Service project. The students left around 5:45 a.m. Friday and will return home about 8:30 p.m. Friday, March 19. more info |
| Too Much Mercury in Canned Tuna -- Or Is There? The researchers called on federal regulators to require canned tuna producers to provide detailed information to consumers about the mercury content and to disclose tuna harvest locations. more info |
| Atlantic bluefin tuna: the sushi king Atlantic bluefin tuna, the international trade in which Europe wants banned during a key UN meeting on endangered species that opens on Saturday, may be prized by sushi and sashimi lovers but given its sky-high price is practically only ever now found on high-end restaurant menus. more info |
| MAST Academy Wins East Florida Regional National Ocean Sciences Bowl Hollywood could not have scripted a more thrilling finish to the Finals of the 13th Annual National Ocean Science Bowl (NOSB) East Florida Regional Competition on March 6, 2010. MAST Team A won in the final second of the game to advance to the NOSB National Competition from April 23-25, 2010 in St. Petersburg, Florida. more info |
| Scientists say asteroid in Gulf of Mexico caused dinosaurs' extinction It's official: The extinction of the dinosaurs and a bunch of other species 65.5 million years ago was caused by a massive asteroid that crashed into the Gulf of Mexico, an international team of researchers said last week. more info |
| Partnership Protects “America’s Sea” In 2004, recognizing that the economies and quality of life of the citizens in their states were linked to the ecological health of the Gulf of Mexico, the governors of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas joined forces to form the Gulf of Mexico Alliance. This partnership, supported by thirteen federal agencies, was the beginning of a regional collaborative effort to improve the health of the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Watching The Water From the Gulf of Alaska, to the Gulf of Mexico, buoys monitor important weather and wave information. The National Data and Buoy Center builds, deploys, and monitors information from buoys around the world. more info |
| At White House: 14 senators discuss climate-energy legislation The fate of President Obama's plan to shift America toward renewable energy and away from fossil fuels may depend on the outcome of a crucial White House meeting Tuesday with 14 key senators, many from coal- and oil-producing states, who have long opposed curbs on carbon emissions. more info |
| Cash prizes flow for watershed protection Anyone who's ever popped open a cold beer probably has good reason to be concerned about water quality. The folks at MillerCoors certainly share this awareness, which is why they have partnered with the River Network, a national organization partnering with water conservation groups, to offer $50,000 toward watershed protection programs nationwide. Eight projects have been selected as finalists and the sponsors now put it to the public to decide which efforts get the funding. more info |
| Coast Guard begins hearing on Texas oil spill Audio recordings apparently show that the pilots of a tugboat and tanker that collided in a Gulf of Mexico waterway in Texas were aware their vessels were close but unaware they were about to collide. more info |
| wild file: Lemon shark This shark is a member of the family Carcharhinidae (also known as requiem sharks) one of the largest shark families - Jose Castro lists 22 requiem shark species in "The Sharks of North American Waters." more info |
| Chemical spill slows Port Fourchon An overturned 18-wheeler spilled 1,500 gallons of hazardous chemicals on a side street near Fourchon Road Monday morning, causing traffic on the port's main road to be limited for hours as emergency officials worked to clean the site. more info |
| Obama Administration Plan to Restore Coastal Louisiana Wetlands Praised by Conservation Groups Six local and national environmental groups praised the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) for unveiling the Obama administration's 18-month plan this afternoon to expedite construction of near-term projects, while creating a long-term vision and governance structure for restoring coastal wetlands in Louisiana. CEQ and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are leading an interagency working group created by President Obama last August to step up the federal response to catastrophic wetland loss in the Gulf Coast region that worsened the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. more info |
| PBS documentary homes in on the avian world’s ballerinas: hummingbirds If you honk for hummers—winged, not wheeled—Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air, a recent addition to PBS’s Nature series, doesn’t disappoint. For 60 minutes hummingbirds hold center stage, flitting around the screen like shiny-feathered ballerinas. more info |
| Naples asks DEP to allow beach pipes to stay The city of Naples has asked Florida environmental regulators to drop a requirement for a plan to remove drainage pipes from the beach. more info |
| Big Shell Beach Cleanup is in its 15th year This is the Big Shell Beach Cleanup. It is in its 15th year and it is nearing 2 million pounds of trash collected. Remarkable. Big Shell Beach is only a portion of the 70-mile National Seashore, but it is deep into the island where only 4-wheel drive vehicles and dedicated fishermen generally wander. It is also a place where the gulf currents converge to deposit debris from all over the Gulf of Mexico. Last year, workers brought out 800,000 pounds of debris from Big Shell; most of that turned out to be from Hurricane Ike, hundreds of miles to the north. more info |
| U.S. supports ban on popular sushi fish, the Atlantic bluefin tuna In a decision that had many in the conservation world holding their breaths, the United States on Wednesday announced it is supporting an effort to ban the international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna, a species whose population has plummeted because of its extreme popularity among consumers of sushi and sashimi. more info |
| Scientists study Gulf's largest mammals, the sperm whales Sperm whales may be the largest mammals in the Gulf of Mexico, but little is known about the endangered species including its food source, said scientists aboard the NOAA ship Pisces. more info |
| Growing low-oxygen zones in oceans worry scientists Lower levels of oxygen in the Earth's oceans, particularly off the United States' Pacific Northwest coast, could be another sign of fundamental changes linked to global climate change, scientists say. more info |
| Mercurial tuna: Study explores sources of mercury to ocean fish With concern over mercury contamination of tuna on the rise and growing information about the health effects of eating contaminated fish, scientists would like to know exactly where the pollutant is coming from and how it's getting into open-ocean fish species. A new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology uses chemical signatures of nitrogen, carbon and mercury to get at the question. The work also paves the way to new means of tracking sources of mercury poisoning in people. more info |
| Director of Marine Mammal Studies named Gulf marine educator Dr. Sharon Walker, who headed the J.L. Scott Marine Education Center and Aquarium in Biloxi until it was destroyed by Katrina in 2005, starts work April 1 as director of education and outreach programs at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport. more info |
| 2010 Central Gulf of Mexico Hurricane Conference, Baton Rouge, March 16-17 NOAA and Louisiana State University will host the first-ever Central Gulf of Mexico Hurricane Conference on March 16-17, 2010 in Baton Rouge, La. The meeting will bring together 300-500 experts and officials from all levels – including federal and state emergency managers, local public safety personnel, forecasters, university officials – to discuss key issues of concern prior to the June 1 start of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season. more info |
| MMS and NOAA scientists study prey of Gulf of Mexico sperm whales Minerals Management Service (MMS) and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Service biologists have set sail to learn more about the prey of sperm whales in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The first of the research cruise's three legs was completed on February 10, 2010 and the second is underway. The first and second legs of the cruise departed from the NOAA Fisheries Service's Southeast Fisheries Science Center laboratory in Pascagoula, Mississippi. more info |
| helium-filled balloons are dangerous Let’s not purposely add to this problem by releasing balloons that come down in our rivers and bays and that eventually end up in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Greenpeace activists in St. Pete Beach to push whaling moratorium Through an unusual set of circumstances, the activists protested an International Whaling Commission meeting, which happened to be taking place inside the TradeWinds Island Resort. more info |
| Dauphin Island Sea Lab's Skimmer Newsletter for Feb. 2010 There's always something happening here at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, and we hope to bring you frequent updates of the latest activities. more info |
| Preparing for the worst A recent survey of the attitudes of coastal Louisiana residents toward hurricane preparation turned up some great reasons for optimism even as well-founded skepticism over official storm response lingers. more info |
| Legumes could reduce fertilizer use Escalating use of nitrogen fertilizer is increasing algal blooms and global warming, but a discovery by Stanford researchers could begin to reverse that. They have revealed a key step in how symbiotic bacteria living in legumes turn nitrogen into plant food, which could be used to improve the process in some plants, reducing the need for chemical fertilizers. more info |
| Grant will help protect Deer Island shoreline The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources received a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Community–based Restoration Partnership to help with the Deer Island Restoration Project. more info |
| Bonnet Carre Spillway needs to be put to work for wetlands restoration From LaPlace south the river will flow past communities dying of a disease I'll call SDC - Starving Delta Complex. We're sinking below sea level because the deltas we're built on have been starved of the river-borne sediment that created and maintained them. The medicine to treat that disease -- silt -- is always right there in the river, and in the next few months it will be arriving in volumes large enough to extend the lives of many of those communities. more info |
| Learn more about the Gray triggerfish Like all its kin in the Balistidae family, the gray triggerfish has three spines on its first dorsal fin. When threatened, the fish erects the first spine, which is locked in place by the second spine. Then the fish depresses the second spine, which acts as a trigger and unlocks the first spine, hence, triggerfish. more info |
| Dolphins' Health Shed Light on Human and Ocean Health A panel of governmental, academic and non-profit scientists speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) unveiled research suggesting that diseases found in dolphins are similar to human diseases and can provide clues into how human health might be affected by exposure to contaminated coastal water or seafood. more info |
| Marine Census of Bizarre Sea Creatures Near Completion From pole to pole, surface to frigid depths, researchers have discovered thousands of new ocean creatures in a decade-long effort now nearing completion, and there may still be several times more strange creatures to be found, leaders of the Census of Marine Life reported Thursday. more info |
| Statement of Lisa P. Jackson Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Environmentalism is a conversation that we all must have because it is about protecting people in the places they live, work and raise families. In FY 2011, the Agency is focused on expanding the conversation to include new stakeholders and involve communities in more direct ways. Over the years, EPA has worked to prevent pollution at the source and promoted the principles of responsible environmental stewardship, sustainability, and innovation. EPA works to improve and encourage sustainable practices and help businesses and communities move beyond compliance to become partners in protecting natural resources, managing materials more wisely, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and improving the environment and public health. more info |
| Coral reefs form on 'ancient template' Their distinctive appearance can be seen clearly in satellite images of the region and has its origin in seabed erosion thousands of years ago. The scientists say the corals have simply adopted and accentuated the pattern created in once-exposed rock moulded by heavy rains. more info |
| Sound maps reveal whales and noise pollution Land areas are not the only places getting busier: so too are the oceans, says a Cornell researcher who uses underwater recorders to create animated maps of the oceans' noise. more info |
| Nasty, nurturing nitrogen When fixed nitrogen seeps into groundwater or is leached away by runoff, it can pollute large water bodies, producing vast blooms of algae stimulated by the nutrient surplus. As bacteria devour sinking, dying algae, they also use up the water column’s oxygen supply. Without oxygen, fish and crustaceans cannot survive, and the food web collapses. In the Gulf of Mexico, agricultural runoff draining through the Mississippi River has produced a “dead zone” the size of Connecticut, destroying fisheries and livelihoods more info |
| Climate Change Drives Rare Turtles From Breeding Grounds Loggerhead turtles, named after their large head and powerful jaws, are also found in the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and along the southeastern coast of North America and the Mediterranean Sea. more info |
| Missouri River management discussion exposes rival priorities The Missouri River should continue to be managed to ensure the free flow of barge traffic down its length and along the Mississippi River to New Orleans, officials representing towboat operators said at a public hearing in Kenner Tuesday night. But the Army Corps of Engineers also should take steps to liberate sediment caught behind six major dams along the Missouri so it can flow downstream and be used to rebuild Louisiana's rapidly disappearing wetlands, said a Louisiana state official and several environmentalists. And it also should assist in reducing nutrients, especially agricultural nitrogen and phosphorus, that enter the Mississippi and then the Gulf of Mexico, creating an annual springtime low-oxygen dead zone off Louisiana's coast, they said. more info |
| Dead Pigs Shed Light on Ocean Dead Zones Pig cadavers dumped on the ocean floor are helping researchers understand how animals can cope in low-oxygen zones. more info |
| Sperm Whales Team Up To Corral Squid Evidence showed that the whales stayed close together over several months in and around the Gulf of Mexico. But when the animals made their dives to hunt for food their behavior varied with each dive. more info |
| Levees are a difficult priority The ongoing effort to build the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane-protection system is both a victim of coastal erosion and a critical reminder that protection means much more than levees. more info |
| Research reminds us to be ready The controversial scheme for setting carbon emission limits for point-source polluters, and allowing polluters to trade any unused room under the cap, is predicted to work mischief on Louisiana's petrochemical industry. If the panel of experts is right, the Louisiana coast won't have as many hurricanes to worry about. But those that do reach the coast are likely to be doozies. more info |
| Marine Scientist Finds 'Little Ice Age' Had Dramatic Effect on Gulf Using deep-sea sediment samples pulled from below the gulf floor, climate change researcher Julie Richey has been able to reconstruct what happened to temperatures on the gulf’s surface. Her discovery: the Gulf of Mexico cooled 2 to 3-degrees during the Little Ice Age, a much more dramatic effect that suggests the region may be more sensitive to climate change than scientists expected. more info |
| Beware red-tide remedies A better approach for now is to encourage local, state and federal controls on fertilizer use and storm-water runoff, both of which have been shown to fuel the growth of red tide blooms. more info |
| Levee director showcases fading coast Barrier islands are disappearing and levees are more exposed to open water and the Gulf of Mexico as Terrebonne’s coast rapidly deteriorates. more info |
| BIG RIVER: Sequel to award-winning documentary, "King Corn" debuts The floods of 2008 brought the creators of "King Corn" back to Iowa -- curious about where the waters would carry all the additives they had sprayed on their crop. They trace them from country streams, all the way to the Big River itself. The results are disturbing -- a giant "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico caused by fertilizer run-off -- much of it from Iowa farms. more info |
| Church group taking 10th Gulf Coast service mission Eleven people are scheduled for the week-long trip. As many as 20 people have gone in the past to Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. One trip was to Bayou Le Batre, Ala., where the fictional character Forrest Gump had his shrimp boat. Unfortunately, the destruction there was very real. more info |
| Decision to list loggerheads as endangered delayed until March A decision on whether to move forward with listing loggerhead sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico as an endangered species has been postponed until March. more info |
| FWC Wraps Up Two-Day Meeting In Apalachicola The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) waded through numerous high-profile issues during its meeting in Apalachicola Wednesday and Thursday. more info |
| Missouri River dams affect Louisiana wetlands When bad things happen along the Mississippi River in Louisiana, experts sometimes blame poor management of the Missouri River, which contributes as much as 47 percent of the Mississippi's water during flood periods. more info |
| In South Padre, a beach full o’ jellyfish Update: Monday morning, jellyfish were still washing up, but the surf had calmed and there weren’t nearly as many of them. A 15-foot tree had washed up the night before, too, minus its limbs. Things are calmer now. more info |
| New levees will be tested by encroaching Gulf As land in lower Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes washes into the Gulf of Mexico, the levee systems that are planned to protect bayou communities will have to fight their own war against erosion. more info |
| The vaquita, an endangered species According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the rate of species extinction is 100-1,000 times higher than natural due to human activities. Read more: https://www.economicvoice.com/the-vaquita-an-endangered-species/5007032#ixzz0gJItBY90 more info |
| ‘Serpent’ footage captured by LSU LSU’s Mark Benfield has spent much time the last few years in the Gulf of Mexico recording rare and often unprecedented footage of deep-sea biology such as sea-serpentlike fish to giant jellyfish. more info |
| Statement From Dr. Jane Lubchenco on the Death of Sam D. Hamilton Sam was, above all, a true champion of wildlife conservation. Those of us who worked with Sam on restoration efforts in the Florida Everglades and the Gulf of Mexico greatly appreciated his passion, integrity, knowledge and devotion to conservation issues and to people. His unique ability to work across agencies and with diverse stakeholders to craft meaningful solutions to challenging problems was legendary. It will surely be a part of his legacy and a model for all of us. more info |
| Dauphin Island Sea Lab announces summer programs The Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL) is offering an extensive array of summer marine science programs. Middle and high school students, college and graduate students and K-12 teachers are encouraged to enroll in one of the programs they say offers excellence in education with an ideal location for studying and interacting with marine life. more info |
| Studying storm surge risks Even without rising sea levels, a quarter of the population could be in the flooded areas if a Category 3 hurricane hit during high tide. more info |
| Cold snap killing Florida's coral reefs The unusually chilly weather so far this year has seen sea temperatures plummet in southern Florida -- a fatal development for the coral, which dies when exposed for an extended time to temperatures below 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit). more info |
| Finding red tide answers After years of study, scientists may finally be nearing breakthroughs on remedies for noxious red tides, with the potential to save manatees, detoxify shellfish beds and protect the tourism industry. more info |
| Treaty signed to protect endangered sharks More than 100 nations signed a U.N.-supported wildlife treaty Tuesday designed to protect shark species threatened with extinction. Environmental studies show shark populations collapsed in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean Sea by 90 percent and by 75 percent in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean during a 15-year span. more info |
| 1,000 strong at ‘Hands Across the Sand’ on St. Pete Beach Our experience with the three ‘Hands Across the Sand’ locations on St. Pete Beach, from the public beach to the Sirata Beach Resort and past the Tradewinds Resort, was thrilling. Hundreds of participants at both the Sirata and Tradewinds were able to link. We reached out to the public beach to the south, and could have stretched down to the public beach site with a few bullhorns to stretch the crowd apart more info |
| The Carbon Cycle Before Humans Geoengineering -- deliberate manipulation of the Earth's climate to slow or reverse global warming -- has gained a foothold in the climate change discussion. But before effective action can be taken, the Earth's natural biogeochemical cycles must be better understood. more info |
| Bayou Lafourche, ‘the longest Main Street in the world’ It’s an apt nickname when you consider the 65 miles of communities stretching along the bayou from Donaldsonville to Leeville. Most of Lafourche and Assumption parishes’ communities settled primarily along the bayou for its transportation possibilities, fishing, farming and fresh water. more info |
| Overfishing Threatens Key Species in Mexico MEXICO CITY – The species of fish and shellfish most consumed in Mexico “are at risk” due to overfishing, according to Greenpeace, which presented Tuesday a list of the ones that are most endangered. Red snapper, shrimp, sardines, sharks, rays, tuna and groupers from the Gulf of Mexico, salmon from the Atlantic and grey mullet are all on the Red List prepared by the environmental organization. more info |
| Sea Levels Erratic During Latest Ice Age Studies at a handful of sites worldwide have noted that sea level reached an exceedingly brief and similarly enigmatic high point around 81,000 years ago, says Dorale. Those results have been controversial and, for the most part, have been “politely ignored because they don’t fit the presumed pattern” of how ice ages develop and progress, he says. more info |
| Snorkelers could get place to kick their fins A proposal to install three near-shore snorkeling reefs is in the works, according to W.A. "Buck" Lee, executive director of the Santa Rosa Island Authority, and Robert Turpin, manager of Escambia's Marine Resources Division. more info |
| Maimed sharks show up on national seashore Six dead, mutilated sharks found with their fins cut off on the Padre Island National Seashore likely were caught illegally by offshore commercial fishermen, maimed and dumped overboard to die, a local conservationist said. more info |
| 'Hands Across The Sand' Event Open To Everyone This Saturday On Saturday, Feb. 13th the Citizens of Florida will have an opportunity to show their opposition to oil drilling as close as 3 to 10 miles off our coast. This movement will be made of people of all walks of life and will cross political affiliations. This movement is not about politics; it is about protection of our shoreline, our tourism, our valuable properties and our way of life. Let us share our knowledge, energies and passion for protecting our waterways and beaches from the devastating effects of oil drilling. more info |
| Mobile classroom features sea creatures The Dauphin Island Sea Lab visited Russellville this week to teach the landlocked students about marine biology. more info |
| Excessive Rain Brings Attention to Mobile’s Drainage Problems When District 2 City Councilman William Carroll drove to St. Dominic’s School on Burma Road about a week ago, he noticed one particular leg of the Spencer Branch drainage ditch was overwhelmingly deteriorated. more info |
| 5 Questions on Engagement Nutrients: Ray will work closely with the NOAA Gulf of Mexico Regional Collaboration Team. She also will work with the Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) and Master Gardeners to implement a social marketing plan about residential fertilizer application. Along with the GOMA Nutrients Team, she will help develop an exchange program involving NOAA constituents in the Corn Belt states. more info |
| Ocean Pollutants May Be Cause of Increasing Cancers of Ocean Mammals It is thought that toxins absorb into algae blooms, which then move through the food chain through phytoplankton and on to a copepod, which may eat an extremely high population of polluted phytoplankton. Algae blooms themselves are, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “vitally important to marine and fresh-water ecosystems and most species of algae are not harmful.” However, when algal blooms become harmful algal blooms (HABs) they can “negatively impact organisms in a variety of ways that can range from cell and tissue damage to organism death,” according to a study from the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. more info |
| Vancleave students represent spirit of Ocean Sciences Bowl "We're looking at (the participants) to be our future ocean scientists," said regional coordinator Sam Clardy, a graduate student at the Gulf Coast Research Lab who coordinates the undergraduate field courses held each summer. more info |
| Obama knows wetlands threat The announcement by the White House that funds to restore America's WETLAND in coastal Louisiana are included in the president's proposed 2011 budget is historically significant. more info |
| 20,000 striped bass released along coast About 20,000 striped bass have been released along the coast as part of program to study and restore the fish to the coastal waters.The fish are native to the Gulf of Mexico and inland rivers, said Dave Rose, interim hatchery manager at the Lyman Fish Hatchery. more info |
| Watershed group hears of new federal initiative The Mississippi River Basin Healthy Waters Initiative involves 41 watersheds in 12 states to help landowners start projects to avoid, control, and trap nutrient runoff, improve wildlife habitat while maintaining farm productivity. more info |
| Environmental concerns slow Tarpon Springs’ water project Concerns about the environment have stalled Tarpon Springs’ $45 million water project, the St. Petersburg Times reported. more info |
| Tall ships sail into Ingleside July 1-5 Four tall ships from South America, Mexico and the U.S. will converge at Naval Station Ingleside during Fourth of July weekend. A five-day festival to celebrate Latin and North American independence is being planned. more info |
| Photography Times: Seagull in Flight It was Thanksgiving, and I was visiting South Padre Island, strolling on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico. The beach wasn’t crowded, but the hundreds of Seagulls made up for it. Camera in hand, I walked across the waters looking for the best position to catch shots of the Seagulls. more info |
| Learning What's Under The Sea The Dauphin Island Sea Lab is taking kids 20,000 leagues under the sea. Giving students the opportunity to meet some unusual creatures. more info |
| Students Explore Marine Life and Career Possibilities Ashford High School students traveled into the depths of the ocean this morning with a little help from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab. The BayMobile and Touch Lab visited campus to open the children's eyes to the benefits of marine life. more info |
| DISL Researcher Conducts Shark Dissection Marcus Drymon conducted a shark dissection at Carrolton High (WTVY – CBS) more info |
| Baymobile visits Sycamore Elementary On Thursday Sycamore Elementary School received a visit by Dauphin Island Sea Lab’s traveling touch lab, the Baymobile. For two weeks per month, the Baymobile visits various schools in Alabama to teach students about ocean life and environmental issues more info |
| Environmental programs present updates at GCRC&D meeting Lee Yokel, who has been working with the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, a partnership of the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, that aims at enhancing the ecological and economic health of the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| New Federal Climate Change Agency Forming Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, planned to announce Monday that NOAA will set up the new Climate Service to operate in tandem with NOAA's National Weather Service and National Ocean Service. more info |
| Ocean Science Gets Big Boost in 2011 Budget But now Lubchenco has made her move, and the agency is poised for a huge investment in science. Yesterday's proposed 14% increase, to $5.5 billion, for the agency as a whole would be the largest increase in NOAA's budget in a decade. Research efforts at the agency get a 7% increase overall, to $522 million; big winners include earth-system modeling, research on marine pathogens, and studies related to ocean acidification. Each reflects priorities that go beyond the agency's bread-and-butter work of regulating fisheries and monitoring weather. Overall, climate work at the Department of Commerce, most of which is at NOAA, would rise by 21% under the new budget. more info |
| Hurricane Bowl inspires high school students to become scientists OCEAN SPRINGS, MS (WLOX) - On Saturday, dozens of teenagers put their brains to the test. High school students from Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Louisiana were in Ocean Springs for the 2010 Hurricane Bowl. more info |
| NOAA Grant Proposal Could Launch Marine Zoning The White House released a fiscal 2011 budget proposal this week that includes $20 million in grants for regional ocean partnerships. The competitive grants would support planning for marine zoning. more info |
| What can Oceans Gain from Freshwater WQT Schemes? Water quality trading (WQT) schemes have helped reduce pollution in rivers and lakes by paying farmers to adopt sustainable land-use practices, but no such schemes exist in oceans. Ecosystem Marketplace examines the potential for expanding freshwater WQT schemes to the ocean – and the challenges such expansion would face. more info |
| Rescued baby dolphin to get new home A baby dolphin rescued from the Gulf of Mexico is about to have a new home. Donley the dolphin has been living in Galveston while being nursed back to health. He will soon head to SeaWorld in San Antonio. Though his rehab was a success, Donley lacks survival skills his mother would have taught him, so he is now deemed non-releasable and will soon be adopted by SeaWorld of Texas in San Antonio. While there are no plans for Donley to be on display, his caretakers say he'll enjoy making new friends. more info |
| Join hands to prevent Gulf drilling On Feb. 13, at 1:30 p.m., thousands of Florida citizens, business people and activists plan to unite under the banner of "Hands Across the Sand" to demonstrate their objection to oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Participants in this statewide coastal event, stretching from Pensacola to Key West, will stand up for Florida's coastal environment and tourist economy by literally joining hands around the Sunshine State. more info |
| Bald Eagle Hurt After Crashing Into Gulf of Mexico Southwest Florida beachgoers helped save a bald eagle that crashed into the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Giant bizarre deep sea fish filmed in Gulf of Mexico Using a remotely operated vehicle, they caught a rare glimpse of the huge oarfish, perhaps the first sighting of the fish in its natural setting. "(It) provides a wonderful opportunity to learn more about life in the depths of the Gulf of Mexico. That we found an oarfish while doing so was a fantastic bonus," said Professor Benfield. more info |
| Students from around Alabama watch teacher dissect shark Students from across Alabama watched intently Wednesday afternoon as a teacher at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab cut into a bonnet head shark. more info |
| Major coastal restoration financing starts, slowly, in Barack Obama's 2011 budget plan President Barack Obama's proposed fiscal year 2011 budget includes the first $35.6 million for the Army Corps of Engineers to construct larger coastal Louisiana restoration projects, but falls far short of the money allocated to similar major environmental restoration projects elsewhere in the country. more info |
| NOAA’s Sea Grant Awards Eight ‘Climate Engagement’ Mini-Grants Gulf of Mexico Region – To present a week-long training session for local government, Sea Grant and NOAA staff on how local communities can adapt to impacts of climate change such as sea level rise, increased flooding and more extreme weather events. Following the workshop, participants will be able to continue collaborations through a discussion forum on the NOAA Coastal Storms Web site. Principal investigators: Buck Sutter, NOAA Gulf of Mexico Regional Team leader; Karl Havens, Florida Sea Grant College Program at the University of Florida; and LaDon Swann, Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium. more info |
| Program to offer certification for nature-tourism professionals Today’s wildlife enthusiasts are traveling the Gulf Coast and experiencing the natural history and culture of coastal and ocean environments. Wildlife viewing activities hold tremendous potential for stimulating local economies while celebrating natural wonders and cultural heritage. To be successful, nature-tourism experiences should provide quality opportunities to engage the public with natural resources in ways that lead to greater understanding and appreciation, while protecting and preserving the wildlife populations they are viewing. more info |
| From land to sea: Research in the Gulf of Mexico Dr. John Dunbar, an associate professor of geology at Baylor, was awarded a $115,000 grant in December from the Department of Energy to further his research on methane hydrates in the deep sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Waterway museum to note 25th anniversary Exhibits will include the history of the waterway, archaeological and environmental displays and current tourism and economic development activities. more info |
| Falling oxygen levels could increase the ocean dead zone Localised dead zones are one thing. When fertilisers are used on intensively farmed land they eventually leach from the soil, into rivers and then the sea. In the Gulf of Mexico, dead zones are created by the subsequent bloom and bust cycle. Similar situations have created more than 400 dead zones around the world. more info |
| County will help fund beach restoration on Holiday Isle County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to contribute up to $415,000 from Tourist Development Council reserve funds for the project. more info |
| ‘Safe’ Water-Based Drill Cuttings Affect Seafloor Animals Oil and gas extraction is pervasive among the coasts of the world. In many areas, such as the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of west Africa, resource exploration companies have been moving into pretty deep waters. Many rigs use water-based muds in the drilling process. It is considered to the best alternative because effects on the benthic community have been detected no further than 100 meters from a source (as to 500 and 1000 meters for synthetic and oil based muds, respectively). Drill mud is important as it keeps water pressure down, brings up drill cuttings and prevents the oil or gas from bursting up the pipes and causing damage to the rig or the workers. more info |
| Researchers warn of drilling dangers at symposium Seismic testing associated with offshore oil and gas drilling could harm Florida's $6 billion commercial and recreational fishing industry, a Florida State University researcher warned on Monday. more info |
| GREEN EDUCATION FOUNDATION AND NATIONAL GRID LAUNCH “GREEN ENERGY CHALLENGE" The Green Education Foundation (GEF), with support from National Grid, is launching its Green Energy Challenge as part of National Green Week 2010 (Feb. 1 -5, 2010). More than two million students are expected to participate in this history-making Pre K-12 environmental education campaign that couples standards based lessons with hands-on eco-challenge programs. more info |
| Gov't told to cut own greenhouse gases 28 percent Saying he wants to lead by example on global warming, President Barack Obama on Friday directed the federal government to reduce its emissions of heat-trapping gases by 28 percent in the next decade - a goal that exceeds targets for the country as a whole. more info |
| Pharmaceuticals in the Environment One of the most extensive studies of medications in streams, lakes, and rivers was conducted in 2001 by the U.S. Geological Survey. A network of 25 groundwater and 49 surface-water sources of public drinking water in 25 states and Puerto Rico was sampled and analyzed for 124 emerging contaminants. At least one emerging contaminant—including acetaminophen, steroids, hormones, codeine, antibiotics, antimicrobials, and ibuprofen—was detected in 96 percent of the samples more info |
| Coastal restoration and levees would share $600 million Louisiana expects to spend $600 million of state money on levee, coastal restoration and coastal infrastructure projects in fiscal year 2011, according to the draft coastal restoration and hurricane protection plan released Wednesday. more info |
| Crews begin debris removal, beach repair A state regulator’s $5.3 million plan to replenish the beachfront started this week when crews began pulling old septic tanks, bulkheads and other large objects from the sand. more info |
| News from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Carbon, carbon - where goes the carbon? DISL scientist helps refine the process to track its path. more info |
| Dead Manatee Washes Up In Orange Beach A property owner living on Wolf Bay near Harrison Park in Orange Beach found a dead manatee floating near a fishing pier. The man called city officials who then contacted marine biologists with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab to investigate and determine the cause of death. more info |
| Obama, Biden to direct $8 bln into high-speed rail President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will on Thursday direct $8 billion in economic stimulus funding toward a long-awaited US high-speed rail system. more info |
| Slowdown in Warming Linked to Water Vapor The study, appearing in the journal Science, points out that the concentration of water vapor in the stratosphere has dropped about 10% in the past decade, triggered by unexplained cooler temperatures at certain high altitudes above the tropics. The study concludes that in the last decade the decline in water vapor slowed the rate of rising temperatures by about 25%, thus partly negating the heat-trapping effect of increasing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. more info |
| High school students to compete in Hurricane Bowl in Ocean Springs High school students and teachers with a strong interest in marine science soon will compete in an annual regional ocean sciences bowl. About 2,000 students from more than 300 high schools in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida and Tennessee will participate. more info |
| Breathing life into wetlands The destruction of environmentally sensitive wetlands during one of the most recent and largest residential construction projects on Galveston Island galvanized Alice Anne O'Donell. She is one of a half dozen members of a Galveston Recovery Committee subcommittee that helped shape a proposed city wetlands ordinance, the latest flash point between pro-development and property rights advocates and those seeking to preserve what remains of the island's natural environment. more info |
| e-Sci for All Students with an interest in nature can attend environmentally themed classes from kindergarten through graduation in the Lafayette Parish School System’s environmental science academies. more info |
| Manatee deaths from cold a record A record 77 manatees have died statewide from cold stress through Jan. 23. The previous record of 56 was set last year. The cold has killed eight manatees in Lee County. more info |
| Research Recommends Diversified Water Portfolios for Urban Water Planning The current study is looking at how diversifying a water portfolio influences costs in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas. Their research found that cities there that purchased only permanent right saw costs around $13 million, and that they often end up needing to buy more water when drought occurs. Other cities using a mix of permanent rights, options and leases spent only $10 million a year and increased their use efficiency. Computer modeling of their suggested water portfolio diversification against the worst drought in the Lower Rio Grande Valley showed significant savings and avoided shortages. more info |
| Seagrass Comeback: a Race Against Time and Boat Propellers One of the dangers to ocean coastlines is due to loss of seagrass meadows. This results in a loss of fish and marine life habitat, a decrease in food supply and eliminates some of the ocean's carbon storage, among other problems that lead to global warming. Polluted water kills seagrass and loss of seagrass leads to lousy water quality. Then there's the trenches ripped by grounded boats and propellers in a patchwork of scars. How can we stop the destruction of this key and fragile ecosytem more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco was on hand today to mark the start of construction on NOAA’s Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center in Mobile, Ala. The facility will be the regional home to the agency’s Office of Response and Restoration - the NOAA organization charged with responding to oil spills, hazardous material releases, and marine debris. more info |
| Picture This: NOAA, Google Join Forces to Visualize Scientific Data NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and Google have signed a cooperative research and development agreement outlining how they will work together to create state-of-the-art visualizations of scientific data to illustrate how our planet works. more info |
| Port Arthur Tanker Crash-Oil Spill As much as 450,000 gallons of crude oil may have spilled at the Port of Port Arthur when two vessels collided Saturday, a U.S. Coast Guard official said, but the amount that leaked was in dispute. more info |
| USF Study Shows First Direct Evidence of Ocean Acidification The implications for sea life and the world’s food web are serious, Byrne said. When seawater becomes more acidic, lower concentrations of carbonate result. Because the protective shells of sea organisms are made of calcium and carbonate, more acidic waters make it more difficult for many organisms to make their shells and thrive. more info |
| Studies Predict Fewer but Stronger Hurricanes While the Science paper looked at hurricane activity and strength, the second paper looked at an entirely different question. Much of a hurricane's destructive power comes not from winds or rain but from the bulge of seawater it pushes ahead of it and crashes into shore. If sea level rises, these so-called storm surges become more damaging. In order to put a dollar figure on how much more damaging, a group of scientists looked at climate models, hurricane databases and so-called catastrophe models that evaluate the potential destruction of storms in specific places. Then the researchers wove the information together to project what hurricane-driven storm surges might cost Americans 20 years from now. Read more: https://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1955838,00.html#ixzz0de7j0ldi more info |
| Geoscientists Drill Deepest Hole in Ocean Crust For eight weeks beginning in November 2009, off the coast of New Zealand, an international team of 34 scientists and 92 support staff and crew on board the scientific drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution (JR) were at work investigating sea-level change in a region called the Canterbury Basin. It proved to be a record-breaking trip for the research team. more info |
| NOAA may prohibit Navy sonar testing at marine mammal 'hot spots' "The big question now," he added, "is whether the Obama administration has the will to actually bring about a proper balance between national security and environmental protection." more info |
| 'Living driveway' adds a natural look With environmental concerns becoming a priority, grass in the driveway is making a comeback. This time around, it's high fashion. more info |
| Rare sea turtle saved from cold on Dauphin Island With 37-degree water pouring into the bay from the Mobile River during January's big chill, a small, critically endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtle washed ashore on Dauphin Island. more info |
| NOAA Gives Navy Marine Mammal Protection Measures NOAA’s Fisheries Service has issued regulations and a letter of authorization to the U.S. Navy that includes measures to protect marine mammals while conducting naval exercises off the Gulf of Mexico coast. The regulations require the Navy to implement measures designed to protect and minimize effects to marine mammals. more info |
| Beach renourishment debate enters another decade One of the biggest objections to the proposed Fort Myers Beach nourishment project is that nourished beaches don’t last forever. more info |
| Florida Nonprofits Received Nearly $1.9 Million in 2009 From the Verizon Foundation •The Florida Aquarium, Tampa -- $24,500 to support SEAS (Science Education at Sea), a multipronged approach to promote excellence in science education. The grant provides K-12 teachers with increased content knowledge and dynamic curriculum, and also enhances the classroom experience. The project includes one-day workshops on marine science (60 teachers total); a week-long summer institute for elementary teachers on marine sciences, with an emphasis on fieldwork; and an integration of Thinkfinity's resources into Aquarium programs for more than 500 teachers. The curriculum focuses on the Florida water story and incorporates the learning objectives of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). The elementary, middle and high school teachers are able to participate at no cost to them or to their school districts. more info |
| The socioeconomic costs of ocean acidification “We’re working on ways to put a dollar value on the potential losses that could occur due to ocean acidification, so we can go to policy-makers and say, ‘It’s going to cost X many dollars in lost jobs and lost fishing revenues, but if we do Y money’s worth of planning now, we’ll be in good shape,’ ” she said. more info |
| Coastal conservation group set for raffle Tickets now are available for the Brazoria County Chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association 2010 banquet boat raffle. more info |
| Coastal restoration effort moves into higher gear Embarking on its 20th year of building small to moderate-sized coastal restoration projects, the Breaux Act Task Force on Wednesday added four new projects to its list of 144 active projects and moved five more from design into construction. more info |
| Isle de Jean Charles Indians fight over heritage As Isle de Jean Charles slowly disintegrates into the Gulf of Mexico, residents have struggled with the decision to stay or go. Each incoming hurricane rips roofs off of homes and peels families that are unwilling or unable to rebuild away from the ancestral homeland. The ongoing diaspora has forced the leaders of the community to figure out a way to maintain both a community and an identity for the Native Americans that inhabit the island. more info |
| Lecture on shifts in ecosystems The University of Iowa Museum of Natural History will begin its spring semester UI Explorers Lecture Series at 7 p.m. today with a free presentation by Nandita Basu titled "Exploring Emergent Hydrologic and Biogeochemical Patterns in Catchments Across Scales." more info |
| Red grouper revealed to be an architect of the ocean floor The study was led by Felicia C. Coleman, who is director of Florida State University's Coastal and Marine Laboratory. According to Dr. Coleman, “the red grouper's sandy architecture is a monument to the interconnectedness of species and the vital role such connections play in the structural and functional diversity of the ocean.” Further, Dr. Coleman suggests the structures the red groupers create attract beneficial parasitic species, as well as a variety of prey species for the red grouper. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council to Meet in Mobile, Alabama A report on the Gulf of Mexico Alliance Activities will be presented from 1:45 – 2:15, followed by Public testimony. Testimony will be accepted on Exempted Fishing Permits (if any) and a Final Regulatory Amendment for Reef Fish Total Allowable Catch. The Council will also hold an open public comment session to give members of the public an opportunity to address the Council on fishery issues that may not be on the agenda. Open public comment will be taken immediately following public testimony until 4:15 p.m. Comment cards must be completed before the start of public testimony. more info |
| Attending Special Conservation Meeting Could Be Worth Your Time Federal officials hope that improving the conservation ethic within the watersheds feeding the Mississippi River Basin will cut down on the amount of sediments and nutrients that reach the Gulf of Mexico each year. For many years, environmentalists have warned about the dangers of what's called hypoxia. In layman's terms, it's a condition whereby waters have more nutrients than desired, and a shortage of oxygen develops, affecting aquatic life within the watershed. Some claim that nutrients, particularly nitrogen, entering in tributaries in the Midwest and northern reaches of the Mississippi Basin contribute to the problem. Meetings are slated for Thursday, Jan 21 at the Wabash REMC in Wabash and Tuesday, Jan 26 at the Bartholomew County Extension Office in Columbus. Both meetings are slated to run form 9 a.m. to noon EST more info |
| Boardwalks to provide new looks for beaches Contractors started work on the $375,000 boardwalk projects last week. Both are part of Sarasota County's economic stimulus program of fast-track projects funded with the 1 percent sales surtax. more info |
| Navy Helps Release Sea Turtles Another 60 sea turtles are back in the Gulf of Mexico thanks to Naval Support Activity's Naval Surface Warfare program at Panama City Beach. more info |
| Fish: Health Benefits and Dangers In conclusion, if you are a health-conscious pescatarian or fish lover, it is essential to keep up with the changing seafood recommendations, sustainable seafood sources and shifting seafood restaurants with catches of day near you. more info |
| Sea turtles returned to gulf After nearly a week at Florida’s Gulfarium, 80 green sea turtles were returned to Gulf of Mexico on Friday. more info |
| Hi-Tech, Satellite-Controlled Robot 'Gliders' to Scour Ocean Depths Up to 3,280 Ft The payload of the two-metre-long yellow diving robots consists of modern electronics, sensors and high-performance batteries. With these devices the marine scientists can collect selective measurements from the ocean interior while staying ashore themselves. Moreover, the gliders not only transmit the data in real time, but they can be reached by the scientists via satellite telephone and programmed with new mission parameters. more info |
| NOAA Satellites Help Rescue 195 People in 2009 NOAA’s fleet of satellites played a vital role in the rescues of 195 people during life-threatening situations throughout the United States and its surrounding waters in 2009. In each incident, NOAA satellites pinpointed these downed pilots, shipwrecked mariners, or stranded hikers by detecting a distress signal from an emergency beacon and relaying the information to first responders on the ground. more info |
| Gordon Pass dredging project underway A big dig is underway at boaters’ main access point to Naples Bay from the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Protecting Clean Water from Nutrient Pollution – New Standard in Florida Excess phosphorus and nitrogen is a leading cause of pollution of streams and rivers nationwide. This sort of nutrient pollution comes from a variety of sources but in many cases is unregulated and leads to major problems like the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Global warming will intensify the effect of nutrients in many places as warmer water will enhance algal blooms that cause such dead zones. more info |
| Texas State Aquarium cares for sea turtles stunned by cold weather Nine sea turtles rescued from the cold along the Gulf of Mexico have died as dozens of others are cared for at the Texas State Aquarium and a rehab site. more info |
| Cold Kills More Than 100 Birds Biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are investigating the deaths of at least 100 birds. more info |
| Coral Reefs Breed New Species, Fossil Record Shows A new study out this week highlights the role that coral reefs play in evolution, adding another reason to preserve these delicate, diverse, and often beautiful ecosystems. more info |
| New Method of Measuring Ocean Carbon Dioxide Uptake An international team of scientists led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) has developed a new method of measuring the absorption of CO2 by the oceans and mapped for the first time CO2 uptake for the entire North Atlantic. more info |
| Lake O floodgates open to recharge Gulf Coast estuary The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will open floodgates on western side of Lake Okeechobee to release enough lake water into the Caloosahatchee Estuary over the next 11 days to keep the estuary healthy, officials said. more info |
| 9 rescued turtles die after Texas cold snap Nine sea turtles rescued from the cold along the Gulf of Mexico have died as dozens of others are cared for at the Texas State Aquarium and a rehab site. more info |
| Series of freezing days kills fish across Florida Fish are taking a beating, especially species more suited to tropical water temperatures, said Gary Morse, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. more info |
| 'Rare' Microbes Await Their Turn for Domination Hydrothermal vents are some of the most peculiar structures in the world today, in the sense that they are the last places you'd expect to find life in. However, this is almost always the case. Naturally, no larger, more complex creature could withstand the heat and the harsh chemicals that are emitted from the oceanic crust, but microbes thrive in this environment. In fact, they even create complex structures that can reach towering heights. Inside these mega-colonies, countless types of the microorganisms, some common, and some more exotic, live together. more info |
| Register for Science Day At Putnam by Friday Science Day is from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at Putnam Museum and IMAX Theater, Davenport. Students will learn about food webs in oceanic and Mississippi River ecosystems, do hands-on, take-home activities, tour exhibit halls including Ocean Experience featuring live aquatic specimens and see the IMAX film “Wild Ocean.” more info |
| Gulf observation system has a full year of data The credible data that is collected comes from satellites, tide gauges, ocean buoys, fishermen reports and other sources. Often, the information collected on water levels, salinity, temperatures, winds and waves isn’t compatible. That’s because there has long been a need for specialized research in the Gulf of Mexico, but the demand for a more holistic approach, along with big-picture data, is only just beginning to peak. This demand was also the catalyst to the new Integrated Ocean Observing System, which mariners, coastal managers, universities and the general public can now access for free. more info |
| Wave energy demonstration pumps being built Fabrication has begun on the large pumps that will become a wave energy demonstration off the Bryan Beach coastline, and Texas Natural Resources LLC officials expect the pilot project to come online by Earth Day. more info |
| Everglades Coalition expands its focus After the extremely wet years of 2004 and 2005, the Caloosahatchee River estuary suffered massive algal blooms caused by excess nutrients, the result of releases from Okeechobee and runoff from the land between the lake and the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| State's birthplace is home to diverse flocks It's fair to say that the bird-rich state of Texas was founded in of one of the most bird-rich areas of the country, the Columbia Bottomlands. more info |
| County must seize this golden opportunity for a beach park Time is running out for county government to give its people a sparkling beach while visitors are crammed blanket-to-towel when the bitter winter winds drive tourists to our sunny shores. This precious gift is in the heart of the Fort Myers Beach business district. more info |
| THE FUTURE OF FISHERIES? Petro said he’s possibly six months away from securing the many state and federal approvals he needs for his fish pen, a below-surface 1,000-foot diameter net surrounding an artificial reef two to three miles off-shore in the Gulf of Mexico in 60- to 70-foot depths. more info |
| Weather puts big chill on Fla. tourism The cold snap has put a major chill on Florida's biggest industry, as tourists are staying away in droves, business owners say. more info |
| Seawall repairs should be done by April Repairs to the hurricane-damaged seawall and rock groins should be finished by April 1 — more than 18 months after Hurricane Ike struck Galveston, officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said. more info |
| Fla.'s big chill: Manatees huddle, turtles stunned More than 200 manatees are wintering in a balmy canal outside a power plant, the latest exotic Florida animals seeking refuge from the state's frigid temperatures. more info |
| Why We Find It So Hard to Act Against Climate Change It should be easy to deal with climate change. There is a strong scientific consensus supported by very sound data; consensus across much of the religious and political spectrum and among businesses including the largest corporations in the world. The vast majority of people claim to be concerned. The targets are challenging, but they are achievable with existing technologies, and there would be plentiful profits and employment available for those who took up the challenge. more info |
| Oceans forum set Thursday in Naples A Florida Ocean Forum is planned for 7 p.m. Thursday at the La Playa Beach and Golf Resort in North Naples. more info |
| The geyser fields of Florida As the good citizens of Gulf Blvd ate their way through the holidays, there was a great assembly of 34 dolphins in John’s Pass doing the same thing. Their gathering was clearly about food this time, which is not always the case, as hordes of mysterious foodstuffs were swept from the Gulf of Mexico into the Intercoastal waters. more info |
| Lizzy the Leatherback returned to Gulf A rare leatherback turtle rescued in Southwest Florida slid from a boat into 66 feet of Gulf water Thursday, surfaced a couple of times for some good deep breaths and kept on going. more info |
| The cold is stressing them out The waters in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast have gotten so cold, sea turtles are washing ashore, paralyzed by cold they are not used to. more info |
| State puts central sewer for island on hold Blitch said he allocated funds for the groundwater testing from a grant to ANERR by the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, a partnership of the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, that seeks to enhance the ecological and economic health of the Gulf. more info |
| Dead fish provoke alert around Gulf of Mexico Mexican officials issued a vigilance alert Tuesday after thousands of dead fish washed up on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Investigators were studying the fish to determine the cause of the deaths, said Aurora Parissi, director of Veracruz state public health laboratory. more info |
| MMS study probes mystery of loop current Dr. Lugo-Fernandez noted that a method to transmit significant energy in the form of heat to deep water in the GOM during the 2005 hurricane season was observed during this study. As sea levels rise near the center of tropical storms, the resulting higher pressure causes a small but measurable increase in temperature at all water depths. He explained that "Simply due to the large number of storm occurrences within the GOM, these findings represent an important process for transmitting energy to the deepwater." more info |
| Government forecaster to give earlier storm alerts The Miami-based hurricane center said the earlier watches and warnings for tropical storms and hurricanes would give the public and operators of oil rig platforms in the Gulf of Mexico more time to prepare for adverse weather conditions. more info |
| A Tale of Two Flagella They are the best of beings; they are the worst of beings. They are animals; they are plants. They are saviors; they are killers. They are predators; they are parasites. They are, in short, dinoflagellates — a large, diverse and eccentric group of (usually) single-celled organisms that are as celebrated as they are feared. And I hereby nominate them for Life-form of the Month: January. more info |
| Farmers fear fallout from film, activists Using flashbacks, they recall the herbicides and fertilizer they applied to that plot. They set off downstream to see what happens after chemicals run off the fields. Along the way, the filmmakers stop at a nitrate-removal plant in Des Moines that cleans the water for drinking. At the Gulf, a shrimper tells them that pollution from Iowa cornfields is partly to blame for reducing his catch. more info |
| Blessing of the Fleet brings hope for Tarpon Springs spongers The Blessing of the Fleet, which is part of this week's 104th Epiphany celebration, is said to keep sponge boats, fishermen and their crews safe while they are at sea. The blessing is also to help the sea merchants have prosperous journeys. more info |
| Can we save the Gulf of Mexico? There exist regional models of ocean governance that hold great potential to achieve the stated goals of a national ocean policy. The Gulf States Alliance is one such model that has been emulated in other coastal regions and is the ideal means to both craft and implement national policies into regionally effective ones. more info |
| Wildlife drama plays out on pristine Panhandle island The federal biologist came across the scene a few years ago in the Florida Panhandle, on an island where antlered creatures five times bigger than native deer spend their days munching lily pads — until they are devoured by a top predator once declared extinct. more info |
| 10 exciting ways to explore and experience the Gulf Coast in ’10 How can I experience the Gulf Coast in a new or exciting way? more info |
| Tarpon sets sights on first Manatee Celebration Day Tarpon Springs will pay homage to the gentle marine mammals who seek the warmer waters of Spring Bayou each winter during its first Manatee Celebration Day. more info |
| Scientists discover and capture images and video of erupting deep sea volcano An impressive display of the earth’s power was witnessed by scientists 4,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Scientists discovered the deepest erupting volcano yet and aided by the extreme pressure at that depth, they were able to send a remote controlled submersible within feet of it as it erupted. more info |
| Earth Top 10: No. 4 - Katrina & Hurricane Science Does global warming mean more Katrinas? This question spawned several new investigations into a line of research that was first suggested by MIT meteorologist Kerry Emanuel in a study published a month before Katrina. His data showed an increase in the strength of North Atlantic hurricanes in the past 30 years. more info |
| Bill banning use of offshore platforms for fish farms could affect Gulf aquaculture Many consider the presence of 4,000 such platforms the Gulf's primary advantage as an aquaculture destination. Proponents have touted them as perfect workstations, providing a place to secure fish cages, quarter crewmembers, and store fish food and medications. more info |
| Protect Florida's fish Florida's signature fish, red snapper, has been overharvested for years in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Grouper hasn't fared a whole lot better. But recent changes to the law governing federal fisheries have had the salutary effect of improving at least the red snapper's recovery. more info |
| $3M grant to help rebuild decimated coastal reefs When the former menhaden fishing vessel the Great Wicomico settled to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico last month 13 miles south of Horn Island, it became part of an effort to rebuild Mississippi's artificial reefs devastated during Hurricane Katrina. more info |
| Hurricane Grants Target Gulf Marine, Rail The U.S. Commerce Department is sending grant money to port and rail projects in states around the Gulf of Mexico to help the region’s recovery efforts from two hurricanes in 2008. more info |
| Bill Gates backs 'Salter Sink,' an attempt to tame hurricanes Called the Salter Sink, the professor has designed a floating structure of used tires (to reduce cost) about the size of a football field. The giant raft would support a thin plastic tube 200 meters in length that would suck up cooler waters from deep in the ocean, mix it with the warm surface waters and, theoretically, lower the temperature of the ocean surface. more info |
| Chilly dip in Gulf $18K-plus for charity It was the second Shamrock Shiver Charity Plunge at noon on the first day of the year. Clancy’s Irish Pub and Grill, 6218 Cortez Road, organized the benefit for Caring for Children Charities. more info |
| Audubon Society considers allowing oil and gas drilling at sanctuary in Vermilion Parish But preservation efforts by groups such as Audubon have been no match for coastal erosion: Louisiana loses as much as 35 square miles of wetlands each year, an environmental crisis caused largely by the leveeing of the Mississippi River and the dredging of navigation canals to reach the state's bubbling oilfields and ports. That is why Audubon is considering a measure that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago: opening the sanctuary to oil and gas drilling. Profits would be used to pay for marsh restoration, multimillion-dollar land-building projects that Audubon cannot now afford. more info |
| Tropicalia Wildfile: Pink meanie jellyfish In September 2008, 30 miles off Sanibel, documentary filmmaker Pat Clyne of Key West and two The News-Press divers made the first documented observation of pink meanies in Southwest Florida waters - Clyne's video of the event appeared on dozens of newspaper and TV Web sites across the country. more info |
| Man on 5,000-mile kayak adventure encounters hardships Stachovak, 34, is going down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, plans to go east across the Gulf of Mexico, paddle around the Florida peninsula, then up the east coast to New York City where he will paddle canals to Lake Ontario, then follow the Great Lakes to Green Bay and return to his starting point. more info |
| Hundreds plunge in Gulf of Mexico for New Year's Polar Bear Dip About 1,500 people gathered at the edge of the Gulf at noon Friday for the 26th annual Polar Bear Dip at the Flora-Bama Lounge on the Alabama-Florida state line. more info |
| Panama Canal expansion plan has Gulf ports racing for potential new business With the recession showing signs of ebbing, Gulf of Mexico ports hope hundreds of millions of dollars in expansion projects proposed before the downturn will help them capture more trade as the world economy recovers. more info |
| North Deer Island Partners honored by presidential award On Dec. 2 the North Deer Island Protection Team received the Coastal America Partnership Award—the only environmental award of its kind given by the President of the United States—for their efforts to protect the most important colonial water bird rookery on the upper Texas coast: North Deer Island. more info |
| Family Interactive Center gets thumbs up from Pascagoula parents, students Glass' 9-year-old son, Johnovan Glass, however, was impressed with the wetlands room, where children can wear a life jacket and hop inside a boat, or they can stay on dry land and camp out in a tent. more info |
| Mary C. director reports year of growth Event highlights included a mass field trip for students to attend a puppet show at the center, prominent independent films, repeat performances from a world-class Irish band, the Saturday Art Market on the grounds and a week-long arts and science camp with field trips, which was free to 100 students. more info |
| The octopus: One of Earth's smartest Octopuses are so smart they tip-toe around awkwardly on the ocean floor hoarding coconut shells to later build themselves a fort to defend themselves from predators, a new Australian study has found. more info |
| Obama's Oceans Policy Emphasizes Science The new report lays out how regional planning bodies would develop and implement so-called “marine spatial plans” using an ecosystem-based approach that considers cumulative impacts. Nancy Sutley, who chairs the task force and the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said at a press conference yesterday that all the regional bodies should have the planning process in place within 5 years. NOC would review these plans and also try to resolve disputes between users. more info |
| Why is Crystal River green? Not so long ago, the fresh water estuary, where fish cast shadows onto pristine light-colored sand below, was aptly named for its six mile run to the Gulf of Mexico. Today, however, the water is neither “crystal” nor the flow anything like a “river,” more like a thick brownish dark green soup with slow moving floating algae. more info |
| Governors of Ala., Ga., Fla. predict water pact The governors of Georgia, Alabama and Florida predict that they will have a solution to their three-state water sharing dispute before they leave office in one year. Emerging from a private meeting Tuesday that lasted nearly two hours, they provided no details on what a solution might look like. But they all expressed optimism that after nearly two decades, a solution can be found. more info |
| Zoning the Ocean May Help Endangered Whales to Recover Scientists in Scotland, Canada and the US have proposed a new method to identify priority areas for whale conservation. The team's findings, published in Animal Conservation, suggest that even small protected areas, identified through feeding behaviour, can benefit highly mobile marine predators such as killer whales. more info |
| Report tells of ‘Intracoastal’ waterway project With no railroads or highways to move people and merchandise, early residents of coastal parishes like Terrebonne found ways to use natural waterways for transportation. more info |
| Alabama's environmental chief Trey Glenn resigns Trey Glenn today resigned as director of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. more info |
| Drainage project targets large laterals, not neighborhoods The main county drain that carries floodwater to the Gulf of Mexico is just 2.5 miles north of the Delta. more info |
| Lawsuit over whooping crane deaths Texas has had a drought since 2007 and increased water removal, authorized by the TCEQ, has resulted in less fresh water and higher salinity levels, TAP claims. A lack of fresh water flowing into the bay where whooping cranes live means higher levels of salt water from the Gulf of Mexico. The high salinity levels mean blue crabs – the whooping cranes’ major food source – did not reproduce, leaving the cranes without food for much of the winter season. TAP wants a water management plan determining new priorities for water usage, setting flow standards and accounting for all water uses and needs in the basin. more info |
| Water Wars: Governors of Three States Meet Tuesday afternoon, Crist met with Alabama Gov. Bob Riley and Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue in Montgomery to discuss the 18-year water wars among the states. more info |
| Adaptable crabs lose a clubber, grow a pincher With strict fishery management, the crustaceans have managed to stay vibrant in the Gulf of Mexico despite consistently being pound-for-pound one of the most lucrative catches in Florida. Stone crabs are one of the few crustaceans from which the part we eat happens to be a part that naturally regenerates. more info |
| Red tide prompts warning for dogs Authorities are telling visitors to South Padre Island and other area beaches to keep their dogs out of the water. more info |
| Senate Climate Road Map Caters to Nuclear, Offshore Drilling Proponents Graham has said the senators should examine drilling provisions endorsed by the bipartisan "Gang of 10" -- which later grew to 20 -- last year. That plan called for shrinking the no-leasing buffer in the eastern Gulf of Mexico to 50 miles. It would also allow drilling greater than 50 miles off the coasts of Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia if those states allowed it (E&E Daily, Oct. 9). more info |
| Jindal:?‘We don't need studies, we need... a partnership' In a move that marked a shift in statewide levee politics, Gov. Bobby Jindal and a wide-ranging consortium of local officials held a conference to tout recent and future coastal restoration efforts, and asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to expedite the stalled Morganza-to-the-Gulf levee system. more info |
| Local officials address key issues with Legislative Delegation Legislators were asked to consider a variety of issues at a meeting at Edison State College, from opposing unfunded state mandates in a tight budget year to protecting local waterways by standing against offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico more info |
| For oystermen, more summer harvest restrictions Heil stressed the new rules are a work in progress, still subject to final approval by state officials, and have nothing to do with the recent Food and Drug Administration actions to mandate, and then postpone, post-harvest processing of raw half-shell oysters from May to October. more info |
| New Standards, Designs For Protecting Coastal Houses From Storms Among the ideas being floated are a national building code, public grants to update older homes, and improved designs that can make homes more weather-resistant. more info |
| Student artwork featured in 2010 Coastal Resources calendar More than 1,600 students from Baldwin and Mobile county schools recently participated in the 7th annual Marine Resources calendar art contest held by the Marine Resources Division of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. more info |
| Treasure Island tries to calm hoteliers sick of weeds, rats City and state officials were scheduled to meet Tuesday in an attempt to head off a threatened lawsuit by beachfront hotel and motel owners who say poor beach maintenance is ruining their business. more info |
| Five facts about the Port of Houston The Port of Houston Authority operates the port's public facilities, including eight cargo terminals, and maintains the 50-mile (80-km) ship channel that connects the fourth-biggest U.S. city to the Gulf of Mexico and global markets for trade. The port is one of the largest industrial complexes in the nation and home to over 150 companies, including oil refineries, chemical plants and grain elevators. more info |
| Indian village in La. holds out against storms, rising sea, pleas to move inland The road to the island is caving in. Hurricanes are flooding homes more often. The Gulf gets closer every year. Isle de Jean Charles is at risk of disappearing under the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Sea shells beyond the sea shore The oceans are an integral part of Earth's carbon cycle, essential to moving carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the rocks. Shell-builders are themselves an important part of the cycle. When they die, they sink to the bottom, “pumping” carbon far from the atmosphere, down into the depths. If shell-builders fail to thrive, the surface bottleneck will grow more intense, and surface waters will grow more acidic yet. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Red Snapper Recovering A recent scientific update on Gulf of Mexico red snapper shows that fishermen may be able to catch more fish next year. This news shows that when fishermen follow management measures based on science, they lead to rebuilding of fish populations and increased opportunities to fish. more info |
| New Discoveries Could Improve Climate Projections New discoveries about the deep ocean’s temperature variability and circulation system could help improve projections of future climate conditions. more info |
| NOAA Spending Bill Orders New Study of National Climate Service The omnibus appropriations bill up for a vote today in the House directs the federal government to take another look at how it should organize a planned new National Climate Service. more info |
| GE wins $1.4 billion wind farm contract Of course, that comment depends on how you decide to calculate what constitutes a single farm and whether it matters if the wind farm is on land or in the ocean. In July, for example, Texas announced plans to host two 750-megawatt offshore wind farms in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Climate change bill gets on a bipartisan path Senators negotiating a bipartisan climate change bill on Thursday unveiled the broad outlines of their plan to combine greenhouse gas limits with expanded offshore drilling, more nuclear power and protections for refiners in a bid to attract support from wary lawmakers. more info |
| Student Editorial Contest-Oil drilling off FL's Coast Florida is known for its stunning beaches and coastal attractions. However, some people think that it would be a good idea to drill for oil off its coast. This would put Florida's human population and marine species in danger. Both humans and animals are an important part of this world. Currently, discussions are being held to see whether offshore oil drilling should or should not be allowed. Oil drilling, off Florida's coast, should not be allowed. more info |
| Commerce Secretary tells Copenhagen audience the oil economy is over The world’s petroleum-based economy belongs to the past, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said here Friday. more info |
| Feds hope strategy boosts Gulf fishing The federal push for catch shares arises from concerns that traditional methods, including seasonal limits and buyouts of fishing boats, have brought only marginal recovery of fish stocks. More than 20 percent of U.S. fisheries have not been rebuilt, despite a mandate from Congress three years ago to end overfishing of all species by 2011. more info |
| HRI leadership in Gulf of Mexico regional governance The Harte Research Institute has taken a strong leadership role within GOMA. HRI's Executive Director Dr. Larry McKinney serves as the state lead to the Ecosystems Integration and Assessment (EIA) PIT. Several of HRI's Endowed Chairs including Dr. James Gibeaut, Dr. Paul Montagna, Dr. David Yoskowitz and more info |
| Public seashore possible for Lafourche A plan to open a 14-mile stretch of coast from Fourchon Beach to Grand Isle as a recreational site will go before the top state coastal board today for consideration. more info |
| LSU ichthyologist discovers new species of fish, grabs a grant "As soon as I started working here, I got on the first available research vessel that was going out to the gulf, and that turned out to be the R-V Pelican with the LUMCON Consortium that's part of the Louisiana state systems with a series of research vessels. So I went out with them. Just comparing what we knew about the variation of the fish from the gulf, we realized that it was pretty consistent. There was not one species of Pancake Batfish but three." more info |
| FDA Puts Raw Gulf Oysters Back on Summer Menus Federal officials announced Friday they would put an indefinite hold on a proposed ban on the sale of raw oysters harvested during the summer from the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Is Alabama the EPA's next target? A comparison of Maryland and Alabama shows very similar patterns of compliance with NPDES obligations. Neither state has filed an Approved Biosolids (Sludge) Program. Both states have met the 90% investigation regulation set in 1998. more info |
| New NOAA effort to connect agency with its customers The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Extension, Outreach and Education (EOE) Pilot Program officially began in October with the hiring of three project team members. more info |
| Losing Nemo: Is there time to save the seas? “Unless there’s a very major turnaround, carbon dioxide emissions will lead to utter destruction of reefs by mid-century at least,” he says. “I’m no Ancient Mariner. I’m just putting forward an amalgamation of all the best science on the planet. Coral reefs will be the first planetary ecosystem to go. There’s no doubt about this. Nothing is going to protect the Great Barrier Reef and others against the levels of CO2 being discussed.” more info |
| Obama scientist sees strong consensus on climate * Obama science aides defend climate change research * Hacked e-mails seized upon by global warming skeptics * Key Republican decries 'scientific fascism' more info |
| Ocean's CO2 Uptake is Not Constant Data gathered by cargo ships plying the North Atlantic between 2002 and 2007 show that the ability of surface waters there to sop up CO2 varies considerably but somewhat predictably from year to year. The finding may help scientists better estimate the future rate at which the planet-warming gas will build up in the atmosphere. more info |
| Marine Census Photo This undated photo released by Census of Marine Life and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution shows a transparent sea cucumber, Enypniastes, creeping forward on its many tentacles at about 2 cm per minute while sweeping detritus-rich sediment into its mouth at 2,750 meters in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Katrina was a natural disaster, made worse by man Katrina left us in doubt, exposing the fallacy that with technology and tenacity, we can anticipate and meet every contingency. If the storm taught us anything, it’s that nature, like evil, can never really be tamed. more info |
| Gulf State Park Pier all the way back Anyone who has witnessed a tropical storm of any variety along the Gulf Coast realizes the potential for destruction. Now imagine jutting 1,540 feet into the Gulf of Mexico and the impact on the Gulf State Park Pier when Ida came ashore on Nov. 9. more info |
| Local elected officials urge opposition to drilling in gulf In an effort to counter proposals to allow oil and gas drilling as close as three miles from shore, Manatee County commissioners have written a letter opposing drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, officials said. more info |
| Federal regulators say Gulf red snapper fishery on the rebound Federal officials said a new red snapper assessment suggests that overfishing in the Gulf of Mexico has ended ahead of a 2010 deadline. more info |
| Shark Fins Traced to Their Geographic Origin for First Time Using DNA Tools Millions of shark fins are sold at market each year to satisfy the demand for shark fin soup, a Chinese delicacy, but it has been impossible to pinpoint which sharks from which regions are most threatened by this trade. Now, groundbreaking new DNA research has, for the first time, traced scalloped hammerhead shark fins from the burgeoning Hong Kong market all the way back to the sharks' geographic origin. In some cases the fins were found to come from endangered populations thousands of miles away. more info |
| Manatees return to TECO center Snouts are already popping up in the waters near Tampa Electric Co.'s Manatee Viewing Center as winter approaches. more info |
| Feeling the Magic “She,” of course, is the Gulf of Mexico, with all her creeks, bays, rivers and tributaries. Few waterways on the planet can compete with the beauty and diversity of our personal section, from the pristine barrier islands anchored by Sanibel and Captiva to the north, and the mysterious Ten Thousand Islands that begin at Marco Island to the south. more info |
| ENVIRONMENT: New Pirate of the Caribbean Invades from Pacific The red lionfish (Pterois volitans), a venomous coral reef fish from the Indian and western Pacific Oceans, has invaded the waters of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to wreak havoc on ecosystems, native fish populations and popular underwater diving areas. more info |
| Manatee makes its suggestions for legislation The county opposes oil and gas drilling in state waters of the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| High court hears Florida beach dispute The Supreme Court is weighing whether owners of beachfront homes in Florida must be compensated because a beach-widening project cost them their exclusive access to the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Deep-sea census aims to catalogue the abundant life 200 metres below The team of scientists from countries including Russia, Brazil, South Africa, the United States and Uruguay have made more than 210 expeditions over the past decade to remote undersea spots all over the world. more info |
| It's been rough, but give thanks for what we have outside in Tampa Bay It's easy to get discouraged these days. The economy is in shambles, unemployment is high, and there is even a new movie out that says civilization as we know it will end on Dec. 21, 2012. Makes you want to crawl under a rock and hide. Not this guy. When I look around, I see many things to be thankful for. more info |
| Streamlining commission suggesting coastal changes A special task force charged with saving the state money and restructuring government services has approved recommendations that could change the way coastal activities are carried out in future years. more info |
| It can be costly to push growth over environment That's how the Growth Machine works. Ignoring environmental warnings and promising great economic rewards, a small number of speculators push projects that usually don't help the economy and that, in the most severe cases, can actually destroy lives, costing billions of dollars. more info |
| Dead Fish and Gluttony The ecosystem in the Mississippi Delta is a lot like me at Thanksgiving, according to Nancy Rabalais, executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. Granted, that wasn't the exact analogy she used when I saw her speak at the 2009 Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. But the comparison is apt. Rabalais studies the effects of nitrogen and phosphorus on the Delta's aquatic life. more info |
| Will other coastal communities share Leeville's fate? For nearly a century, the homes and businesses between Golden Meadow and Fourchon have disappeared one by one, victims of sinking land, surging surf and the occasional hurricane. more info |
| Rebuilding reefs On March 24, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources in Biloxi joined forces with the Mississippi Gulf Fishing Banks to sink a 176-foot vessel donated by Omega Protein to enhance Fish Haven 13, located 13 miles south of Horn Island in federal water. more info |
| The other battle of New Orleans November 23, 2009: Last week a federal district Court ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers was liable for some of the catastrophic flooding in New Orleans in August 2005 from Hurricane Katrina. The ruling against the Corps is based on its apparent failure to properly maintain a shipping channel linking New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| County and town thankful for award The town of Magnolia Springs and the Baldwin County Commission have received a first-place finish in the multi-national "Gulf Guardian Award" contest for restoring the deteriorated waterway, which runs into the Magnolia River. more info |
| South Padre: Red tide waning Friday morning the city cleaned the beach, and although more dead fish, primarily mullet, continued to wash up, the red tide seemed to have left the air. more info |
| U.S. Supreme Court digs into Florida beach case Florida's beaches - the blindingly white shores of the Panhandle, the bikini-dotted sands of South Beach - are the state's signature attraction. more info |
| Panther wins against cabbage palm If you like your conservation efforts served with a nice dusting of irony, consider what’s happening at the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge near Naples, Fla. Workers there are about to start tearing down dense stands of the official Florida state tree, the cabbage palm, in order to benefit the official state animal, the endangered Florida panther, that lives in the refuge. more info |
| Photography Exhibit Showcases Vanishing Landscapes of the Louisiana Coast The Port of New Orleans (www.portno.com) will host an exhibit “The End of the Great River: Photographs of the Lower Mississippi River Delta” on December 1st through 18th featuring the work of New Orleans-based photographer Matthew White. Sponsored in part by Plaquemines Parish Economic Development, the exhibit is being held in conjunction with PhotoNOLA, an annual showcase of photography in New Orleans. The exhibit is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm in the lobby of the administrative building at the Port of New Orleans. A reception will be held on December 10, 2009 from 4:00 to 6:00 pm. more info |
| Hurricanes have helped artificial reef program The Louisiana Artificial Reef Program began in 1986 to make better use of the aging infrastructure used to pump fuel from the Gulf of Mexico. Resembling decks hovering over the water, offshore production platforms are held aloft by tons of metal pipes that stretch sometimes hundreds of miles below the surface. Fish and other aquatic life are drawn to the structures, called jackets, which over time become covered in algae and other plant growth. more info |
| Oyster taste test Having been acquainted with the political perils of trying to tell Louisianans how to eat, the Food and Drug Administration shelved its plans to ban the sale of raw, untreated Gulf of Mexico oysters during the warm months. But the prospect of having to make do with pasteurized oysters for half the year remains, and the furor that accompanied news that such a thing was even being considered left me wondering how terrible this really would be, culinarily speaking. more info |
| Corps could be helping rebuild coast Louisiana officials on Monday asked the secretary of the federal Department of Commerce to mediate the state's dispute with the Army Corps of Engineers over the agency's failure to use most of the sediment it dredges from the lower Mississippi River each year to rebuild wetlands. Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Chairman Garret Graves warned that limiting the use of the 60 million tons or more of dredged sediment for rebuilding wetlands seems to parallel the corps' mismanagement of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet -- which a federal judge last week held directly responsible for flood damage in St. Bernard Parish and the Lower 9th Ward after Hurricane Katrina. more info |
| Scientists find 17,650 species between below ocean’s edge of darkness Scientists have found petroleum-feasting worms, primitive animals that flap their ears to swim and other strange, new creatures dwelling in the deepest part of the ocean. more info |
| Pros, cons debated for levee Effective planning of a southeast Louisiana hurricane protection system will require a balance between protecting people from flooding while protecting the coastal ecosystem from harm, a coastal official said Wednesday. more info |
| Gas storage won't harm seas species Regarding your recent article about gas storage on Cote Blanche Island, Henry Gas Storage has considered very carefully key features of its proposal to develop gas storage capacity in salt caverns on the island with the goal of minimizing the impact on the environment and the community while benefiting the business community. more info |
| Judge Rules in Favor of Homeowners Impacted by Hurricane Katrina Yesterday, a federal judge ruled in favor of Hurricane Katrina victims who claimed much of the worst flood damage was a result of negligence by the Army Corps of Engineers, an important victory for many of those impacted by the storm. The case was the first to find the government responsible for damages from the storm. more info |
| Plan to fill in Rollover Pass proceeding The Texas General Land Office next week is expected to submit its application to fill in Rollover Pass, the waterway that cuts through the Bolivar Peninsula from the Gulf of Mexico to Galveston Bay. more info |
| Texas plant won't burn Mexican hazardous materials Veolia Environmental Services' industrial incinerator in Port Arthur — which gained national attention in 2007 for importing and burning waste from a military nerve agent — was seeking an exemption to a federal rule prohibiting the import of the chemical waste. The company has been in the application process to burn imported polychlorinated byphenyls, or PCBs, since 2006. more info |
| Offshore Oil Drilling Debate Renewed in Senate Hearing “Claims that oil and gas development have had little effect on marine life in the Gulf of Mexico ring rather hollow because we do not have the information to compare the ecosystems over time and determine how exactly they have changed,” contended Short. “Decisions about development should be guided by a plan that prioritizes marine ecosystems and the services they provide.” more info |
| Judge: Katrina Flooding Due to Corps Negligence Federal Trial more info |
| County gets funding for artificial reef Matagorda County was recently listed as a recipient for federal funding of artificial reef designed to enhance marine life in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Volunteers post ‘No Dumping’ signs on storm drains A brigade of more than 40 men, women and children fanned out one Saturday earlier this month on a storm drain mission for the environment. more info |
| Brown pelicans are holding their own Part of the success story here is Gaillard Island, a 1,300-acre island established in 1979 using spoil dredged to build the Theodore Ship Channel. The island was completed in 1981, and four brown pelicans were found nesting there just two years later. It marked one of the first such sightings along the Alabama coast in decades. more info |
| EPA keeping close eye on Louisiana, new chief Lisa Jackson says in N.O. "I think there are enormous opportunities in reconnecting Americans with the importance of clean water and a regulatory structure that's all about clean water," she said. more info |
| Change of mind: FDA won't ban Gulf oysters Facing fierce resistance, the Obama administration on Friday backed off a plan to ban sales of raw oysters from the Gulf of Mexico during warm-weather months. more info |
| Environmental connection: An editorial Ms. Jackson, who was in New Orleans Tuesday for a national brownfields conference, can speak with some authority on how people in this region think. She's a native New Orleanian who happened to be here visiting family as the storm approached in 2005, and on this matter, her observation is on target. Coastal wetlands loss has been a concern for many years, but that concern is not theoretical. Everyone who lives along our battered coast has experienced our increased vulnerability to storm surge because of the loss of our natural buffers. more info |
| Seagrass beds grow along Gulf coastline Seagrass in the 820 square miles of coastline between the Anclote River and Levy County appears to be holding its own, despite increasing pollution coming from springs and rivers. more info |
| Dirty beaches?: Geology, not drilling, causes the difference Louisiana and Texas are another matter. Most of their sands came from the U.S. heartland via the mighty, and muddy, Mississippi River. Their sands were washed from the gooey brown clay that is the Mississippi Delta. The Delta sticks out into the Gulf of Mexico, effectively blocking any westward transport of the Appalachian sand that makes the west Florida beaches white. more info |
| Hatchery-raised fish tagged and released into Bay St. Louis waters Metal tags, not much larger than a speck of dust, were implanted into one sea-trout at a time Thursday by workers at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. more info |
| Why “Organic” Fertilizers are Not the Solution to the Dead Zone Over time, soil microbes convert those more complex forms into exactly the same nitrate ion that comes from a synthetic fertilizer - the nitrate that plants can use (and which can become a pollutant of the water or atmosphere). The problem is that the conversion process does not match the crop demand. To achieve good yields, Organic growers need to apply very high amounts of total nitrogen so that enough is available when the crop needs it. Much of this nitrogen continues to be turned into nitrate well after the crop is using it and so it is well documented that this form of fertilization leads to water pollution issues. more info |
| GulfQuest a stimulus for Mobile ON THE surface, a historic recession might not seem like the best time to start building a multimillion-dollar museum. But now is exactly the time to get the financing in place and get GulfQuest — the National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico — out of the ground. more info |
| Padre Island National Seashore: Wintering Grounds For Sandhill Cranes While Padre Island National Seashore doesn’t overflow with college students in spring as does its neighbor, South Padre Island, the national seashore nevertheless is a popular gathering spot for awkward-looking visitors. From November to early spring, the seashore becomes a temporary home to sandhill cranes more info |
| Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium Developing 5 Year Caribbean Conservation Plan Mote Marine Laboratory researchers joined Cuban, Mexican and U.S. colleagues to craft a five-year plan for marine science and conservation in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea at a recent workshop in Cuba, setting the stage for long-term marine research collaborations among all three nations. more info |
| Morristown native to helm research vessel The 39-year-old has assumed command of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship Pisces, a new fisheries survey vessel that will travel the Gulf of Mexico, studying water quality and marine life such as shrimp, red snapper and flounder to monitor the health of marine protected areas. more info |
| Besieged in the Bayou, Shrimpers Fight Back For the past decade, the local shrimp industry has battled a rising tide of crustaceans imported from Thailand, Indonesia, Ecuador and elsewhere. The imports have pushed down wholesale prices for the largest domestic shrimp to about $1 a pound, the lowest level in decades. more info |
| Mexico Plans Big Gulf Tourism Center Near Texas The Fonatur agency that also created Cancun says its new Costa Lora development should eventually have 20,000 rooms for guests and create 115,000 jobs. It's based in the municipality of Soto la Marina, roughly 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Brownsville, Texas. more info |
| FDA Bows To Pressure From Fans Of Raw Oysters Facing political pressure from the Gulf Coast oyster industry, the FDA has backed off a plan to require raw oysters from the Gulf of Mexico to be treated to rid them of Vibrio vulnificus, a potentially deadly bacteria found in warm-water oysters. Harvesters and politicians had warned that the plan could devastate the industry. more info |
| Investment in ecosystems will reap rewards: UNEP Nations that take into account natural resources in their investment strategies will have higher rates of return and stronger economies, a report backed by the United Nations' Environment Programme said on Friday. more info |
| Blueways and greenbacks One of the best examples is the Alabama Scenic River Trail, which originates in North Georgia and moves along the Coosa River south through Alabama to the Gulf of Mexico. Billed as the nation's longest one-state river trail, the nearly 2-year-old 630-mile blueway winds its way across nine lakes, through wildlife preserves and steep stone cliffs to the secluded creeks of the Delta region to the eastern shore of Mobile Bay and historic Fort Morgan. more info |
| Mississippi sees "catastrophic" crop losses Rain from Tropical Storm Ida further slowed the cotton, soybean and sweet potato harvest in Mississippi, where crop losses were devastating even before the storm hit, a state agriculture official said on Thursday. more info |
| EPA Cracking Down on Urban and Agricultural Runoff Blamed for Dead Zones The plan allows states to continue programs that have worked, but also holds them accountable for reducing nutrient pollution and sets up possible sanctions if they fail. In light of the slow pace of cleanup efforts thus far, it would usher in what EPA senior Chesapeake adviser J. Charles Fox has called “a new era of federal leadership” in those efforts. Congress is also currently considering bills to reauthorize the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico Programs of the Clean Water Act. more info |
| Erosion, collapsing community concern Texas Ongoing concerns over erosion in the beachfront town of Surfside Beach intensified this week after the eleventh home in fourteen months was swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Pelicans off threatened list THE brown pelican, once ''decimated'' by pesticide spraying, has been removed from the US list of endangered species. more info |
| Sediment in the Gulf of Mexico Seen from Space Clouds of sediment clouded the Gulf of Mexico on November 10, 2009, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this photo-like image. more info |
| Science Project Idea-Hurricanes Wanna do a REALLY COOL science fair project this year? Look no further than Mother Nature herself - she's been known to have some pretty bad days! This Amazing Natural Disaster project includes facts and info about hurricanes (aka cyclones or typhoons) and the science behind them, an experiment you can do yourself and helpful suggestions for other things to research, make, draw, create and include in your project! more info |
| "Students Saving the Ocean" Documentary "Students Saving the Ocean" is a documentary based on the book "50 Ways to Save the Ocean", written by David Helvarg, who is working with Outhink Media and UC Santa Barbara on promoting the DigitalOcean Network. "Students Saving the Ocean" highlights several chapters from Mr. Helvarg`s book, and is narrated by Bay Area students, aquarium officials and members of local and global organizations that are focused on the health of the bay and oceans, including the Bay Institute, California Academy of Science, and Environmental Justice for Bayview Hunters Point.A trailer for "Students Saving the Ocean" can be viewed at www.savetheocean.info/. more info |
| Hurricane Ida : Warmer oceans could mean longer hurricane seasons While global average air temperatures have leveled off since the warming peak in 1998, scientists have shown that a major contributing factor is that the oceans are absorbing much of the heat. In fact, 2009 is the hottest year on record for earth's oceans since scientists began keeping records nearly 130 years ago. more info |
| As oceans fall ill, Washington bureaucrats squabble In recommending the creation of a National Ocean Council, the White House task force noted the web of federal, state, tribal, local and international regulations and interests and found a need for "high-level direction and guidance from a clearly designated and identifiable authority." more info |
| Oceans face acid test As world leaders prepare for the UN's climate change conference in December, members of the InterAcademy Panel have warned ocean acidification must be on the agenda. McNeil warns global warming could even impair the ocean's ability to helpfully soak up CO2, leading to even more global warming. more info |
| House Ocean Caucus sponsors briefing on chemicals of concern in coastal waters, Nov. 17 This panel brings together leading NOAA scientists and community leaders to discuss research and monitoring of chemicals of concern that enter our coastal waters through run-off, discharge, and other means. With roughly 85,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States, scientists face major challenges in trying to identify how pervasive these chemicals are in our waters or the potential health impacts they pose to marine wildlife and people. more info |
| Swarm of Autonomous Robots to Patrol Oceans In an effort to plug gaps in knowledge about key ocean processes, the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s division of ocean sciences has awarded nearly $1 million to scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif. The Scripps marine scientists will develop a new breed of ocean-probing instruments. Jules Jaffe and Peter Franks will spearhead an effort to design and deploy autonomous underwater explorers, or AUEs. AUEs will trace the fine details of oceanographic processes vital to tiny marine inhabitants. more info |
| Ocean 'dead zones' hard to predict Scientists have identified more than 400 “dead zones” in coastal areas of oceans around the world, but the phenomena remain unpredictable. more info |
| NCGA Pushes For Responsible & Responsive Watershed Legislation The Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife held a hearing to consider legislation affecting the Chesapeake Bay and Gulf of Mexico S. 1816 would give expanded authority to EPA to regulate non-point source pollution in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. S. 1311 would establish a new watershed program for the Mississippi River Basin specifically to address nutrient loading and hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Marine Scientists to Investigate Effect of Gulf Of Mexico 'Dead Zone' on Fish Populations Whether a large area of low oxygen water called the "dead zone" in the northern Gulf of Mexico could cause declines in environmentally and economically important fish populations is the subject of a new study by University of Texas at Austin marine scientist Peter Thomas. more info |
| Health Department warns against recreation in inland water bodies The Escambia County Health Department has issued health alerts for all inland swimming and water recreational areas in Escambia County, except those located on the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Proposed oyster regulations bring FDA, Gulf Coast lawmakers to closed-door session Federal regulators and Gulf Coast lawmakers said they'll keep talking following a closed-door meeting Tuesday over a bitterly contested plan to reduce the threat posed by the oyster-borne bacteria Vibrio vulnificus. more info |
| Gulf pier damaged by Ida The longest fishing pier on the Gulf of Mexico will be closed indefinitely after being damaged by waves from Tropical Storm Ida. more info |
| New fish found off Terrebonne’s coast ARTICLES Home > News Enlarge TextEmailPrintReprintCommentsShare You must fill in all fields WITH PHOTONO PHOTO FACEBOOKYahoo! Buzz YAHOONEWSVINEDEL.ICIO.US New fish found off Terrebonne’s coast Courtesy of Prosanta Chakrabarty Buy photo An LSU biologist believes he found a new species of pancake batfish off Terrebonne Parish. Jeremy Alford Capitol Correspondent Published: Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 12:26 p.m. Last Modified: Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 12:26 p.m. BATON ROUGE — When your parents told you there are plenty of fish in the sea, they knew what they were talking about. Related Links:Agriculture- and seafood-marketing program could boost fresh sales Effort aims to remove marine debris from local waterways Exotic shrimp species could threaten local waterways Black tigers invading Louisiana waters Just ask Prosanta Chakrabarty, a Louisiana State University biologist who has discovered what could be two new species of fish living seven miles off the coast of Terrebonne Parish. The new species are likely a variation of what’s known as pancake batfish, a tiny creature that goes largely unnoticed because it’s a bottom dweller and way too small for any angler to hook. Like the pancake batfish, this creature uses its fins to wobble around the ocean floor. It also sports a wide, rounded head and a long nose that can shoot out a small lure used to entice other critters near its mouth, but biologists are still learning exactly how it works. Chakrabarty’s samples are only a couple of inches long and can easily fit inside the hole created by touching thumb to index finger. “Not many fish are cute, but this one is,” he said. “It’s a fascinating species.” The species don’t have names yet. That comes early next year when Chakrabarty publishes his findings. The names will be revealed in print and officially recognized at that time, said John H. Caruso, a deep-sea biologist at Tulane University. Caruso, along with others, has been reviewing Chakrabarty’s work. Caruso said he has known for a couple of decades that there had to be different pancake batfish, but the “probability is high” that Chakrabarty is going to name a new species said Caruso, who has discovered eight fish species on his own in different parts of the world. The two Gulf species were found when Chakrabarty and a Taiwanese colleague, Hsuan-ching “Hans” Ho, looked through jars of batfish at the LSU Museum of Natural Sciences. Chakrabarty had been curator of ichthyology — the branch of zoology that deals with the scientific study of fish — for about a year when he realized that some fish categorized as pancake batfish were probably unique. “We realized that what was thought to be one widespread variable species was in fact three species,” Chakrabarty said. Chakrabarty, 30, made contact with officials at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium in Cocodrie and hitched a ride on The Pelican, a 116-foot research vessel. Trawling just seven miles off Terrebonne Parish’s coast, Chakrabarty collected fresh specimens of what he believes to be the new species. For folks like Chakrabarty, it doesn’t get much better than that. “Most people in Louisiana probably don’t know that there are new species of fish right here in our state,” he said. Still, the discovery is not exactly a novelty, Caruso said, since such announcements are regularly made. But it does shed further light on just how much more there is to learn, he added. “Especially in the deeper waters,” Caruso said. “That’s where we’re really going to be unearthing exciting finds.” There’s no commercial value associated with the find. Aquarium lovers aren’t fans, and they are of little interest to anglers. Nonetheless, Chakrabarty said that it serves as a reminder that as well as Louisianans think they know the Gulf, there’s always something new waiting to be found. “The Gulf of Mexico is chocked full of things that need to be studied,” he said. “It’s pretty exciting. I’ve never lived anywhere with so much opportunity.” more info |
| Caribbean, Gulf spared widespread coral damage Lower-than-feared sea temperatures this summer gave a break to fragile coral reefs across the Caribbean and the central Gulf of Mexico that were damaged in recent years, scientists said Thursday. more info |
| La. lawmakers to meet with FDA over proposed oyster ban Louisiana members of Congress plan to meet Tuesday with FDA officials in hopes of persuading them to scrap a proposed ban on untreated Gulf of Mexico oysters during summer months. more info |
| Local coastal advocate receives regional award Longtime coastal advocate and director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program Kerry St. Pé will be honored with a 2009 Gulf Guardian Award for his decades of efforts fighting for south Louisiana. more info |
| Green Ink: Gas Glut, Climate Fights, and Black Liquor For what it’s worth, there’s a consensus among economists that global warming presents economic risks and that cap-and-trade is a good solution, at Green Inc. more info |
| FWC recognized at regional awards ceremony The Gulf of Mexico Program honored staff from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) at the Gulf Guardian Awards Thursday in Biloxi, Miss. Three FWC staff members received recognition for their outstanding conservation-oriented work. more info |
| Voters approve open-beaches amendment Texans voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to make the public’s right to free beach access part of the state constitution. more info |
| Stormwater drainage pipes on Naples beach may be here to stay The city of Naples has been unable to come up with a viable plan for removing stormwater drainage pipes that empty into the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Floods following days of rain force evacuation of 44,000 people along Mexico's Gulf Coast Tabasco state Gov. Andres Granier says several rivers jumped their banks, flooding homes in more than 90 communities. The federal government declared a state of emergency and troops were helping rescue people Tuesday. more info |
| Ship to be commissioned Friday; lab also will be dedicated Senior NOAA officials will commission NOAA Ship Pisces, the agency’s newest and most advanced fisheries survey vessel, and dedicate the agency’s new fisheries laboratory in Pascagoula on Friday. more info |
| Hurricane center is changing its storm advisories Officials at the National Hurricane Center say they're making their tropical storm advisories easier to read. more info |
| Pascagoula Officials to See Beach Construction Pascagoula officials are expected to visit a site Monday where sand is being pumped in along the Gulf of Mexico to build a new beach. more info |
| The real damage to our ocean, sea and gulf ecosystems Planning and managing the development and use of ocean resources is critical for our future. By developing an ocean-management plan, the state will have a blueprint for smarter and more responsible uses of our oceans and coasts. more info |
| Science Museum of Minnesota wins 'Gulf Guardian' award Never mind that the Science Museum of Minnesota is more than 1,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. It will be honored this week for helping to improve the Gulf’s environmental health. The museum has won a first-place award in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Gulf Guardian” program. more info |
| FSU, Duke partner to study impact of Gulf's 'dead zone' A team of researchers from The Florida State University, Duke University and the National Marine Fisheries Service will study the environmental and economic impacts of the vast "dead zone" in the northern Gulf of Mexico on shrimping in the region, home to one of the nation's most highly valued single-species fisheries. more info |
| MMS Approves $1 Million Grant for Louisiana Shoreline Protection The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) recently awarded a $1 million grant to Calcasieu Parish in Louisiana through the Coastal Impact Assistance Program (CIAP), for a shoreline protection project at the parish’s Intracoastal Park. more info |
| LUMCON, others getting $12M for dead zone research A team of scientists from the LUMCON marine-research center in Cocodrie and the University of Michigan are to get $766,600 this year and $4 million over the entire period to create computer models that can forecast the size and location of the "hypoxic" area. more info |
| Common ground, out at sea That appears to be the logic behind a growing partnership between scientists in the U.S., Cuba, and Mexico working on a multinational plan to protect the gulf’s underwater ecosystems. This week, a delegation of about 30 U.S. researchers and ocean advocates have been in Havana for meetings with their Cuban and Mexican counterparts, and trip organizers said they’re aiming to create a regional protection strategy that all three countries would enforce. more info |
| Floundering numbers lead to lower daily limits Clock arms weren't the only thing government mandated be dialed back as Nov. 1 arrived. As of today, and continuing throughout the month, Texas saltwater anglers are required to subtract three flounder from their possible daily bag limit. more info |
| NOAA Awards $2.4 Million to Refine Management Strategies for the Dead Zone Scientists researching the causes and impacts of the dead zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico have been awarded more than $2.4 million for the first year of an anticipated $12 million multi-year NOAA research investment. A total of five projects are funded through NOAA's Northern Gulf of Mexico Ecosystems and Hypoxia Assessment Program which supports coastal science research in support of the interagency Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force’s Action Plan. more info |
| Mississippi diary: Dead zone Only from above do you get an impression of the scale of man’s impact. Less than 70 kilometres from the Gulf of Mexico, huge plants flank the banks - there are vast chemical, gas and steel works, all making use of Mississippi water. more info |
| Moderate earthquake shakes Mexico's Gulf coast A 5.4 magnitude earthquake struck off Mexico's Gulf Coast on Thursday, shaking buildings in the coastal capital of Veracruz but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, public safety officials said. "At present we have no news of any damage," said a spokeswoman for the Veracruz state civil defense office. more info |
| Cargo ship leaks oil in Gulf of Mexico A hole in the hull of a cargo ship near the Mississippi River near Louisiana caused a 12,000-gallon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Coast Guard said. more info |
| Oyster Ban Signals New Focus on Prevention Those 15 deaths are enough for the Food and Drug Administration to announce this month that starting in 2011, it will ban the sale of oysters harvested between April and October from the Gulf of Mexico that have not been treated -- essentially pasteurized -- to rid them of the vibrio bacteria. more info |
| Fishing Boat Sunk by Giant Jellyfish "Jellies have likely swum and swarmed in our seas for over 600 million years," says "jellyologist" Monty Graham of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. "When conditions are right, jelly swarms can form quickly. They appear to do this for sexual reproduction." more info |
| Marine scientists from around the world meet in Biloxi Marine scientists and researchers from around the world are meeting in Biloxi this week. More than 1,300 are attending the Oceans '09 conference at the coliseum convention center. more info |
| New program to help nature guide businesses “When I looked at the steady growth of businesses and what was going on here, I had many questions come to mind as to how we can make sure that future generations can enjoy these opportunities without endangering the wildlife,” McDonough said. “It is vital for the sake of our natural resources and coastal economies that tour operators lead by example and adopt and encourage behaviors that contribute to the sustainability of the Gulf Coast region’s natural ecosystems and resources.” more info |
| Plants Restore Galveston Bay Galveston Bay Foundation's "Get Hip to Habitat" Program featured on KIAH News Channel more info |
| Launch of New Campaign uses Power in Numbers to Oppose Off Shore Drilling The battle over off-shore oil and gas drilling in the Gulf is escalating. Citizens and business owners have kicked-off a new campaign called "Hands Across the Sand”. The group wants to let state legislators know they're against any changes to the current drilling regulations. more info |
| Student Studies Take a Dive ... to the Bottom of the Sea The 10-day research trip, which was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, included Thornhill's research cohorts from Auburn University, two Bowdoin students, and 11 graduate and undergraduate Auburn students. What they saw was exactly what his professor, Dan Thornhill, was hoping for: a thicket of annelid tubeworms growing along the muddy ocean floor. The Bowdoin Doherty Marine Biology Postdoctoral Scholar had brought Hatleberg to this exact spot off the coast of Louisiana in search of a lowly worm. more info |
| Oysters from Gulf of Mexico could be banned Raw oysters which are harvested from the Gulf of Mexico are in danger of getting banned by the FDA. Each year, about 15 people die from raw oysters infected with Vibrio vulnificus, a type of deadly bacteria typically found in warm coastal waters between April and October. The deaths caused by Vibrio vulnificus usually occur among people whose immune systems are weak. This low immune system could have been caused by liver or kidney disease, cancer, diabetes, or AIDS. more info |
| Expert to Discuss Phosphorus Impact on Dead Zone Richardson’s lecture, “Phosphorus Biogeochemistry and Wetland Function: The State of Our Understanding,” will translate phosphorus biogeochemistry research into realistic management techniques to improve wetland ecosystems while sustaining ecological functions of the landscape. It will be held Tuesday Nov. 3, from 9:55 to 11:00 am in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Room 321. more info |
| Next step in vetting Florida offshore-drilling plan Just as oil companies drill down into the Earth with progressively narrower sections of pipe, both opponents and proponents of offshore rigs in Florida waters are steadily sharpening their arguments as they search for a payoff in public support. Tonight, pro- and anti-drilling forces will converge on the public television station in Tallahassee for a forum that will pit a panel of rig supporters against a panel of beach defenders. At issue is a proposal by state Rep. Dean Cannon, R- Winter Park to lift a ban on drilling in the state's portion of the Gulf of Mexico — extending from the edge of the beach to about 10 miles out — to generate cash, jobs and added petroleum. more info |
| U.S and Cuban scientists plan joint Gulf research The plan of action calls for shared projects to track marine animals and to study such things as the effects of pollutants and climate change on coral reefs. more info |
| Green? It's a family affair As the holiday season approaches, it is a good time to examine household energy use and create new ways to reduce our energy footprints. more info |
| LSU group studies Gulf for storm forecasting A team of researchers at LSU is studying how areas of cool water in the Gulf of Mexico affect hurricane energy and how that information could be used in forecasting storm intensity in the future. more info |
| Sea Turtle Nesting Numbers not looking good The past 10 years have seen a dramatic decline in turtle nests in Southwest Florida. In 1998, 1,098 sea turtle nests were reported in Collier County between May 1 and Oct. 31, Southwest Florida’s sea turtle nesting season. Through September 21 of this year, 510 nests were recorded in Collier County, according to the Collier County Parks and Recreation Web site. That’s down from last year’s total of 694 nests. more info |
| Scuba diving teens help researchers Morgan Liston popped up from below the Gulf of Mexico's shimmering surface and made a declaration. "This is actually a really good reef," Liston, a 17-year-old senior at Palm Harbor University High School, said from behind a diving mask. "It has nine different species of coral." more info |
| Cruising undersea - virtually From aboard a 200-foot research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico, GK-12 fellow Kira Triebergs posted her answer online. She listed squid, dolphins, a gigantic sea urchin with 9-inch spines, sea cucumbers, and a huge deep-sea black coral that is more than 2,000 years old, as some of her most interesting discoveries. more info |
| Scientists to study pollution in Rio Grande Federal scientists, environmentalists and Albuquerque high school students are embarking on a three-year comprehensive study that will catalog pollutants found in the Rio Grande, a major source of water for drinking and irrigation in New Mexico and elsewhere in the Southwest, according to an October 21 Associated Press (AP) report on mysanantonio.com.The Rio Grande originates in southern Colorado, flows south through New Mexico, and then forms the border between Mexico and Texas before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Trio Kayaks the Mississippi River for Charity They're called team What About Blue? And with each stroke, they're trying to raise awareness about global water issues. more info |
| Multi-state water quality trading effort launched American Farmland Trust is teaming up with Electric Power Research Institute, the Ohio River Valley Sanitation Commission, Duke Energy, American Electric Power, Kieser and Associates, Hunton and Williams, The Miami Conservancy District, University of California at Santa Barbara, Ohio Farm Bureau, Hoosier Rural Electric Cooperative and Tennessee Valley Authority to establish a water quality trading market across the Ohio River Basin, an area that spans 14 states. more info |
| A&M researchers to study Gulf ‘dead zone’ Oceanographer Steve DiMarco of Texas A&M University has been awarded a five-year, $3.7 million grant to try to better predict the size and location of the Gulf of Mexico’s “dead zone.” “This year’s forecast, which did not do a very good job of predicting the actual size of the dead zone, underscores the importance of our research at Texas A&M,” DiMarco said. “Unraveling the complex system of processes that create dead zones will lead us in the direction of better predictions.” more info |
| First phase of new N.O. surge barrier done Contractors have finished the first phase of a massive barrier closing Mr. Go, the canal connecting New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet Canal, MR-GO or Mr. Go for short, gave storm surge a shortcut during Hurricane Katrina, spurring calls to block the 44-year-old waterway. Contractors for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completed driving 1,271 140-foot concrete pilings into the mud and clay under Mr. Go, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported Wednesday. more info |
| Obama promises New Orleans he's just getting Started Article can be found by clicking the link. more info |
| Panel: Gulf, river interdependent The health of the Gulf of Mexico depends on, and is interdependent with, the health and management of the Mississippi River Delta and coastal Louisiana, speakers told the federal Ocean Policy Task Force on Monday. Robert Twilley, professor with the department of oceanography and coastal sciences at LSU, said the aggressive loss of wetlands in Louisiana needs to be met with an equally aggressive adaptation of how the river is managed. more info |
| Mote scientists to travel to Cuba Seven scientists from Mote Marine Laboratory are meeting in Havana with Cuban and Mexican counterparts to discuss mutual environmental and ecological concerns in the Gulf of Mexico, officials said this week. more info |
| Terrebonne, Lafourche among most vulnerable climates A new study on climate change says Terrebonne and Lafourche are among the most vulnerable, and best prepared, communities on the Gulf of Mexico coast. more info |
| Fisherman Reeling From New Oyster Ban Proposal Fishermen and state agricultural officials are reeling from a new proposal from the federal government to place a ban on raw oysters from the Gulf of Mexico for six months of the year. more info |
| Endangered turtle stranded by Ike back in Gulf An endangered sea turtle that apparently was washed miles inshore by Hurricane Ike and spent months trapped in a land-locked pond in southwest Louisiana was released back into the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday. more info |
| Mississippi turning: A river with a life of its own It is a river with a life of its own and attempts to domesticate it for the good of industry have so far failed. Now, says Daniel Howden, the stakes are higher than ever more info |
| Study: The Big Muddy can save coastal Louisiana A study released Tuesday estimates that there is enough sediment in the Mississippi River to save large areas of coastal Louisiana from sinking into the Gulf of Mexico if half of the river's muddy waters were diverted into the disappearing wetlands on either side of the river. more info |
| Tiger shrimp sightings alarm experts The appearance of giant Asian tiger prawns in the Gulf of Mexico is causing alarm for Louisiana shrimpers and wildlife experts, in particular, scientists at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (GCRL). The scientists are asking fishers to report if any get caught in their nets. more info |
| Benchmark Monterey Bay Aquarium Report Finds Future of Global Seafood Benchmark Monterey Bay Aquarium Report Finds Future of Global Seafood Supply at a Turning Point Summary: many trends positive, urgent action is needed; 'Super Green' seafood buying list debuts more info |
| Groups weigh in with ideas about oceans Officials with the Obama administration hosted a multistate public meeting for the Gulf Coast Regional Ocean Policy Task Force on Monday. One of the four satellite teleconference sites was at USM’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory and its J.L Scott Marine Education Center in Ocean Springs to allow the public to communicate with task force officials. The two-hour meeting was broadcast live from the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans and is the fifth regional public meeting held since the task force was created. more info |
| Shell donates $450K to protect La.'s marine life Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham says the money will help create "amazing fishing opportunities for charter boat captains, recreational and commercial fishermen," through the state's artificial reef program. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico concerns aired as key federal officials visit New Orleans Several high-level Obama administration officials heard more than three hours worth of testimony Monday from environmental groups, fishing organizations, scientists and the oil and gas industry about development of a national policy aimed at protecting the oceans and streamlining government management. more info |
| Drilling’s benefits unproven to Florida The fine series of articles by the Herald-Tribune’s Jeremy Wallace and Zac Anderson place the problem in the proper perspective: Opening the eastern Gulf of Mexico to drilling is an environmental question, not an economic one, and soon to be a political one. The articles carried Sept. 27 and Oct. 3 correctly depict the lineups of various political groups for and against the drilling question. more info |
| Fuel Oil Is Spilled Into Gulf of Mexico More than 18,000 gallons of fuel oil spilled Tuesday night when two ships collided in the Gulf of Mexico about 40 miles southeast of Galveston, Tex. more info |
| Close-Up on the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Leaving the heat outside and submerging into the cool, mystifying atmosphere of the Estuarium may be the closest some kids ever get to marine creatures of so many kinds and colors. At the huge and elaborate ocean science consortium known as the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, the 11-year-old Estuarium is its showcase, education center and underwater wonderland. more info |
| Gulf Coast Research Lab promotes stewardship "What we're trying to do today is give some people some help in being good stewards for their coastal environment," said Chris Snyder of the Gulf Coast Research Lab. "As coastal residents we all have a responsibility to do what we can to both understand and to manage the use and the quality of our environment." more info |
| Economy stalls fundraising for proposed arts, nature center An island group’s plans called for a performing arts pavilion that would overlook the Gulf of Mexico. They also called for a nature center with a small aquarium that would showcase marine wildlife. more info |
| Miss. to host cleanup summit Mississippi was selected to host next year's summit of a multi-state task force aimed at cleaning up the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico. The state accepted the invitation by the Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force, a group challenged with lowering nutrient levels in the river as a way to repair a 7,000-square-mile dead zone hovering off the coast of Louisiana. The meeting will be in Tunica next September. more info |
| College Biology Students Spend Week At Sea Biology students from Texas A&M-Corpus Christi departed from Port Aransas Sunday to spend a week at sea studying the banks of South Texas. more info |
| Vitter seeks more study of offshore fish farming U.S. Sen. David Vitter wants the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to do more analysis before the Gulf of Mexico can be opened up to offshore fish farming. more info |
| Federal scientists: Limit offshore drilling plans The recommendations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are informal and not binding. But if adopted, they would restrict development in some of the nation's most resource-rich untapped offshore areas and mark a significant departure from the pro-drilling policies of the George W. Bush administration. They also give added -- and official -- weight to environmentalists' concerns. more info |
| NOAA Announces $9 Million In Ocean Education Grants To National Aquariums -- NOAA today announced 11 grants totaling more than $9 million that will create new education projects in aquariums across the nation. The projects will educate visitors about the ocean and encourage better stewardship of the marine environment. more info |
| Biologists watching 'red tide' at South Padre A mild “red tide” that appeared at South Padre Island this week appeared to be breaking up thanks to favorable winds, state and local marine biologists said Thursday. more info |
| The Future of Fish Farming Earlier this year, a federal commission agreed to take a closer look at commercial fish farming in the Gulf of Mexico. The practice has been used overseas for generation, but domestically, there have been concerns about pollution and diseases contaminating wild fish. more info |
| Exploring cold water corals It is late at night as research ship the Seward Johnson draws into harbour at Gulfport, Mississippi. There are many coral specialists on board – including Europeans collaborating with colleagues from the US. Steve W Ross: “We’ve just come in from a 12 day cruise, we’ve covered something like two or three thousand miles of ocean, and sampled coral reefs all the way from the southern Gulf of Mexico into the central Gulf using a submersible and all kinds of other gear.” more info |
| Don't drill in Gulf of Mexico, beach cities agree Pinellas County's beach communities voiced strong opposition last week to any oil drilling within state-controlled waters of the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Destin Renourishment Case Goes National The legal battle over a beach renourishment project in Destin is becoming a major case. Opponents of the 2006 project are appealing last year's Florida Supreme Court decision, which allowed local government the right to perform beach renourishment. In June the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Earlier this week, the attorneys general from most coastal states as well as a number of other interested groups, weighed-in on the issue. This could have implications for almost every beach community in the country. People are anxiously awaiting the outcome. more info |
| Fed-funded study to look at sea level rise "Our hypothesis is that the historic storm record, which extends back only about 150 years, isn't a reliable indicator of true storm frequency, but the long-term geologic record is," said Associate Professor Joseph Donoghue, who will lead the research. "This project is crucial because the rates of change in environmental parameters predicted for the near future are much greater than those of the past several millennia. For example, some of the worst-case sea-level rise scenarios predicted for the near future have not been experienced by the coastal system for more than 8,000 years." more info |
| Organizations Sue Federal Agencies on Offshore Aquaculture Plan Food & Water Watch, in conjunction with several other organizations, filed suit against the secretary of commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Marine Fisheries Service, over a plan to allow offshore industrial fish farming in the Gulf of Mexico. The plan would allow what are essentially factory farms of the sea in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico (mostly between three and 200 miles from shore, except off Texas and West Florida, where federal waters begin at about nine miles). These industrial facilities can produce lower-quality fish for consumers, undercut local fishermen’s prices for their catch, and pollute surrounding waters. more info |
| Wave Pumps to Fuel Desalination Plant A Texas company says it plans to use energy generated by waves in the Gulf of Mexico to make salt water drinkable. more info |
| 'Drill bill' puts our tourism economy in jeopardy In July of this year over 58,000 gallons of raw crude oil spilled into the pristine waters of the Gulf of Mexico 30 miles off of the coast of Louisiana. That spill soon spread over 80 square miles, threatening sea life and coastline. more info |
| NSF awards $1.4 million to study disease threatening lobsters Now, scientists with the University of Florida and several other institutions have been awarded a three-year, $1.4 million National Science Foundation grant to research transmission of the virus, known as PaV1. more info |
| Volunteers rescue stranded manatee A group of fisherman in North Naples made a surprising discovery on Monday morning. They found a ten-foot long manatee stuck in shallow water near Clam Pass. more info |
| Wetlands loss linked to Outer Continental Shelf oil & gas pipelines A new study for the federal Minerals Management Service concludes that the construction of pipelines related to oil and gas production in the Outer Continental Shelf of the Gulf of Mexico "can cause locally intense habitat changes, thereby contributing to the loss of critically important land and wetland areas." more info |
| Environmental and Health Related Risks of the BP Atlantis Production Platform Food & Water Watch, a consumer advocacy organization, along with "John Doe," a former employee at British Petroleum (BP) and a whistleblower, will be available to speak to the media by telephone on Thursday, October 8 at 11 a.m. EST about the environmental and health-related risks associated with the BP Atlantis oil and gas production platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Dave Perry, the whistleblower's attorney; Mike Sawyer, a process safety engineer; Dr. Riki Ott, a marine toxicologist and author of Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill; and Ronnie Anderson, a shrimper from Houma, La., will also participate on the call. more info |
| Economic outlook for New Orleans remains weak The economic outlook in New Orleans is weaker than it is in many other Gulf Coast communities, economist Loren Scott said Tuesday at a symposium in Biloxi. Biloxi-Gulfport, Pascagoula and Mobile, Ala. are all attracting new companies and business investment. more info |
| Biofuels Unravel Efforts to Shrink Gulf Dead Zone But the U.S. Congress might have made that goal harder to achieve. In a bid to reduce dependence on foreign oil, Congress passed a law requiring refiners to include more and more biofuels in their gasoline each year, reaching 140 billion liters by 2022. Mike Griffin, a biologist at Carnegie Mellon University, says if farmers grew enough corn and other biofuel crops to meet that target, "Nitrogen loading would actually increase, and we would certainly not be able to meet the goals of the EPA." more info |
| Dead whale found in Tampa Bay was hit by a ship Scientists say a 41-foot-whale found floating in the Port of Tampa last weekend was killed by a ship out in the Gulf of Mexico more info |
| The Crisis in Global Land Use As the international community focuses on climate change as the great challenge of our era, it is ignoring another looming problem – the global crisis in land use. With agricultural practices already causing massive ecological impact, the world must now find new ways to feed its burgeoning population and launch a "Greener" Revolution. more info |
| Tribe says it must abandon island community Tillman “T-Man” Naquin still remembers the duck-filled pond near Isle de Jean Charles, the bountiful shrimp in its bayou and the oak trees he’d swing on alongside cousins. Now, that pond is open water and the island’s trees are mostly gone, all the result of the Gulf of Mexico’s inland march toward the Native American’s ancestral home. more info |
| Birds are getting scarcer in Grand Isle Human development and forces of nature, however, have caused a significant decrease in bird habitat in recent years, resulting in a drop not only in bird numbers but also in bird dollars. It’s a drop being experienced in Grand Isle, a popular destination for those hoping to spot a bird. Experts say that half of the 173 coastal bird species in the U.S. have declined in number in recent years. more info |
| In Search of Wildlife-Friendly Biofuels What’s the solution? There are at least two ways to produce bioenergy without destroying wildlife, habitat, the researchers say. One is to use biomass sources that don’t require additional land, such as agricultural residues and other wastes from municipal, animal, food and forestry industries. Another is to grow native perennials such as switchgrass and big bluestem. The natural diversity of prairie plants offers many benefits, including increased carbon storage in the soil, erosion control and the maintenance of insect diversity, which does double duty by providing food for birds and helping to pollinate nearby crops. more info |
| Sides square off in beach restoration controversy Dredging sand from East Pass onto Holiday Isle’s eroded beaches could destroy beaches and homes on Okaloosa Island, island homeowner Dave Sherry says. more info |
| Alabama Coastal Foundation board member honored Mike Rogers has been actively involved in protecting the environment for the last decade or so, and he is now being recognized for his efforts. The Mobile native and part-time Dauphin Island resident will receive a third place 2009 Gulf Guardian Award in the Individual Category. more info |
| Whale en route to necropsy stuck A dead, 50-foot-long whale found floating Sunday in a Tampa Bay shipping channel is about 50 yards from Fort DeSoto Park, stuck belly-up on a sandbar this morning tethered to an orange buoy. more info |
| Turtle tracker works - if it transmits signal Willhelmina and DR are hanging out in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Southwest Florida, and PPJ went to the Bahamas. That's what scientists are already learning about the loggerhead turtles they rigged with transmitters this summer. more info |
| Forum to focus on drilling off Florida's Gulf Coast Florida State University and Gannett Florida are organizing the two-hour event on Oct. 28. A panel of experts on both sides will take questions from a studio audience at FSU, television viewers and residents watching on Web sites of Gannett newspapers and TV stations across Florida. more info |
| Proposed offshore fish farming in Gulf attracting opposition The idea has been discussed for years — tether cages to oil rig platforms in the Gulf of Mexico to create floating farms of redfish and other seafood favorites. For just as long, environmentalists and others have warned that farm-raised fish could pollute the Gulf, spread disease to their free-swimming brethren, genetically destroy wild species and put existing commercial fishermen out of business. more info |
| Grouper fishing rules set to get tighter Under the new rules, each qualifying commercial license holder will be assigned an individual fishing quota, which specifies the maximum amount of grouper and tilefish that each fisherman is allowed to catch each year. more info |
| Gulf Plan Allegedly Favors Industrial Fishers An amendment to a Gulf of Mexico fishing plan catered to industrial fishers while netting out smaller commercial and sport fishermen, a marine conservation group claims in Federal Court. more info |
| River cleanup funded "It's the single biggest thing that has taken place, in my knowledge, to address nutrients and agriculture landscapes," said Trey Cooke, executive director of Delta F.A.R.M., one of the Mississippi groups involved in the project. more info |
| Ocean birds, whales and their great migration Shorebirds such as semi-palmated plovers and sanderlings are abundant in Massachusetts during a few weeks from July to October. During the rest of the summer, these birds occur in Alaska and northern Canada. At these high latitudes, the shorebirds breed, nest, and take advantage of plentiful food sources. Starting in July, shorebirds begin their migration to southern feeding destinations such as the Gulf Coast, Mexico, and South America. more info |
| Texas voters can protect access to public beaches NO Question: How many miles of Gulf of Mexico beaches in Texas are publicly owned and open for year-round use? Quick answer: All of them. more info |
| Wetlands are needed to cure 'dead zone' A recent guest essay correctly pointed out the growing dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is serious business - not only for Iowa and the 31 states whose tributaries drain into the Mississippi River, but for the entire nation. The very nutrients that feed the dead zone are the same that are naturally needed to preserve and restore America's wetlands. Various acts of man have had serious unintended consequences, which are destroying this invaluable landscape along Louisiana's coast. Since the 1930s, Louisiana has lost wetlands equal to the size of Delaware, and if land loss continues, scientists predict one-third of coastal Louisiana will have vanished by 2050. more info |
| Officials plan to eradicate alien snails More than a year after the discovery of giant, voracious South American apple snails in Mobile's Langan Municipal Park, the gastropods have colonized most of Three Mile Creek, down to the Conception Street bridge. more info |
| NOAA Awards Funds to Improve Toxic Algal Bloom Predictions NOAA is awarding $178,358 for the first year of a project to improve predictions of toxic algal blooms in the western Gulf of Mexico as part of an evolving national ecological forecasting capability. NOAA anticipates a nearly $1 million investment in this large-scale regional project over the next four years. The project is funded by the interagency Ecology and Oceanography of Harmful Algal Blooms, or ECOHAB, program. more info |
| Love the water, but respect it as well 2009 has been a rough year for boaters. It seems like every week, you pick up the newspaper and read about some poor soul who was lost at sea or barely escaped with their life. The nation's eyes were focused on the Tampa Bay area in March when four friends, two of them former Buccaneers, went missing in the Gulf of Mexico. Three died, one was rescued, and boating safety became a hot topic everywhere from talk radio to the evening news. more info |
| Navarre Beach pier 'almost halfway there' (PHOTO GALLERY) Some 700 feet of the new fishing pier here stretched out over the emerald Gulf of Mexico on Thursday as officials told visitors about the progress made thus far and what is to come. more info |
| New USDA Effort Aimed to Help Fix Hypoxia Problem USDA will offer money to farmers and landowners in selected watersheds in 12 states to curb the runoff of farm chemicals and nutrients that are blamed for causing the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. USDA will spend $320 million over four years on this new water quality program. The money can be used to construct more wetlands, which trap pollution that washes off of fields, and to offset the cost of farming practices that prevent soil erosion. more info |
| Iowa to Put $4 Million into Wetland Program Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey on September 23, 2009 announced that the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship will use $4 million available through the state bonding plan to support the construction of demonstration wetlands for the new Iowa Drainage and Wetland Landscape Systems Initiative. Northey made the announcement during the tour of an existing wetland by the Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force. more info |
| Gulf States Report Card Data collection for the report card began in November 2007 and was completed by July 2009. Information was gathered from each state's water quality standards, federal guidance and regulations, state and federal employees, as well as from experts in water policy in each state. States were graded on four broad categories: water quality standards, public health protection, phosphorus and nitrogen pollution, and public participation. more info |
| Volunteers' efforts will help prevent shoreline erosion Building an oyster reef is tough, hot work. But Friday’s muggy weather didn’t deter volunteers with the Choctawhatchee Basin Alliance from work on a reef in Joe’s Bayou. more info |
| USF&W asks comment on pelican monitoring plan The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requests public comment on a proposal for keeping tabs on brown pelicans if they come off the endangered species list. more info |
| Agriculture money aims to curb Gulf dead zone The initiative announced last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will funnel $320 million over four years to projects in 12 Mississippi and Ohio River states, from Louisiana north to Minnesota and east to Ohio. The agency will identify farms along specific streams and tributaries shown to contribute the highest amounts of pollution and find ways to reduce it. more info |
| federal action on Gulf dead zone The agency will spend $320 million over four years for projects to reduce runoff in a dozen states that drain into the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The USDA will identify specific farms along streams and tributaries that carry the highest amounts of nutrient pollution -- a first. more info |
| Storm Killers Complex interactions between the ocean and overlying atmosphere cause hurricanes to form, and also have a tremendous amount of influence on the path, intensity and duration of a hurricane or tropical weather event. As researchers develop new ways to better understand and predict the nature of individual storms, a largely unstudied phenomenon has caught the attention of scientists at LSU’s Earth Scan Laboratory, or ESL. Cool water upwellings occurring within ocean cyclones following alongside and behind hurricanes are sometimes strong enough to reduce the strength of hurricanes as they cross paths. more info |
| Lawsuit challenges commercial fishing quotas in Gulf A Houston-based group of recreational fishermen has filed suit in federal court to force Gulf of Mexico fishery managers to drop a plan that grants exclusive rights to a portion of the annual catch of grouper and tilefish more info |
| Capturing the Canal Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret’s prediction that expanding the Panama Canal will not, after all, ignite a bonanza of new shipping containers at Gulf Coast ports is unpopular among some in the industry. more info |
| Two new Rookery Bay exhibits explain crucial role of estuaries To celebrate National Estuary Day, Rookery Bay’s learning center is opening two new exhibits Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009, and offering free admission along with free boat and kayak tours from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. more info |
| Sea turtle returns to gulf after months in rehab Researchers returned her to the Gulf of Mexico on Friday, this time wearing a satellite transmitter that they hope will track her ocean travels for the next six months. more info |
| Feds to fund Mississippi clean up from Minnesota to the Gulf The river that begins as a trickle in Itasca State Park and ends 2,350 miles later at the Gulf of Mexico will get a $320 million infusion from the federal government to improve water quality. more info |
| Meetings focus on shoreline projects Residents can learn about federal restoration protects that would help restore the shorelines of Sister Lake and Point au Fer Island at a pair of meetings in Houma and Morgan City next week. more info |
| Plan to fight Gulf 'dead zone' will target agricultural polluters The new initiative announced this week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will funnel $320 million over four years to projects in 12 Mississippi and Ohio River states, from Louisiana north to Minnesota and east to Ohio. Instead of broad catch-all conservation programs available to farmers across the United States, in this program USDA will identify farms along specific streams and tributaries that have been shown to contribute the highest amounts of nutrient pollution. more info |
| Old sunken vessel leaks fuel A vessel that sank long ago has sprung a fuel leak in the Gulf of Mexico near Port Arthur, Texas, and the U.S. Coast Guard was leading efforts to empty its tanks and clean up the spill, a spokeswoman said Friday. more info |
| It’s never too late to save the rivers I can’t think of much my two rivers have in common except both are in crisis. The 70 miles of Chattahoochee from Atlanta to West Point is among the five most polluted stretches of river in the nation. And in Urbanna, Va., the local Fall Oyster Festival stays alive by shipping in oysters from Florida. more info |
| Coastal restoration & business interests conflict It was a juxtaposition that nicely captured the complicated politics of coastal restoration in Louisiana. The congressional delegation's zeal for protecting and rebuilding wetlands is matched by its zeal for expanded oil and gas drilling opportunities in the Gulf, and opposition to the Obama administration's efforts to pass and implement climate change legislation intended to slow global warning by creating a new regulatory regime to limit carbon admissions. more info |
| Hunting for shark teeth My four kids have spent many a seaside vacation hunting for shells and smooth stones to decorate sand castles (and our windowsills back home). But on a recent expedition to Shark Tooth Creek Outdoor Adventures, a remarkable fossil site in Alabama far from the Gulf of Mexico, my younger daughters, Maura, age 11, and Sally, 9, and I discovered that amateur archaeologists of all ages can find prehistoric marine treasures without ever having to visit the ocean. more info |
| Gulf Dead Zone Cause and Cure Known, Action Still Required A representative from the Washington, D.C. based Environmental Working Group (EWG) has been asked to present remarks to the Mississippi River Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force Public Meeting held today in Des Moines, IA. In his remarks, EWG Midwest Vice-President Craig Cox provided a clear-eyed and no-nonsense assessment of the state of pollution flowing into the Mississippi River Basin and how it contributes to the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone. more info |
| Introductory exploration We’re not exactly sure why Gov. Bev Perdue needs to appoint a panel of experts to advise her on offshore energy. After all, studies and recent history have shown that it’s safe to drill offshore for oil and natural gas. It’s safe for the workers. It’s safe for the environment. And it’s good for the economy. more info |
| Saving the sturgeon This week, a group of four scientists plied up the Blackwater on a mission to catch and tag the elusive sturgeon, which is beginning its fall migration. more info |
| University Receives $6 Million to Assess Carbon Storage The University of Texas at Austin will use $6 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Texas General Land Office to identify state-owned areas underlying the Gulf of Mexico where carbon dioxide (CO2) can be stored safely and economically. more info |
| Should people who live in FL be allowed to say it’s hot outside? “A lot of this heat has to do with the high weather ridge over the Gulf of Mexico,” said Ed McCrane, the emergency manager of Sarasota County. “This side of the state is not getting a lot of moisture.” more info |
| Santa Rosa County shines with great events in October The sixth annual Beaches to Woodlands Tour kicked off a week early this year so we could include a great event, the Panhandle Phunfest, a three-day celebration sponsored by three area Parrot Head organizations. Next year this event will also be in October. more info |
| NOAA to build Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center NOAA has awarded Complete Building Corp. a $4.4-million contract to construct the Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center in Mobile, Alabama. The facility will be the regional home for the agency’s Office of Response and Restoration, the NOAA organization charged with responding to oil spills, hazardous material releases, and marine debris. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico “Dead Zone” Tour of Iowa A task force focused on water quality more than a thousand miles from Iowa is meeting in the Des Moines area this week to talk about what is being done to reduce the state's role in the pollution. The Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force is investigating how to lessen fertilizer and manure contamination that flows downstream into the Gulf of Mexico, creating what is being called the "dead zone;" an area with very low oxygen that cannot support marine life and is impacting the region's multi-million-dollar fishing industry. more info |
| Aid may help in curbing Gulf of Mexico's dead zone The yearly influx of farm runoff contribute's to the Gulf's Dead Zone, an area that covered 3,000 square miles in July. An algae bloom, followed by a rise in bacteria that feed on the algae, causes oxygen levels in the water to plummet, killing sea life. Federal funding to help control the runoff has been made available. more info |
| US Coast Guard finds sunken ship off Texas coast The Coast Guard in Port Arthur is leading an effort to recover oil from a submerged shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| USDA to fund conservation effort in 12 states The Agriculture Department is pouring $320 million into efforts to improve water quality in the Mississippi River basin. more info |
| Obama pleads for harder work on climate change President Barack Obama has implored world leaders to confront climate change, saying there can be no peace without cooperative work to preserve the planet. more info |
| Video: Obama speaks to UN on Climate Change President Barack Obama exhorted world leaders on Wednesday to step up and do their part in tackling global challenges in promoting security and prosperity rather than waiting for America to do it alone. more info |
| Mississippi River delta reconstruction for sale? Louisiana, scene of one of the biggest environmental reconstruction projects in U.S. history, could become a major player in emerging cap-and-trade markets by selling "carbon credits" tied to the restoration of its Mississippi River delta. more info |
| Santa Rosa offers Beaches to Woodlands The 6th Annual Beaches to Woodlands Tour of Santa Rosa County will showcase the area’s diversity with more than two dozen events staged during weekends in late September and October. more info |
| Trust and the Interior Department Under Mr. Salazar’s plan, the government will henceforth collect all its royalties in cash. This should be more easily administered and more transparent than payment-in-kind, which is vulnerable to manipulation at either end of the transaction. Oil can be overvalued when the government buys it or undervalued when it is sold. A series of reports have found that, for one reason or another — sheer laziness was often a factor — the service had failed to collect many millions of dollars in royalties it was owed under the program. more info |
| Birding center at SPI grand opening Saturday The $6.5 million South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center will hold a grand opening on Saturday as part of the World Birding Center. more info |
| Iowa must take responsibility for the Dead Zone The Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force will be meeting in Des Moines on Sept. 23-24. The task force, consisting of five federal agencies and 10 state agencies, was brought together in 1997 to develop and implement an action plan to reduce the Dead Zone. Since the beginnings of this task force, the Iowa Environmental Council and the Gulf Restoration Network have monitored its progress (or lack thereof), and advocated for strong actions to reduce the Dead Zone's size. more info |
| Giant squid caught by nets in Gulf of Mexico A rare giant squid was found in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana on July 30 by a team of American researchers trawling the ocean with nets. more info |
| Cuban, U.S. scientists hope for more collaboration "We share this water out there," Hueter said, sitting at a table with a view of a bay stretching out into the Gulf of Mexico. "Some of it, at least, might end up on the shore of Cuba. And certainly, some of the fish may end up in Cuba." In that spirit, four Cuban scientists made a trip to the U.S. this week, stopping in Washington to meet with the Environmental Defense Fund, which helped facilitate the visit, and with scientists at the Mote Marine Laboratory on Friday. more info |
| The SCUBAnauts Receive Gulf Guardian Award For Gulf of Mexico Mitigation Reef Assessment The Gulf of Mexico Program recently announced that SCUBAnauts International, Tampa Bay Chapter, of Tampa, Florida will receive a second place Gulf Guardian Award for 2009 in the Education Category. The 2009 Gulf Guardians hold a special significance this year as they will be awarded on the 10th Anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico Program’s Gulf Guardian Awards Program! (2000-2009). The ceremony will be held on the evening of October 29, 2009, beginning at approximately 6 p.m in the Magnolia Ballroom at the Beau Rivage Resort in Biloxi, Mississippi. The Awards ceremony is being held in conjunction with the Oceans `09 International Conference. more info |
| Are We Living in ‘The Age of Stupid’? Monday night is the global premiere of “ The Age of Stupid.” The film is a scorching appeal for humans to avoid knowingly up-ending the earth’s climate, delivered from the vantage-point of 2055, when the giant London Eye ferris wheel looks more like a waterwheel, with its bottom immersed in the Thames, along with much of central London. Its narrator, played by Pete Postlethwaite, is a Beckett-style loner who is a caretaker for all that remains of human science, culture and history, packed in a tower rising from the wave-dappled Arctic Ocean somewhere near the North Pole. more info |
| State needs anglers’ help to track tarpon The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wants anglers to report when and where they spot or catch tarpon in effort to manage and conserve the dwindling population of the saltwater species in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Volunteers clean coastal Collier Toss a glass bottle into the Gulf of Mexico today. Assume that the Gulf will still be here and you can count on the glass decomposing in the year 1,002,009. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone' to grow dramatically due to federal biofuel mandate A new study says efforts to shrink the massive, oxygen-depleted dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico will be stifled if the U.S. continues to increase its biofuel production. more info |
| No room to gamble on future of Gulf fish If you were blindfolded on the top of a cliff, how close would you dare get to the edge? That's the question facing federal fishery managers who must determine how many fish can be taken from the Gulf of Mexico without harming species and unbalancing the ecosystem. more info |
| Foundation seeks to aid marine life In 1986 The Billfish Foundation came to be compliments of the late Winthrop P. Rockefeller in an effort to conserve and enhance billfish populations. more info |
| Biofuel Mandate: Would Fuel Growth of Gulf of Mexico ‘Dead Zone’ A new study is sounding the alarm on the harmful environmental consequences of a federal mandate to increase biofuel production to 36 billion gallons by 2022. The increase would lessen our dependence on foreign oil, but would also significantly add to fertilizers entering the Mississippi River basin, worsening the ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico and devastating the region’s fishing and shrimping industry. more info |
| Asian black tiger shrimp showing up in Gulf Waters A 1988 escape of tiger shrimp from an aquaculture facility in Bluffton, S.C., resulted in the recapture of about 1,000 adults as far south as Cape Canaveral, Fla., according to the Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Division of the U.S. Geological Survey. The first confirmed sighting of black tiger shrimp in North Carolina was in 2006 in Pamlico Sound, Murphey said. Two were caught last year in New River, but most were in the ocean, she added. more info |
| Clean on paper: EPAs duel over nitrogen "It's hard for people to understand that what they're doing there up by Chicago has an effect down by New Orleans," said Robert Magneon, director of the Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research, which funds dead zone studies. more info |
| Riding on the blue Both locally and nationally, chemicals and trash pollute waterways. In the Gulf of Mexico, fertilizer runoff has caused huge "dead zone" where low oxygen levels kill most marine life. As part of a new fundraising and water awareness campaign called WhatAboutBlue, three kayakers are paddling the 2,500-miles of the Mississippi River. more info |
| Saving the Sea Turtles: Want to Help? Over the summer, over 55,000 people signed a petition from Sea Turtle Restoration Project, looking to put an end to longlining in the Gulf of Mexico. The group claims that the practice is unsustainable and that its elimination would save the lives of over 1,000 sea turtles every year and prevent the extinction of the rapidly depleting bluefin tuna. more info |
| Biofuel Production Could Undercut Efforts To Shrink Gulf 'Dead Zone' Scientists in Pennsylvania report that boosting production of crops used to make biofuels could make a difficult task to shrink a vast, oxygen-depleted "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico more difficult. The zone, which reached the size of Massachusetts in 2008, forms in summer and threatens marine life and jobs in the region. more info |
| LEED Certification for Energy Wasting White House In a refreshing change of pace, the latest First Family is really putting “their money where their mouth is” in respects to establishing a more economically and environmentally sustainable country. While First Lady Michelle Obama has started an organic garden to supply healthy food and fertilizer, President Barack Obama has sought to attain LEED Certification for the colossal, energy-consuming White House. more info |
| Ivan the terrible? Gulf storm forgotten by many Hurricane Ivan is recalled by weather experts as the most powerful storm to approach the Gulf of Mexico from the southeast when it took aim at the Alabama and northwest Florida coasts in September of 2004. more info |
| Gulf stewardship Accustomed as we are to headlines communicating alarm about overfishing of our world's marine resources, it was with relief that we greeted this bit of good news recently: There is responsible stewardship of our nation's fisheries to report — and it's occurring right in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| LaHood sets December start for satellite ATC in Gulf of Mexico Airline flights between North and South America and helicopters serving offshore oil rigs will be the biggest beneficiaries of satellite-based air traffic controls due to enter service in the Gulf of Mexico in December. more info |
| GIRLS GO GREEN This fall, Girl Scouts of Southern Alabama is encouraging girls to be at the forefront of ecological stewardship by introducing a new set of environmentally-themed leadership development books entitled It’s Your Planet – Love It. The collection of six publications or “Journeys” tackles issues like conservation, pollution, and renewable and reusable resources while challenging girls to take the lead in protecting the planet. The series, developed for girls in grades K-12, uses lessons and exercises that focus on leadership development. more info |
| Walker receives Stratton Award Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (DMR) executive director Bill Walker has received the Julius A. Stratton Award for leadership in coastal management. The national award was presented by NOAA at the Coastal Zone Conference to acknowledge great leadership in the spirit of Dr. Stratton, the first leader of the U.S. Ocean Commission. more info |
| How does your community prepare for emergencies? Hurricanes, spring floods, and other incidents can all wreak havoc with our daily lives. For communities, preparing can range from marking evacuation routes to setting up public shelters to preparing for large amounts of debris. Either way, it pays to think ahead. September is National Preparedness Month. more info |
| Putting cattle on a diet to curb climate change Much has been made of the problem of livestock emissions of methane -- a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 -- but a solution might be just around the corner. more info |
| EPA Awards Over $300,000 to Louisiana The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded $322,000 to the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals (LDHH) to implement the Louisiana BEACH monitoring program. LDHH will use the funds to implement the coastal monitoring and notification program of the coastal swimming beaches of Louisiana, and will contract with local entities to monitor public bathing beaches and notify the public of monitoring results more info |
| Preventing Hurricane Havoc When a hurricane roars inland, most low-lying coastal states rely on a network of pumps and canals to dissipate the storm surge and protect both lives and property. But add invasive plants and weeds to the mix, and you have a recipe for a disaster. Overgrown vegetation can wreak havoc and promote flooding by jamming pumps and blocking water flow. more info |
| Sea Lice Invade Beaches Experts say sea lice are very tiny larvae of certain jellyfish. They sometimes cause red, itchy rashes under a person's bathing suit. more info |
| Learn about terrapins at Weedon Island Conservation and ecology take center stage at September programs planned for Weedon Island Preserve in St. Petersburg. more info |
| Conservation Community Sends a Strong Message to NMFS Officials with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) were extremely busy last week, fielding more than 57,000 comments they received opposing a proposal that further incentivizes pelagic longliners to target Atlantic bluefin tuna in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, the fish’s only known western Atlantic spawning area. more info |
| Rules Guiding Fish Farming in the Gulf Are Readied The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that it would draft a national policy on fish farming in federal waters but in the meantime would allow aquaculture rules for the Gulf of Mexico to go into effect. more info |
| Editorial: Approval of fish farms in Gulf was premature The Obama administration erred last week in allowing large-scale commercial fish farming in the Gulf of Mexico in advance of national standards that need to be approved by Congress. more info |
| Zebra Mussels Spreading in Texas Invasive zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) have been confirmed to have spread from Lake Texoma into the head waters of Lake Lavon, and experts fear they could eventually spread throughout the Red River and Trinity River watersheds. more info |
| Ike issues unresolved for some residents in county Case workers continue to assist Montgomery County residents recover from Hurricane Ike, even on the storm’s one-year anniversary. more info |
| Storm Story: Year later Hurricane Gustav made landfall one year ago today. How has Iberia Parish fared since then and what might be in store for the remainder of this year’s hurricane season? more info |
| Texas Parks and Wildlife targets charter boats in Gulf A one-year undercover operation by NOAA Office of Law Enforcement’s Southeast Division in conjunction with Texas Game Wardens has netted charges against owners and operators of seven charter boats, resulting in more than $100,000 in fines for Texas-based offenders. more info |
| Kayak adventurer reaches the Gulf The trip that began June 2 at the headwaters of the Missouri River in Montana raised a little more than Forrester’s goal of $20,000 for the National Parkinson Foundation. He made the voyage down the Missouri and Mississippi rivers in honor of his grandfather, who was waiting with other family members when Forrester reached New Orleans last week. more info |
| 'Crazy' effects of rock dam near MS River-Gulf outlet Spend most of your 67 years earning your living in the marsh around Shell Beach, and you figure nothing can surprise you. But that all changed for Frank Campo after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finished building a rock dam across the MR-GO at Bayou La Loutre last April. more info |
| Work begins on new beach park FORT MYERS BEACH: Soon the public will be able to park and play in the same place as some of the most famous names in American history. The prime property sits on the Gulf of Mexico - Estero Boulevard near Strandview Avenue in the middle of Estero Island. more info |
| Data tower will test wind power at Navarre Beach Those pleasant afternoon breezes that come off the Gulf of Mexico might be powering your TV one day if a wind-energy experiment on Navarre Beach proves promising. more info |
| Drought-plagued marshes still feeling Ike effects Texas' worst drought in decades is stymieing its Gulf Coast's recovery from Hurricane Ike. more info |
| Magnolia Springs Restoration Project receives Gulf Guardian Award The Baldwin County Commission’s Magnolia Springs Restoration Project will receive a first place Gulf Guardian Award for 2009 in the Government Category, according to the Gulf of Mexico Program. more info |
| Waldo the robot mysteriously resurfaces Waldo, the Red Tide-sniffing robot who disappeared for 10 days, is back home with his family. more info |
| "Hypoxia zone" in Gulf of Mexico "What this shows us is that Mother Nature has as much to do with the size of the hypoxic zone as anything, but Iowa farmers are doing their part to use soil and water conservation measures to reduce nitrates and phosphorus run-off. We've already seen a 21 percent decline in nitrogen delivery to the Gulf. more info |
| Mobile's 3 Mile Creek to be cleaned for kayaking A coalition of government agencies and environmental groups are teaming up to build a park along the bank and restore the original creek bed for a kayaking route. more info |
| CSO Weekly Report The Voice of the Coastal States and Territories on Ocean, Coastal & Great Lakes Affairs more info |
| NOAA Gulf of Mexico News August 2009 issue available. more info |
| White House Initiates Task Force to Restore Damaged Gulf Coast According to the Obama administration the new task force, "will enable federal agencies, working with state and local governments and other regional stakeholders, to come together and develop a strategy to increase both the economic and environmental resiliency of the region. This working group will serve as a pilot for addressing the effects of climate change in other coastal regions." more info |
| Jellyfish wash up on Brevard's beaches Hundreds of jellyfish washed ashore on Space Coast beaches this week, stinging a handful of swimmers. more info |
| Levee plan vital for Terrebonne The Morganza-to-the-Gulf Hurricane Protection System is Terrebonne Parish’s best hope for survival in its war against the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Experiencing Old Man River This week, one of the most unique of such expeditions came through town. The Old Man River Project, led by Canadian adventurer J. Brett Rogers and propelled by a 32-foot wooden York Boat named Annie, landed at Sylvan Bay Monday afternoon. The goal of the project is to document the adventure down the entire mighty Mississippi through words, images and video and rediscover the modern day story of one of the greatest rivers of the world. more info |
| How Climate Change is Transforming Our Nation's Treasured Parks To get a good look at what climate change has wrought, there's no better vantage point than Glacier. Tucked away along Montana's Ca-nadian border, it's a heartthrob of a park, with dizzying snowcapped spires and glistening waterfalls. Its waters flow all the way to the Pacific, Hudson Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico, making it the "crown of the continent." more info |
| UW graduate to document health of Mississippi River An adventurous University of Waterloo graduate is launching a 4,000-kilometre expedition down the Mississippi River on Saturday in a handcrafted replica of a wooden York boat. more info |
| Five trees with 'heart' The Mighty Palm, Sabal This is our State Tree, did you know that? It’s on the Florida State Seal, and it’s tenacious, growing on Dunes and in Swamps. This is actually a pioneering Palm species, forgiving in habitat, soil, and nutrient requirements. It’s a Landscape Architectural staple, due this adaptability, this ‘forgiveness.’ Specified with, or without, ‘Boots’ that provide habitat to tree frogs, shoestring fern (threatened species), and insects (yes, even the dreaded palmetto bug). more info |
| Invasion on the Bayou Elephant ear plants may be ornamental on your coffee table, but in a major Louisiana bayou they’re an invasive species that could choke the waterway—the source of drinking water for 300,000 rural residents of the state. more info |
| Help clean LA’s newest public beach Elmer’s Island is the state’s newest wildlife refuge, located on the Gulf of Mexico’s shores across Caminada Pass from Grand Isle. The island, part of Jefferson Parish, has been untouched for a decade, but at 8 a.m. Sept. 19 the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program and others will host an Elmer’s Island Trash Bash beach clean-up. more info |
| See if you can I.D. Me! I'm a body of water joined to the Atlantic Ocean. My deepest point is about 17,000 feet below sea level. I'm surrounded by Cuba, Mexico and the United States. I'm the Gulf of Mexico, and I'm home to large supplies of petroleum and natural gas. See if you can I.D. Me! I'm a body of water joined to the Atlantic Ocean. My deepest point is about 17,000 feet below sea level. I'm surrounded by Cuba, Mexico and the United States. I'm the Gulf of Mexico, and I'm home to large supplies of petroleum and natural gas. more info |
| Do your homework on fishing charters The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had sent undercover agents on charted offshore trips in the Gulf of Mexico after it received multiple complaints about alleged illegal charter boats that had been undercutting legal businesses. more info |
| Collaborating With Cuba Despite deep political divisions between the United States and Cuba, both countries have a strong incentive to collaborate where interests overlap. Hurricanes are an obvious and timely example. Environmental protection is another. more info |
| Naples touted as first model community for Gulf restoration Speaking to about 250 people at the Gulf of Mexico Alliance meeting in Mobile, Ala., this month, the city of Naples’ natural resources manager proposed that the Alliance create a program to recognize model communities around the Gulf — and name Naples the first one. more info |
| Have You Seen This Robot? Mote Marine Laboratory has lost its robotic submarine, Waldo. The sub was on a routine patrol in the Gulf of Mexico for "red tide," a periodic algal bloom that can devastate local fish populations. For five days it scanned the seas, reporting back every two hours to the scientists running the lab. more info |
| NOAA OKs fishing quotas for Gulf grouper, tilefish Federal regulators have expanded the use of catch shares, or quotas, for fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| High water closing lower Terrebonne floodgates To prevent high water and tides from causing flooding in low-lying areas of lower Terrebonne Parish, the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District will be closing the Humble Canal barge structure, and could close other floodgates. more info |
| Pleasure Isle volunteers needed for Sept. 19 Coastal Clean-Up Volunteers from Orange Beach, Gulf Shores and Ft. Morgan will participate in the 22nd Annual International Coastal Cleanup on Sept. 19 from 8 a.m. until noon. The local events are part of a global effort for cleaner oceans. Volunteers will collect trash & debris on the Gulf of Mexico and inland waterways throughout South Baldwin County more info |
| Manatee tagged for first time in Ala. On Friday, 4 Sep 2009, Dauphin Island Sea Lab's Mobile Manatees Sighting Network (MMSN) successfully tagged a manatee in Alabama waters, the first for the state. This first Alabama capture, a female manatee weighing over 1,000 pounds, has been dubbed "Bama." more info |
| Go fish: Longest pier on Gulf open A muscle-car-collection museum, a ghost trail, new cruises on Mobile Bay and the longest pier along the Gulf of Mexico are among the newest attractions for travelers in Alabama. The state tourism department has compiled a list of new tourism-related events, attractions, restaurants, hotels and publications. more info |
| Wandering gliders stay true to their name One of our boys called the other day to report a swarm of dragonflies around the oil rig where he was working 200 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Group threatens suit over water projects The Gulf Restoration Network alleged at a news conference Tuesday that the Mississippi Development Authority, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and several utility authorities have violated federal law in the planning of nine different water and sewer projects. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Guardians Recognized The Veracruz Coral Reef System National Park and the National Coral Reef Institute are being honored with a first place Gulf Guardian Award for 2009 in the Bi-National category, the U.S. EPA's Gulf of Mexico Program has announced. more info |
| Rules Guiding Fish Farming in the Gulf Are Readied The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that it would draft a national policy on fish farming in federal waters but in the meantime would allow aquaculture rules for the Gulf of Mexico to go into effect. more info |
| Dueling offshore drilling plans in Congress Lawmakers on Wednesday began advancing competing national energy plans, with a bipartisan group advocating more oil and gas drilling in the outer continental shelf even as a key Democrat pushed his own proposal to give regional interests a greater say in what happens offshore. more info |
| Deepwater drilling in Gulf good for LA. workers With Gulf of Mexico drilling activity at a record low, the recent announcement by London-based BP (British Petroleum) of its massive discovery in deepwater Gulf of Mexico was welcome news in the industry. more info |
| New study on Gulf red snapper Fishery scientists are meeting this week to study new data on the health of the red snapper population in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the first time since 2004 that a comprehensive analysis of red snapper in the Gulf has been conducted. Fishery scientists will determine how current red snapper management plans, fishing rates and fishing restrictions are affecting the species. more info |
| Upstate fish farmers get stimulus Upstate catfish farmers have received nearly $9 million in federal stimulus money since mid-July, Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks announced Tuesday. more info |
| GULF LECTURE One of the foremost authorities on Gulf of Mexico fish, biologist Jim Franks of the USM Gulf Coast Research Lab in Ocean Springs, will give a lecture at noon Tuesday at the Museum of Natural Science in Jackson. The program, "Monsters of The Deep in the Gulf of Mexico: Are There Really Monsters?" is part of the Naturalist Lecture Series held on the first Tuesday of the month. It is free with normal Museum admission charges. Visit www.mdwfp.com for more information. more info |
| Restoring coastal barriers vital for region Scientists agree that these lost wetlands could have helped reduce storm surge. It is widely recognized that we urgently need to restore these wetlands and coastal forests to prevent similar or worse storm damage in the future. more info |
| Lifeless Ocean Deserts Expand 500,000 Sq.Km. in Past Decade It's pretty well known that ocean dead zones -- oxygen starved areas such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico -- are expanding. But new research in Geophysical Research Letters shows that ocean 'deserts' are also expanding. Discovery News has the story on these areas where virtually nothing lives: more info |
| FEMA head: Katrina could have been worse The head of the U.S. disaster relief agency says the calamity caused by Hurricane Katrina four years ago could have been even worse had the storm moved faster. more info |
| Wetlands recovery along coast could restore storm surge buffer The foundation is using dredged materials to build 30 mounds in the water that can support vegetation and become feeding grounds in the bay system for the next 40 years or so. more info |
| White House Task Force Crafting 'Marching Orders' for Managing Oceans The Obama administration is working to craft a new overarching national ocean policy that could change how federal agencies address new projects at sea -- from offshore energy development to aquaculture to marine conservation. more info |
| Dolphins Mesmerize Scientists have been studying dolphin antics in the Gulf of Mexico (where dolphins are most abundant) to learn more about their behavior and biology. If you want to learn more, check out the recent report by the Institute of Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport. more info |
| At 8,000 species, worms in the ocean vary On a barnacle-covered rod in the Gulf of Mexico, a reader saw several dark blue creatures that looked like giant marine caterpillars. They had two rows of white spikes on their backs with "feelers" on their tips that could retract. When the reader picked one up with a shovel, it stretched out like a snake. more info |
| High-Speed Rail & Gulf Dead Zone shrimp fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico have watched their catches go from thousands of pounds to nothing. That's because there's a dead zone in the Gulf where nothing can survive. Samara Freemark has more on this dead zone, what's causing it, and what it means for the shrimpers. more info |
| Dead zone in Gulf The scientists on the mapping cruise for this year’s Gulf hypoxic zone released their report July 24. Scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, or LUMCON, measured an area totaling slightly more than 3,000 square miles. more info |
| Policymakers Seem to have Lost a Gulf of Mexico Island The U.S. and Mexico are negotiating a new agreement on oil drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico. If Bermeja Island actually exists, that would push Mexico’s territorial waters out further, giving the country more of the western “Doughnut Hole,” a part of the Gulf believed to contain great oil reserves. more info |
| Gulf states work together to protect precious, profitable natural resource With more than half of the nation's population living within 50 miles of the coastline, it is obvious to conservation managers that the health of the affected bodies of water should be a top priority. For those of us who live in Alabama and the four other Gulf states, the Gulf of Mexico Alliance was formed to meet the challenges created by that population dynamic -- not the least of which are oxygen-depleted zones in the Gulf, red tides, fish kills and water quality issues. more info |
| In hot water: World's ocean temps warmest recorded The world's oceans this summer are the warmest on record. The National Climatic Data Center, the government agency that keeps weather records, says the average global ocean temperature in July was 62.6 degrees. That's the hottest since record-keeping began in 1880. The previous record was set in 1998. more info |
| World's most gigantic pump to protect New Orleans in 2011 The world's largest water pump is now under construction in New Orleans, and when it's finished in 2011, it'll blast 150,000 gallons of floodwater per second. This should be a welcome sight for those who stood helpless four years ago while the city flooded from the waters of Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricane Katrina. more info |
| Push to Open Fish Passes Some people in Rockport are pleading for two old fish passes to be reopened. They say a lack of inflow from the Gulf of Mexico has been hurting humans and wildlife. more info |
| New gov't study shows mercury in fish widespread No fish can escape mercury pollution. That's the take-home message from a federal study of mercury contamination released Wednesday that tested fish from nearly 300 streams across the country. more info |
| Your lawn: Public environmental enemy no .1? When we talk about issues like the dead zone or fish kills, rarely do we think about our immediate backyards as being the cause. The green cost of a green lawn. But scientists are now finding that they have underestimated the amount of environmental havoc wreaked by the maintenance of our lawns. more info |
| Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food American farmers now produce an astounding 153 bu. of corn per acre, up from 118 as recently as 1990. But the quantity of that fertilizer is flat-out scary: more than 10 million tons for corn alone — and nearly 23 million for all crops. When runoff from the fields of the Midwest reaches the Gulf of Mexico, it contributes to what's known as a dead zone, a seasonal, approximately 6,000-sq.-mi. area that has almost no oxygen and therefore almost no sea life. Because of the dead zone, the $2.8 billion Gulf of Mexico fishing industry loses 212,000 metric tons of seafood a year, and around the world, there are nearly 400 similar dead zones. Even as we produce more high-fat, high-calorie foods, we destroy one of our leanest and healthiest sources of protein. more info |
| Record Corn Crop Spells More Trouble for Gulf In America we grow a lot of corn, more than any other country. Last week, the USDA announced that 87 million corn acres -- the second highest amount ever -- were planted in 2009. It's a push for corn as fuel, not as food, that's spurring Midwest farmers to grow more corn. And there's a link between corn-ethanol production and the recent news that the Gulf of Mexico dead zone was more severe than in past years, which continues to jeopardize Gulf fisheries valued at $2.8 billion. more info |
| Pine River Watershed Alliance: “What is a watershed?” When looking at the location of rivers and the amount of streamflow in rivers, the key concept is the river's "watershed". What is a watershed? more info |
| Birding: Migration miracle When the shorter days signal that it's time to go, they start on a flight so filled with hazards that only about half the birds return in spring to claim breeding territories. On that flight, they face wind, weather, predators and a lack of places to stop and refuel. Plus, the birds whose autumn migration takes them across the Gulf of Mexico have to contend with hurricane season. more info |
| Barrier island gets new marsh, dunes In an effort to extend the life of a 1998 barrier island restoration project, state and federal agencies are building a nearly $24 million addition on Whiskey Island in Terrebonne Parish. more info |
| New Marine Protected Areas Declared in Mexico As part of World Environment Day celebrations hosted this year by Mexico, President Felipe Calderón announced the creation of three new marine protected areas, including Mexico’s first deep sea marine protected area. The Guaymas Basin and Eastern Pacific Rise Hydrothermal Vents Sanctuary, the Lobos-Tuxpan Reef System Flora and Fauna Protected Area, and the Whale Shark Biosphere Reserve will together help protect 795,000 acres of Mexico’s oceans. more info |
| Ruling on Longline Fishing Aids Turtles When a federal panel that regulates fishing in the Gulf of Mexico voted last week to limit the use of longlines to catch grouper because the lines can snag and drown threatened loggerhead sea turtles, no one was completely satisfied with the decision. more info |
| A river runs through his dream Next week, the 27-year-old from Lowville, in north Burlington, will navigate 4,000 km down the mighty Mississippi River to raise awareness for the Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper, which is part of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Waterkeeper Alliance. The overall goal is to bring the Mississippi River to the forefront of public attention. more info |
| Allatoona may be next battle in water war U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson ruled July 17 that the region’s withdrawals from Lake Lanier are illegal. Alabama and Florida had sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which controls the lake, over how it disperses water. Georgia is a co-defendant. Magnuson gave Georgia, Alabama and Florida three years to resolve the issue; if they fail, the judge said, he will sharply curtail Georgia’s withdrawals. more info |
| EPA's "Dead Zone" Strategy The decision about what strategy to take to solve the "dead zone" problem has ramped up as the Obama administration considers using a regulatory attack on the issue. Suzanne Schwartz, who directs a division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that is working on the dead zone issue, says the federal government and Louisiana researchers are checking to see whether the pollution violates water quality standards. If it does, "The state of Louisiana could set standards for what comes in, using the legal authority of the Federal Clean Water Act," Schwartz said at a conference in late July. more info |
| Whale sharks: Swimming alongside one of the giants r the last few weeks, unprecedented numbers of whale sharks have been seen cruising just a few miles off the beach, their broad snouts and tall dorsal fins breaking the surface as they swim lazily along, mouths agape, sucking in plankton. more info |
| Kayaker with camera out to conquer river Choosing their second adventure wasn't that hard, Jeanes said. "This is a fascinating river. Everybody who is American, if somebody said, 'Quick, for $1,000, name an American river,' they'd say 'The Mississippi River.' We have all read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. It's part of our culture." more info |
| Lee County island washing into the Gulf Work is underway to stop a Lee County island from disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico. There's a lot at stake including big bucks from tourism and a home for an endangered species. more info |
| Sen. Mary Landrieu pushes to lift ban on drilling Sensing a shifting attitude among Floridians who have historically opposed drilling off of the state's coast, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., is again pushing to lift a ban on oil and gas development in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Regulators Curb Longline Fishing in Gulf of Mexico Federal regulators voted last night to impose tough new restrictions on the commercial longline fishing fleet in the Gulf of Mexico in an attempt to protect marine turtles. more info |
| New Hope Middle School student enjoys love of the ocean Hannah Yarbrough has always enjoyed the ocean and the life that’s in it, but this summer she was able to make some of her dreams come true with a week-long trip to the Dauphin Island Sea Lab on the Alabama coastline. more info |
| Gulf alliance proves to be top environmental model For those of us who live in Alabama and the four other Gulf states, the Gulf of Mexico Alliance was formed to meet the challenges created by that population dynamic – not the least of which are oxygen-depleted zones in the Gulf, red tides, fish kills and water quality issues. more info |
| Multiple Encounters With Whale Sharks Multiple close encounters with large Whale Sharks in the Gulf of Mexico have been reported over the last couple of weeks. According to Gary Emerson of Gary’s Gulf Divers, he has heard numerous reports of Whale Shark sightings from Panama City to Destin to Orange Beach, all in the last couple of weeks. more info |
| New state museum exhibit gives visitors the world Picture for a minute, what it might be like to study global weather patterns from the moon's point of view. Imagine watching the weather systems roll across the Pacific Ocean, or swirl in the Gulf of Mexico. What if you could watch and speed up the expansion and recession of the polar ice caps in order to study the past and potential effects of global climate change? Complicated explanations would be nonexistent. Visuals would show the facts simply and clearly. more info |
| Blue Legacy - Louisiana: Downstream dead zone Wilma Subra, southern Louisiana’s own activist-grandmother extraordinaire, was one of the first people to identify the Dead Zone. A chemist, she’d been conducting tests off of oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico when she noticed a strange dearth of dissolved oxygen. She and other scientists launched an investigation, and now understand how the Dead Zone works. more info |
| NOAA announces funding to support ocean observing The NOAA Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) is awarding $973,083 in 2009 competitive grant funding to support ocean observing efforts in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary Among Healthiest Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary is among the healthiest coral reef ecosystems in the tropical Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, according to a new NOAA report. more info |
| As Risks Rise for Sea Turtles, Regulators Mull Fishing Curbs The fisheries council is taking public comment today and is expected to vote on a gulf plan this afternoon. Unless the council acts, the longline moratorium is set to expire in October. Regulators have a one-time option to continue it for another six months if no permanent management plan is approved. more info |
| FWC asks beachgoers to protect the hatchlings "By following a few simple guidelines, residents and visitors can ensure those hatchlings will reach the water safely and ensure the cycle will continue far into the future,” said Dr. Robbin Trindell of the FWC’s Imperiled Species Management Program. “Both nesting females and hatchlings have evolved to find the bright horizon over the open ocean as they move across the dark nighttime beach.” more info |
| State Biologists to Tag Gulf Coast Reef Species State biologists with the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI) are tagging reef species in a project that’s expected to provide fisheries managers with vital catch-and-release survival data needed for assessing reef fish stocks. more info |
| Offshore drilling ruling doesn't apply to Gulf Uncertainty over the decision had raised questions about whether the Interior Department should move forward with a lease sale scheduled for Aug. 19 in some 18 million acres in the western Gulf near Texas. The Obama administration announced recently that it planned to hold the Gulf sale but acknowledged it might have to reverse course if the court directed it to. more info |
| Sharks in the Gulf of Mexico The City of Orange Beach Coastal Resources Department hosted an educational talk today titled, SHARKS! at Live Bait at The Wharf. The event featured guest speaker Dr. John Dindo from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab who told attendees about the various types of sharks in our area and described the type of research being performed by the Dauphin Island Sea Lab as it relates to sharks. more info |
| "Hurricane Highway" The Mississippi Gulf Outlet, MRGO, is a channel that provided a shorter route between the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans's inner harbor built in 1965. It has been said to cause most of the flooding during Katrina in St. Bernard Parish. The residents, whom had nicknamed it hurricane highway, always desired it closed. more info |
| Test your hurricane knowledge! Names of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin are rooted primarily in American English, Spanish and what other language? more info |
| Shell: Planning To Repair Crack In Gulf Of Mexico Pipeline Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) is planning to repair a crack in the Eugene Island pipeline system in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, the company said Wednesday. more info |
| Ancient Cultures of the Gulf of Mexico More than 300 Prehispanic pieces arrived to Guanajuato Art and History Museum as part of the exhibition “Veracruz: Ancient Cultures from Gulf of Mexico”, open from August 7th until November 2009. 80 per cent of the objects are exhibited for the first time, and the conjunct will travel to Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia and Sao Paolo, in Brazil. more info |
| Entrepreneurs Wade Into the 'Dead Zone' Now, this annual problem is getting new attention, not from marine scientists but from entrepreneurs looking for a new domestic source of fuel. And one start-up sees fish themselves being part of the process. more info |
| Oceanographer to speak in Carbondale Sunday Noted oceanographer and author Dr. Sylvia Earle continues the Roaring Fork Cultural Council speaker series, appearing at the Thunder River Theatre in Carbondale at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. more info |
| Gulf Coast lighthouse stamps honor hurricane beacons The U.S. Postal Service is honoring five Gulf Coast lighthouses that withstood the battering of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005, the most active year ever for Atlantic hurricanes. This brings to 26 the number of U.S. stamps featuring lighthouses in recent memory. more info |
| Make oil firms pay their share As public service commissioner, I invite fellow Louisiana politicians to join me in calling for oil companies to pay fair royalties to taxpayers. I urge elected officials to join me in asking that oil companies pay for damaging our coastline. Scientists say 40 to 60 percent of coastal erosion is due to oil exploration, yet our leaders are silent. more info |
| Dauphin Island erosion lawsuit settlement would give $1.5 million for restoration After nearly a decade of legal proceedings, Dauphin Island property owners and the federal government have reached a proposed final settlement over erosion that would give the island about $1.5 million toward restoring the beaches, according to court records. more info |
| Dedication helps ensure sea turtles’ survival Unlike some of the higher-profile endangered species — like the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest that interfered with logging or the prairie grouse, whose flight path might intersect with energy-generating windmills — the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle never made for good headlines. more info |
| Texas receiving grant to plug abandoned GOM wells The Texas General Land Office will receive a nearly $1.4 million grant to seal abandoned Gulf of Mexico oil and gas wells in state waters, US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced. more info |
| Earth's Biogeochemical Cycles, Once In Concert, Falling Out Of Sync What do the Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone," global climate change, and acid rain have in common? They're all a result of human impacts to Earth's biology, chemistry and geology, and the natural cycles that involve all three. more info |
| Officials address shelter needs as storm season peaks Locally, temporary housing and a lack of bus drivers to relocate evacuees presented challenges to the region's planners, but they're being addressed on a regular basis. A meeting on evacuation and shelter plans was held Thursday in Houma. more info |
| Effort aims to boost fish habitat, population There are 58 sites throughout the state where Texas Parks and Wildlife is looking to build reef, he said. Those willing to get a permit and find a safe, heavy object that would serve as a good home for fish species can fill out an application at the department’s Web site, he said. more info |
| Moss Point center is a way station for hummingbirds Millions of ruby-throated hummingbirds are eating well and often in south Mississippi right now, preparing for a 500-mile flight over the Gulf of Mexico in the fall, and the director of the Pascagoula River Audubon Center in Moss Point says now's the time to take a look. more info |
| Fisheries Improvement Funding Available The U.S. Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service has 10 discretionary cooperative agreement and grant opportunities for research on optimizing fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico and off the South Atlantic states. more info |
| New Wetland Sites Dedicated To Help Reduce Nitrates It may seem hard to imagine, but the dedication of two wetland areas in Palo Alto County on Tuesday will eventually have an impact in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Through the Iowa CREP, or Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, two new wetlands will eventually do their part in reducing the amount of nitrates that make their way down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Cracking Mother Nature's Code Less fertilizer on the ground means less likelihood of excess fertilizer running off the fields the next time there's a good rain. And less runoff from farm fields translates, ultimately, to less runoff downstream, which could help control the condition called hypoxia -- low oxygen levels -- in the Gulf of Mexico. The lack of oxygen in the water forces shrimp, fish and crabs out of the area; animals that can't get away simply die. more info |
| Rough year for turtle hatchlings Dozens of sea turtle nests are hatching now, but street and residential lights are drawing hundreds of them away from the water, according Mote Marine Laboratory. more info |
| NOAA proposes shark measures NOAA's Fisheries Service is proposing several measures to end what it terms is overfishing of blacknose and other shark populations and to rebuild the species. more info |
| Beachgoers and homeowners can help baby turtles Baby sea turtles will soon begin their journey through the sand and across the beach into the miles of open water before they hit the weed lines. more info |
| Gulf's 'dead zone' much smaller than predicted The Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone" — where there is too little oxygen in the water for anything to live — is less than half the size predicted earlier this year but also unusually severe, a scientist said Friday. more info |
| Dead Zone in Gulf Is Smaller Than Forecast but More Concentrated in Parts Scientists said Monday that the region of oxygen-starved water in the northern Gulf of Mexico this summer was smaller than forecast, which means less disruption of shrimp, crabs and other marine species, and of the fisheries that depend on them. more info |
| Research shows oyster reef restoration is effective In Mississippi, however, the Conservancy is working with partners to restore this vital part of the coastal ecology. In 2006, the Conservancy teamed up with the Mississippi DMR to create a 2-acre oyster reef restoration site in the Bay of St. Louis by using water jets to blow oyster shells off of a barge within a marked area. more info |
| Urban glow putting more sea turtle hatchlings in harm's way Lights that shine on the beach must be shielded or turned off so they won’t lure baby sea turtles away from the Gulf of Mexico when they emerge from their nests. more info |
| Corn boom puts squeeze on gulf's oxygen supply Because of rising demand for ethanol, American farmers are growing more corn than at any time since World War II. And sea life in the Gulf of Mexico is paying the price. more info |
| Editorial: Open Gulf to drilling, but carefully That's why we continue to oppose opening state waters, within nine miles of the Gulf beaches, to drilling at this time. Better to start farther offshore, where buffers are wider in case of an accident and residents and visitors are guaranteed to be spared the sight of oil and gas rigs. more info |
| latest Alabama news from The Associated Press The Gulf of Mexico Alliance will meet in Mobile for three days beginning today. The alliance was formed in 2004 by the governors of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas. more info |
| Red tides, dead zones, fish kills hot topics as Gulf Alliance meets in Mobile Red tides, dead zones, fish kills and swimming advisories have become increasingly common in recent years as the Gulf of Mexico faces increasing pressure from a steadily expanding coastal population and the influx of agricultural runoff and other forms of water pollution. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico topic of environmental summit The Gulf of Mexico Alliance will meet in Mobile for three days beginning Tuesday to discuss the health of the Gulf Region. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Alliance Holds All-Hands Meeting The Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) will hold an annual meeting beginning today through August 6 in Mobile, Alabama to discuss implementation of the recently released 2009 Governors’ Action Plan II that identifies strategies to sustain a healthy and resilient Gulf of Mexico region. GOMA is a partnership, initiated in 2004 by the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, intent on significantly increasing regional collaboration to enhance the ecological and economic health of the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Alliance Meeting Barnett Lawley, Commissioner of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, will join officials from the four other Gulf states, Washington, D.C., and Mexico in Mobile for a meeting of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) to address the health of the Gulf Region. more info |
| Dead Zones & Plastics Still A Problem In Our Oceans The clock is ticking as environmental groups and federal agencies are working to save endangered parts our oceans. Two of the biggest trouble spots that are getting lots of attention are the Gulf of Mexico’s “Dead Zone” and the other is the retrieval of tons of plastics accumulating on the North Pacific Ocean. more info |
| Gulf sands are sea turtles' maternity ward The sands of Pensacola Beach is where many baby sea turtles get their start, fighting their way to the surface amid eggs and siblings to reach the air, the moonlight and the warm Gulf waters. more info |
| Man to kayak Mississippi River Brian Righi’s 17-foot bright red kayak glided noiselessly, circling the lake at Nelson Park on Tuesday afternoon. Logging in several hours of practice daily, the local author is preparing for a 2,500-mile trip down the Mississippi River. more info |
| Gulf Shark May Get Help The small size of the blacknose shark - only 4 feet when fully grown - makes it easy for it to become entangled in gillnets set to catch other fish, and as a result the species is in trouble, according to a draft plan released by the National Marine Fisheries Service to rebuild stocks of the little shark. more info |
| 'Dead zone' strategy rattles farm interests The fight over the Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone" - a problem scientists say can be traced in large part to Iowa and its sister farming states - has ramped up as the Obama administration considers a regulatory attack on the problem. more info |
| Climate Change and the Scary Jellyfish Scourge In June I came across a Discovery News/ABC Science Online piece about a new study reporting that jellyfish are taking advantage of decades of overfishing and rising water temperatures to expand their numbers, range, and size. more info |
| Freed Fla. dolphin attacked by sharks, euthanized An Atlantic bottlenose dolphin was attacked by sharks and had to be euthanized just hours after he was released into the Gulf of Mexico off of western Florida. more info |
| "Aggressive, uncontrollable monster" stalks Gulf The microscopic organism, Vibrio vulnificus, is naturally present in such conditions during the warm months - starting around April and going as late as November, said John Schwarz, head of the marine biology department at Texas A&M University in Galveston. more info |
| Vital La. oil port left vulnerable to hurricanes The booming oil hub called Port Fourchon, a nerve center in the nation's oil supply chain, is turning into a sitting duck for hurricanes as the beach that protects it from the Gulf of Mexico washes away. more info |
| Scientists say Causeway hurting the bay; propose experiment For the past decade, scientists have suggested that the U.S. 90-U.S. 98 Causeway is hurting Mobile Bay and the vast and swampy Mobile-Tensaw Delta to the north by artificially splitting one of the nation's largest coastal estuaries in two. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Alliance Aims to Keep Gulf a Treasured Resource The Gulf of Mexico Alliance (GOMA) will convene Aug. 4-6 in Mobile, Ala., to address the health of the Gulf Region, drawing a diverse array of representatives from the five Gulf states, Washington D.C., and Mexico. Participants will gather to discuss implementation of the 2009 Governors’ Action Plan which outlines key steps and priorities for the Alliance over the next five years. more info |
| Opening of Gulf park's new fishing pier draws crowd Now that word is out that there are fish under the longest fishing pier on the Gulf of Mexico, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley is ready to move ahead with plans to construct a convention center on the Gulf Coast. more info |
| Discovery Channel provides feeding frenzy for shark-obsessed The Gulf of Mexico is a fine place to find sharks. According to filmmaker Jeff Kurr, the Gulf is teeming with whale sharks, hammerheads, a lot of bull sharks and some “large aggressive makos.” He cites the Gulf's biodiversity, making it one of his top sites for filming shark footage. more info |
| The Mighty Mississippi Basin and Gulf Suffocating: Inertia Not An Option The Water Science and Technology Board, (WTSB), Division on Earth and Life Sciences of the National Research Council has released for publication its study for improving water quality in the Mississippi River Basin and Northern Gulf of Mexico. The purpose of the study was to create an action plan for reducing nutrient load in the effected areas causing low levels of oxygen and creating a condition called hypoxia. more info |
| MMS Gulf Region observes 20 years of unannounced spill drills The US Minerals Management Service is celebrating 20 years of unannounced oil spill response drills in the Gulf of Mexico. It conducted its first such drill on July 25, 1989, and has held another 373 since. more info |
| NOAA Proposes Measures To Rebuild Blacknose Populations NOAA’s Fisheries Service is proposing several measures to end overfishing and rebuild blacknose sharks and other shark populations. Nine public hearings will be held on the proposal, from New England to the Gulf of Mexico, in August and September. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico oil spill sheen grows The Coast Guard says the sheen from a 58,800-gallon weekend oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now covering an area of 80 square miles. That's up from Monday's figure of 28 square miles. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico ‘Dead Zone’ Is Smaller Than Expected The dead zone has averaged 6,000 square miles over the past five years, including 2009, and the goal is to reduce the average size to 2,000 square miles or less by 2015, the statement said. Last year, the zone was the second-largest on record, at about 8,000 square miles, according to NOAA. The largest recorded was about 8,500 square miles in 2002. more info |
| Bill Gates Plans to Tackle Hurricane Control Conduits would extend from one vessel beyond the ocean's thermocline, which is an invisible line separating the warmer, mixed layer of water closer to the surface from the cooler and calmer water that is seen further below the ocean's surface. Sunlight routinely is captured by the surface layer of ocean water, and a different vessel would be used as a heat/energy sink for water at deeper depths. more info |
| Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry joins reef cleanup Aerosmith lead guitarist Joe Perry joined a reef cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida after the band canceled a concert in Tampa. more info |
| Fingers crossed: Toxic red tide has been absent Karenia brevis is the type of thing you don't think about when it's not around, like a nagging headache or a poison ivy rash long after it's gone away. The absence of pain is what we assume to be normal, and it is, if we're lucky. more info |
| Volunteers Needed for Marking The City of Clay and Storm Water Management Authority have joined together in an information camaign to protect the quality of rivers. Markers have been created to put on storm drains in Clay subdivisions to remind residents that water that goes into the drains go untreated into creeks and rivers, ultimately into the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Surfside Beach losing battle against erosion The sand, longtime locals and seasoned surfers recall, once stretched 200 feet from Beach Drive to the Gulf of Mexico, room for a row of houses and ample parking, and for beachgoers to spread towels and play volleyball. more info |
| An adventure runs through it Jeanes said the film aims to capture not just the experience of an epic river journey, but the people he and Hullquist meet along the way. The filmmakers found stranger encounters to be fertile ground in their first production, which documented an attempt to hitchhike across America in less than a week. more info |
| Turtle hatchlings waddle to the water on Bonita Beach Usually the biggest evening gatherings at Bonita Beach are for sunset, but recently more than 60 people crowded the beach for something even more spectacular: a baby loggerhead turtle release. more info |
| Franks will give lecture on great fish in the Gulf Those are some of the questions to be addressed Thursday when Jim Franks of the Gulf Coast Research Lab in Ocean Springs, one of the top fisheries biologists in the United States, gives a free lecture on the fisheries of the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| NOAA forecasts mild hurricane season Thanks to an active El Nino, the Gulf coast may be heading into a mild storm season. Mike Jamski, forecaster for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) office in Tallahassee, said the Western hemisphere is emerging from a neutral period and a weak El Nino has begun to develop in the Pacific Ocean. more info |
| Arctic Blob Mystery Solved In the Gulf of Mexico, blooms of phytoplankton, a type of algae, can become so prolific they rob the sea of oxygen, creating a dead zone where fish and other creatures can't survive. more info |
| NOAA Announces Size of Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone, Hypoxia Problems On Monday, NOAA-supported scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium will report on this year’s “dead zone” off the coast of Louisiana and Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. Fueled by nutrient runoff primarily from agricultural activity, the Gulf of Mexico dead zone threatens valuable commercial and recreational Gulf fisheries that generate about $2.8 billion annually. more info |
| Gulf State Park Pier Opening Day The Big Day finally arrived and for anglers around the southeast it was none-to-soon. As the 11 o'clock hour on July 20th drew near, people started lining up at the gate. more info |
| Experts: sea warming menaces Caribbean, Gulf coral Warm ocean temperatures predicted to persist through October in the Caribbean and the central Gulf of Mexico could mean the loss of huge swaths of corals across those regions, U.S. scientists warned Wednesday. more info |
| Dispute over privately owned beach in Galveston An appeals court will decide who can rightly claim a privately owned beach in Galveston pummeled by Hurricane Ike. more info |
| Mercyhurst archaeologists back at undersea beach It's take two for one Mercyhurst College archaeologist, whose underwater excavation last summer off Florida's Gulf Coast will continue today. more info |
| Texas set to host largest U.S. wind farms The Texas-based company's leases include two offshore sites in the Gulf of Mexico and one on land in the Texas panhandle. One of the offshore tracts is submerged land off Mustang Island near Corpus Christi; the other is submerged land off South Padre Island. Both sites are each over 19,000 acres. more info |
| Local levees, canals could get $22 million More than $22 million in levee work and canal dredging for Lafourche, Terrebonne and other south Louisiana parishes may be approved by Congress this year. more info |
| Study: Big sharks disappearing from Gulf Essentially, large sharks have been "eliminated" from the Gulf, according to the scientists. Such sharks were the Gulf's top predators until about 1988, when rodeo records indicate that they abruptly vanished. more info |
| Clean Gulf Associates acquires new $6.5 million aircraft Oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico may be mopped up just a little a little bit faster after a New Orleans company ordered the purchase of a high-tech plane that officials say is the biggest investment in Gulf spill cleanup in the last two decades. more info |
| Boat once marine hazard now serves as fish habitat The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources' Derelict Vessel Removal Program and Artificial Reef Bureau has had the boat cleaned, towed and sunk about 15 miles south of Horn Island. more info |
| Biloxi, Mississippi: Rebuilt and Reborn Long before French explorer Pierre LeMoyne d’Iberville discovered Biloxi in 1699, the Native Americans lived there. A tribe called Biloxi (meaning “first people”) met the explorer who was instructed by the King of France to claim the coastal region. more info |
| Miss. shows Katrina recovery at govs' convention Governors attending their national convention on Mississippi's Gulf Coast have seen signs of Hurricane Katrina recovery — glitzy casinos packed with tourists, new condominium towers rising along the beach, the major expansion of a bustling state port. more info |
| Two recovered sea turtles released Two loggerhead sea turtles were released Monday into Sarasota Bay after recovering at Mote Marine Laboratory's Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Hospital on City Island. more info |
| Local man finds fossil on fishing trip Alabama's official state fossil is the fossil whale Basilosaurus cetoides, which lived in the extension of the Gulf of Mexico which covered southern Alabama during the Eocene Epoch, about 45 million years ago. more info |
| Watershed Wagon in town this morning While meetings of the Fairhope Environmental Advisory Board might excite conservation activists, they rarely make the summer calendar of parents looking for a fun place to bring children. But today's visit from the Weeks Bay Reserve's Watershed Wagon offers a new opportunity for some hands-on education that isn't dry as chalkdust. more info |
| Fishing reefs being rebuilt step by step Following Hurricane Katrina, the fertile waters of the Mississippi Sound and northern portion of the Gulf of Mexico were damaged, including the many fishing reefs from the beachfront to the adjacent federal waters located on the south side of the barrier islands. more info |
| A number that could one day mean trouble One of the most hair-raising statistics we've seen lately came this weekend from Galveston's Beach Patrol. The patrol reported 252 instances of missing children on Galveston beaches during the Fourth of July weekend. On a normal weekend, the number is typically about 60, which also is a lot. more info |
| U.S. Sen. Kit Bond calls restoration plan "nuts" Bond calls the means to achieve the goal of improving conditions for the pallid sturgeon "nuts" and environmentally unsound. more info |
| Researchers want to hear your experiences The project: Titled "History of the Gulf of Mexico Offshore Oil and Gas Industry during the Deepwater Era: Worker, Family and Community Perspectives," the oral history project seeks the recollections of workers and their families on the effect of the distant workplace. more info |
| Miss. agencies involved in red snapper research Marine biologists are studying how artificial reefs may help restore red snapper numbers. more info |
| Increasing dead zones in oceans could be avoided with a vegetarian diet One more way to reduce the spread of ocean dead zones is by "curbing the world's addiction to synthetic fertilizers and pesticides", according to the United Nations Environment Program. A more eco-friendly approach to agriculture would cut down on the amount of polluted groundwater caused by these poisonous fertilizers--yet another reason to go green and become vegetarian it seems. more info |
| Tammany council tells corps to act quickly The St. Tammany Parish Council let the Army Corps of Engineers know Thursday night that it wants a plan for storm protection that keeps water in the Gulf of Mexico from entering Lake Pontchartrain, and it wants that work to begin as soon as possible. more info |
| Saving the coast will take more than one levee Our position, simply put, is that coastal communities, whether New Orleans or Houma, cannot rely on levees alone for protection. They need multiple lines of defense that include structural protections such as levees, non-structural protection such as elevated homes and robust natural defenses such as coastal wetlands, cypress swamps and barrier islands. more info |
| A&M researchers find 'dead zone' off island Researchers from Texas A&M University have fired up a new monitoring system on an offshore wind platform and detected a new "dead zone" in the Gulf south of Galveston. more info |
| Picking and choosing If it wasn't the words that jolted you, maybe it was the map. You might have seen it on the front page Monday, the one that shows all of Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico, something the LSU study it accompanies says will happen by 2100 if nothing is done to stop it. more info |
| Shark knowledge is crucial for anglers Grab a cold drink and sit down. It's time for Shark Class 101. more info |
| Minnesota to Louisiana rafting trip frames documentary Ryan Jeanes and Phillip Hulquist have made a pact to experience the world in ways few have seen it. more info |
| Senate Panel OKs Expanded Oil and Gas Leasing in Eastern Gulf The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved expanded oil and gas leasing today in the eastern Gulf of Mexico in a bipartisan vote that would upend a 2006 compromise with Florida senators that provided their state at least a 125-mile buffer in most areas until mid-2022. more info |
| Gulf Coast Bird Observatory receives $100,000 The Houston Endowment, the largest philanthropy in Texas, has contributed $100,000 to the operational support of the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory. The funds will be used to augment membership dues and other grants and donations received by GCBO in what is proving to be a tough economic climate for all nonprofit organizations. more info |
| Sharks aplenty lurking in Gulf of Mexico Although many shark populations have declined in recent decades, summer 2009 is shaping up as a very active shark season in Southwest Florida. more info |
| Delta 4 rocket boosts weather satellite into orbit The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite system provides the hemispheric views familiar from television weathercasts. Observations of the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the East Coast are provided by the GOES-12 satellite--critical for hurricane tracking--with GOES-11 providing similar coverage of the the West Coast and the central Pacific Ocean past Hawaii. more info |
| State stands to feel effects of climate change bill Mississippi ranks among the least energy-efficient states. Only 12 other states produce more heat-trapping car bon dioxide gas and other greenhouse gases per capita, according to numbers compiled by one environmental group. more info |
| Warning on trout hatcheries could force changes Hatchery-raised steelhead trout pass on genetic defects that hamper survival of even their wild-born offspring, according to a study that biologists say could lead to a radical shift in the way salmon breeding programs operate on the West Coast. more info |
| Free summer camp in Ocean Springs teaches art and science Art camp or science camp? Coast kids feeling torn between the two are able to get the best of both worlds this summer at Mary C. O'Keefe Cultural Center in Ocean Springs. Instructors say "Camp Leonardo" is about teaching children about the environment while exploring their artistic side. And the camp is free. more info |
| Saving the Basin, Part One: Man takes control Every day, the Atchafalaya River dumps muddy, sediment-rich water into the Gulf of Mexico south of Morgan City, incrementally building land along a coast that otherwise is starved for soil more info |
| The Day in Pictures - June 30, 2009 Nashville based photographer John Guider shoots photos of the underside of the Harahan Bridge from a sail boat he built himself. Guider is three weeks into a two month photography expedition down the river that will take him all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Environmental Toll of Plastics The amount of plastic that will be produced this decade will nearly equal the total produced in the 20th century, and the substance is increasingly taking a toll on human health and the environment, a new study says. more info |
| A fear of weeds When did we become so deathly afraid of weeds? It used to be snakes, boogie men and mother-in-laws that got us weak-kneed and goofy acting but now it's dandelions and Canadian thistle that send us tumbling. It's so bad that our weed-killing compulsion is about to kill us all. more info |
| Drilling technology may surprise tree huggers So without a doubt, we can drill safely and cleanly. Is it impossible for a catastrophic accident to happen? No, but the chances are infinitesimally small, and considering the benefits of drilling, it's worth the barely existent risk. more info |
| Landmark Reference Offers Summary of Gulf Life This landmark scientific reference for scientists, researchers, and students of marine biology tackles the monumental task of taking a complete biodiversity inventory of the Gulf of Mexico with full biotic and biogeographic information. Presenting a comprehensive summary of knowledge of Gulf biota through 2004, the book includes seventy-seven chapters, which list more than fifteen thousand species in thirty-eight phyla or divisions and were written by 138 authors from seventy-one institutions in fourteen countries. more info |
| Gulf fishermen take USF scientific probe The Slocum glider looks like a huge model airplane, but it's really more like a remote-controlled submarine. more info |
| Scientists say artificial reefs may help restore Gulf red snapper stocks MSU biologist Don Jackson says in the past 20 years, red snapper stocks are estimated to have declined by as much as 90 percent in the northern Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Five Things About Hurricanes JPL scientist Bjorn Lambrigtsen goes on hurricane watch every June. He is part of a large effort to track hurricanes and understand what powers them. more info |
| Experts say difficult decisions ahead for saving La. coast She added that restoration is not so much about putting the coast back to the way it was, but trying to find a sustainable future for Louisiana. more info |
| Will much of New Orleans be underwater by 2100? Unless enormous amounts of soil are dumped onto the Mississippi River Delta, the region could lose up to 5,212 square miles of land to ocean and tidal marsh by 2100 - a result of sea-level rise and the land sinking. more info |
| Coastal study is a call to action Even under the best conditions, Louisiana will have to determine which areas can be saved or rebuilt, and which must be abandoned to the ocean - particularly if the researchers are correct that we stand to lose another 10 percent of our state. more info |
| Fishing: World's largest shark in Gulf a whale of a sight New study suggests Gulf holds largest population of whale sharks, the world's largest fish. more info |
| The latest oil drilling bill could have a shot of passing Don't assume that the latest push for oil drilling off Florida's Gulf Coast is destined to be turned back because of the seemingly annual - almost routine - fight against it. more info |
| Restoration project saves St. Joseph Peninsula, for now Nearly half of Florida's 825 miles of sandy beaches are considered "critically eroded" by the state, and no stretch is going faster than this one. more info |
| Legislators must not lose touch with us But in the past few months, the oil industry has done much to convince lawmakers that drilling for oil within a few miles of Florida’s pristine beaches would create an economic windfall for the country, and especially for Florida. more info |
| Train to be a crew member on Tall Ship An orientation meeting for seamanship training on the restored 1877 Elissa, the official tall ship of Texas, will be from 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. July 18, dockside at the Texas Seaport Museum, 22nd Street and Harborside Drive. more info |
| Boaters, anglers asked to report invasive jellyfish Though the first sighting in the Gulf of Mexico wasn't reported until 2000, jellyfish expert Monty Graham suspects they've been in the Gulf since the mid-1990s. more info |
| Researchers predict rise in sea level Almost 80 percent of Galveston County households could be displaced by 2109 if water levels in the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay rise as quickly as they have during the past 100 years. more info |
| S. Texas schools prepare for expanded offshore industry "It will have a great impact -- a national impact and an international impact," said Bill Summers, president of Valley Partnership in Weslaco, formerly the Rio Grande Valley Chamber of Commerce. "It's going to bring a lot of jobs to the Valley and a lot of new companies. You need support (businesses) and you need supply companies to come." more info |
| Students take to the sea for studies Graduate-student researchers at Louisiana State University - and other state schools of higher education - weave their way through the coastal wetlands of Louisiana into the northern Gulf of Mexico on monthly research trips, aboard The Pelican, a 116-foot research vessel, to collect water and sediment samples for LUMCON. They use the samples to study everything from temperature and salinity to pollutant toxins in shellfish. more info |
| Mobile Maritime Museum Gets Major Financial Boost Senator Richard Shelby announced NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is giving $499,500 to the project. more info |
| Farming Partnership Protecting Waterways Efforts are being made to help protect area rivers, lakes, and streams from pollution that originates at chicken farms. more info |
| Obama Pitches Climate Change Bill as a Job Creator Obama said the coming House vote is of "historic proportions" as it will help clear the way for the economy to begin a long turn from one driven by relatively cheap fossil fuels to one powered by low-polluting, renewable sources of energy such as wind, solar and geothermal. more info |
| Technology Offers Better Ways For Officials And Public To See The Storm Ahead Louisiana State University's WAVCIS, or Wave-Current-Surge Information System for Coastal Louisiana, has a few new tricks up its sleeve in preparation for the 2009 hurricane season. more info |
| Fishing Puts A Third Of All Shark Species At Risk Of Extinction Sharks are vulnerable because they can take decades to mature and they produce few young. The scalloped hammerhead shark, which has declined by 99% over the past 30 years in some parts of the world, is particularly vulnerable and has been given globally endangered status on the red list, which means it is nearing extinction. In the Gulf of Mexico, the oceanic whitetip shark has declined by a similar amount. more info |
| Make my day, Flipper Boat captains say dolphins, known for their toothy grins and playfulness, are growing increasingly aggressive in their quest for food, with some taking fish right off the hook - something that rarely happened just a few years ago. In response, fishermen are pulling out everything from pipe bombs to .357-caliber Magnum pistols to fend them off - and breaking a federal law against harming the sea mammals. more info |
| Plan Your 4th of July Celebration With SouthCoast USA "The Gulf Coast region offers something for everyone and we wanted to make the SouthCoast website a one-stop-shop for travelers to maximize their experience," said Kim Priez, Vice President of Tourism for New Orleans and former chair of SouthCoast USA Board. more info |
| Fishermen Oppose Controversial Management Plan Today, Food & Water Watch released the results of a re-referendum on a controversial fishery management plan in the Gulf of Mexico. Designed by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, the plan is known as an Individual Fishing Quota, or IFQ, and aims to manage the grouper and tilefish fisheries of the Gulf by dividing the amount of fish caught among fishermen, based on the amount they have caught in the past - essentially privatizing the resource. more info |
| Hurricane drill checks readiness "It's a good opportunity for people who've been through something like this before to share their experiences with those who haven’t," Lee said. "And it helps shake off any rust because people do get complacent, especially since it’s been several years since we've had a significant event here." more info |
| Report on climate change is eye-opening Unlike other reports that can be overly scientific, this one is aimed at explaining the impacts of our warming oceans, melting ice caps and changing patterns of storms in plain language that will hopefully allow more readers to stay tuned long enough to see what may lay ahead and how we should proceed. With any luck, that insight will result in pressure on our leaders to make positive changes. more info |
| Safeguard Gulf fish THE OPPOSITION to fish farming in the Gulf of Mexico remains strong enough to question whether possible risks are worth the potential benefits. more info |
| NOAA Ship Being Outfitted for Studies in GOM The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's newest fisheries survey vessel is being outfitted at a Mississippi shipyard and should be ready in July. more info |
| Storm watches and warnings When there's a major storm in the Gulf of Mexico, monitor broadcast media and listen for instructions from local officials. Do not take tropical storms for granted. Even slow moving tropical storms can be deadly. more info |
| Mexico claims to Gulf shrink with island's loss The island of Bermeja, which appears on ancient maps of the Gulf of Mexico as a barren speck of land, does not exist in reality, a study has concluded. more info |
| Is your generator ready for hurricane season? The 2009 hurricane season is underway and while there is nothing currently brewing in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean, now is the time to get one piece of your hurricane kit ready -- the generator. After Hurricane Ike, it may need some special attention so it will work the next time the lights go out. more info |
| State waterways, Tenn-Tom increasing keys to Midwest transport Water transport planners eye the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway as a potential water highway between the nation's midsection and the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Clues on corn yields, weather conditions and climate patterns New mathematical models developed by Agricultural Research Service scientists and colleagues could eventually help farmers use climate patterns to predict corn yields. Farmers could use this information, which indicates yield cycles of about two years, to adjust their production practices. For instance, crops grown in low-yield years may require less fertilizer. more info |
| Boating Under the Influence Florida is not only surrounded on three sides by two large bodies of water, the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean, but Florida also boasts over 11,000 square miles of waterways. So it is no surprise that boating is a popular summertime activity. Also no surprise is that Florida law treats the crime of Boating under the Influence (BUI) quite similarly to the crime of Driving Under the Influence (DUI). more info |
| Low Apalachicola River flow may hurt gulf fisheries Reductions in the flow of the Apalachicola River have far-reaching effects that could prove detrimental to grouper and other reef fish populations in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, according to a new Florida State University study that may provide new ammunition for states engaged in a nearly two-decade water war. more info |
| Gulf drilling said harmful to Fla. coasts Offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico could pose significant risks for the Florida Keys and South Florida, environmentalists say. more info |
| Gulf sprouts a windfall of waterspouts It was neither bird nor plane, but there was something in the air Friday morning over the water at Pinellas County beaches. more info |
| Dead zones imperil fisheries Scientists have been studying Louisiana's dead zone since the 1970s and mapping it since the mid-1980s. And what they've noticed: It's getting bigger. more info |
| We've become a nation of bean counters It apparently made short-term economic sense to apply those chemical herbicides and fertilizers. But it did not make economic sense to destroy the fisheries at the mouth of the Mississippi. We need to account for the costs to the downstream fisherman as well as for the profits of the upstream farmer. more info |
| Fertilizer Divide: Too Much, Not Enough In the Science report, Mr. Vitousek and colleagues compared fertilizer use in three corn-growing regions of the world: northern China, western Kenya and the upper Midwestern United States. more info |
| Bill Nelson has gone too far with oil, gas production rhetoric Sen. Bill Nelson has gone too far this time with his off-the-wall rhetoric about offshore oil and gas drilling. Recently in Tallahassee, he said pursuing energy independence by allowing drilling off the Florida coast would convert our world-class beaches into "industrial waste zones." more info |
| Fish farm plan open to more public comment As federal authorities seek public comment this summer on a plan to establish offshore fish farms in the Gulf of Mexico, about three dozen members of Congress including Mississippi Rep. Gene Taylor have asked that the aquaculture proposal be nixed. more info |
| GOM's warm waters would intensify hurricanes Gulf temperatures along the Southwest Florida coast hovered above 91 degrees Sunday afternoon, a development that could lead to more intense hurricanes should one reach the Gulf of Mexico since warm water intensifies tropical cyclones. more info |
| Nutrient Delivery To GOM Among Highest Ever Measured Predictions of the size of the 2009 hypoxic zone, to be released this week, reflect USGS estimates of about 295,000 metric tons of nitrogen (in the form of nitrate) delivered in April and May 2009 to the northern Gulf. In 2008, the hypoxic zone exceeded 20,000 square kilometers, an area similar in size to the state of New Jersey. more info |
| Council Continues Gulf Longline Fishing Ban to Protect Sea Turtles The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council yesterday left in place a moratorium on longline fishing to aid a federally protected sea turtle species. more info |
| World Ocean Day has special significance in Florida After years of concerns and efforts, millions of people commemorated the first "World’s Oceans Day" on Monday. more info |
| Scientists tell Obama where to Go-to Sea It's not that we need to continue to ask what's most needed for the ocean agenda. We've generated thousands of pages of superb thinking on this, ranging from NGO reports to agency reports to many scholarly papers published in peer-reviewed journals. In my mind, we need to now address two core issues: the need to inspire public, the press, and the politicians, and to ensure that a real, not token, budget is available. more info |
| Just ahead, Forever Wild Faces a crossroads Over the past decade, Alabama has developed or aided in the development of three birding trails in the state, and more may be in the works. more info |
| Invasive Species a Member of the Bean Family It has spread outside of cultivation in all of the Gulf Coast states, after its initial plantings. (The seeds get moved around pretty easily, sometimes by birds.) It is an aggressive weed in Hawaii and many parts of Australia, too. Botanists agree that this is an invasive species outside its normal range, and with that in mind, you might carefully consider whether you want one of these in your yard. more info |
| Trail of the whale shark Little is known about whale sharks or why they come to the northern part of the Gulf by the hundreds in June and July, within 30 miles of the Coast. more info |
| NOAA takes delivery of Pisces Its primary objective will be to study, monitor, and collect data on a wide range of sea life and ocean conditions, primarily in US waters from the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and South Atlantic to North Carolina. more info |
| New report stresses immediacy of global warming "Much of the foot-dragging in addressing climate change is a reflection of the perception that climate change is way down the road, it's in the future, and that it only affects remote parts of the planet," Lubchenco said. "This report ... provides the concrete scientific information that says unequivocally that climate change is happening now, and it is happening in our own back yards and it affects the kinds of things people care about." more info |
| Scientists work to get at root of algal bloom As red grouper and porkfish fish ignored them Saturday, a team of divers did a little stratified random transect work 53 feet down in the clear, warm water of the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| June Grass is Back Just in time for tourist season, June grass has returned to local waters. The feathery algae blooms in warm water and is common in the Gulf of Mexico during the summer months. more info |
| Children can explore wonders of weather Explore the wonders of weather and how the influences of oceans, land masses, and massive air currents on the atmosphere combine to create weather on Wednesdays in June and July at the Gulf Shores Museum. Watch Discovery Channel videos about lightning, tornados, hurricanes and floods and then participate in a creative project about the video subject. The free program starts at 2 p.m. each Wednesday and is designed for children 9-13. more info |
| Proposal puts roadway, dock at spillway The Port of South Louisiana is considering building a massive dock and elevated roadway in front of the Bonnet Carre Spillway near Norco in hopes of capturing some of the cargo that will be entering ports in the Gulf of Mexico after a widened Panama Canal opens in five years. more info |
| Longline fishing could face more restrictions The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council is considering new laws that would combine seasonal restrictions on longline grouper fishing and a gradual reduction in the number of fleets that will be allowed to operate, proposals fishing industry leaders call "premature and unjustified." more info |
| Nutrient Delivery to GOM Among Highest Measured Spring nutrient delivery to the northern Gulf of Mexico is among the highest measured by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in thirty years. more info |
| Lawmakers ask Commerce Dept. to reject fish farms Citing environmental concerns and regulatory issues, Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., and 36 other U.S. lawmakers have asked the U.S. Department of Commerce to reject a plan to allow fish farms in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Low tide: Shrimp industry hit by imports, prices Ho Van Le, who trawls in the Gulf of Mexico aboard his 50-foot vessel Star Light, understands the price squeeze facing shrimpers as this year's season gets under way amid a global recession. more info |
| Clean-energy windmills a 'dirty business' for farmers in Mexico The Isthmus of Tehuantepec, 130 miles wide and about 330 miles southeast of Mexico City, lies at the bottom of a funnel formed by two mountain ranges. Wind from the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico whistles through this pass on its way to the Pacific Ocean. more info |
| Senate Panel Clears Energy Bill The U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved an energy bill by a 15-8 vote. Oil and gas companies would be able to drill in U.S. coastal waters that remain off-limits -- an issue the House did not address -- and utilities would have more flexibility to meet renewable-energy requirements than under a House bill. more info |
| Types of Lightning Lightning is also more frequent and severe in certain parts of the country, especially Florida, Texas and other states near the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| LSU's WAVCIS increases modeling capabilities LSU's WAVCIS, or Wave-Current-Surge Information System for Coastal Louisiana, has a few new tricks up its sleeve in preparation for the 2009 hurricane season. more info |
| Tubeworms with Really Big ...ranges. Maria discussed work on species geographic boundaries of vestmentiferan tube worms primarily in the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Snapper slaughter? Explosion-caused fish kill Divers say it was like dropping down on a spooky, underwater ghost town. An oil platform 20 miles south of Dauphin Island that is normally swarming with fish was completely barren, with not a living thing in sight Sunday morning. more info |
| Red tides are well monitored in the Gulf The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute and Sarasota's Mote Marine Laboratory researchers are all closely monitoring red tide algae offshore, much like an early warning system for large blooms that can ruin a day at the beach. more info |
| Anglers divided about new shoreline license law Florida's resident saltwater anglers who fish from shore or a structure affixed to shore will need to buy a $9 shoreline fishing license by Aug. 1, unless they have a regular resident saltwater fishing license. more info |
| Have you seen a manatee? Though the gentle vegetarians are more commonly sighted in southern waters, they make infrequent appearances in waters off the Panhandle. more info |
| Letter Urges Commerce Secretary to Disapprove Gulf Council Offshore Aquaculture Plan A bi-partisan 'Dear Colleague' letter sent Friday urges U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Locke to disapprove the Council's plan to permit ocean fish farming in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico and work with the Congress to develop a comprehensive regulatory program for more sustainable aquaculture. more info |
| Outdoor enthusiasts need storm checklist The first rule: Take it with you if possible. Any time a storm enters the Gulf of Mexico, your boat should be moved to your primary residence, gassed-up, secured on the trailer and ready to roll. more info |
| Bird grants link sites & people along the American flyway The work of BirdLife Partners throughout the Americas will benefit from $4.8 million in US Fish and Wildlife Service grants for projects supporting Neotropical migratory bird conservation. more info |
| Fishermen raise a stink about oil and gas companies in the Gulf Demolition methods used by oil and gas companies in the Gulf of Mexico are coming under fire by recreational fishermen. more info |
| Will the oceans of the future be filled with jellyfish? They’re not exactly fun to swim with and they don't taste very good, but if we don’t stop overfishing the world's oceans, jellyfish may come to dominate the sea. Their numbers are swelling thanks to decreased competition from fish. more info |
| Our Troubled Country: Killing Our Oceans Whitty continues, "Fishing fleets in the Gulf of Mexico have dropped the white tip shark population 99 percent since the 1950s, driving that species into virtual extinction. These sharks are thrown dead or dying back into the ocean; these unwanted species make up at least 25 percent of the global catch, as much as 88 billion pounds of life eliminated, for no reason, annually." more info |
| Top U.S. environmental concern: Water pollution People around the globe are regularly bombarded with bad news about the planet, but what aspect of the environment concerns most Americans? According to a survey conducted by Gallup this March asking that exact question, the top environmental concern among U.S. citizens is water pollution. more info |
| Geologists, coastal experts say rebuilding could further harm Bolivar Allowing houses to be built on the eroding Bolivar shoreline means they eventually will be in the Gulf of Mexico, geologists say. more info |
| Study: Ports should target Latin American trade Louisiana ports from New Orleans to Baton Rouge should initially target business from Latin America as the first step in a regional plan aimed at boosting trade, according to a study recommendation issued Thursday. more info |
| Blind alligator hits Ala. island beach A wildlife expert said a 12-foot alligator that cleared a Dauphin Island, Ala., beach swam through the Gulf of Mexico to the island because he is blind. more info |
| Scientists: Global warming has already changed oceans In the Gulf of Mexico, Alexandra Cousteau said, the runoff down the Mississippi River from farms in the Midwest has created a dead zone the size of New Jersey where few species can survive. Wetlands in Louisiana are disappearing at the rate of 33 football fields a day as hurricanes grow in strength and frequency because of climate change, she said. more info |
| Nashville photographer rows boat from home to Gulf of Mexico Calling this his "recession cruise" John's goal is not only to complete the trip over 5 years but bring awareness to the American river & coastal waterways through his art. more info |
| Gulf Coast towns join forces for new tourism campaign Eleven destinations in four states along Interstate 10 and the Gulf of Mexico are joining together in a new marketing effort, calling the region "SouthCoast USA." more info |
| SouthCoast USA: New marketing effort for I-10 Gulf region Eleven destinations in four states along Interstate 10 and the Gulf of Mexico are joining together in a new marketing effort, calling the region "SouthCoast USA." more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council to Meet in Tampa, Florida The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council will meet June 15 - 18, 2009, in Tampa, Florida at the Quorum Hotel, 700 N. Westshore Boulevard. Council Committees will convene Monday afternoon through Wednesday morning, with the full Council convening Wednesday afternoon through Thursday. more info |
| The salty waters of the Gulf of Mexico The salty waters of the Gulf of Mexico have long receded since Hurricane Ike pushed them ashore, but the devastation continues for farmers and ranchers who have seen their land contaminated. more info |
| Senate energy panel will back gulf drilling plan, Sen. Dorgan says The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will vote on an amendment today that would bring eastern Gulf of Mexico oil and gas leasing closer to Florida's coast. more info |
| Coasts And Oceans May Be Key To Economic Recovery The National Ocean Economic Program released the first independent report on the US economy and the ocean today to kick off Capitol Hill Ocean Week. Dr. Judith T. Kildow and Charles S. Colgan wrote the report and introduced it at the Capitol. more info |
| Film event marks World Oceans Day On Monday, the Gulf of Mexico Alliance and Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve will host "An Evening of Oceans Film Event" to celebrate World Oceans Day at the Hilton in Naples. more info |
| 46 States Agree to Common Academic Standards Effort Forty-six states-representing 80 percent of the nation’s K-12 student population-have formally agreed to join forces to create common academic standards in math and English language arts through an effort led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. more info |
| Understanding the benefits of living shorelines The University of Florida Extension Service and Florida Sea Grant, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Rookery Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico Alliance will host a Living Shorelines Workshop from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., June 3 at Rookery Bay. more info |
| Marine Resources chief urges coastal partnerships The partnership-building extends beyond state lines, and he cited the five-state Gulf of Mexico Alliance. Walker said the Alliance is working on a new action plan to be announced in June. Walker said the governors are working to present common requests to the federal government. "That's a strong approach," he said. more info |
| Smart Growth can aid tourism The Coast lost many of its historical buildings to Hurricane Katrina, but not its history or heritage tourism. more info |
| Habitat declared for endangered, Ala sturgeon The federal government said Thursday it had designated 326 miles of two rivers as critical habitat for the Alabama sturgeon, an endangered, ugly fish species that industry groups say doesn't even exist. more info |
| Gov. Barbour's speaks at the 2009 Southern Growth Policies Board meeting in Biloxi Governor Haley Barbour gave the following remarks at the 2009 Southern Growth Policies Board annual meeting Monday more info |
| Gentle giants of the Gulf Scott and Dane Konger were fishing for red snapper 35 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico when they saw it -- a big dorsal fin, then a tail that was unmistakably a shark. more info |
| River suddenly eroding couple’s land U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston District spokeswoman Martie Cencki said if there is an issue with erosion along the Brazos River, residents should go through the proper channels to have it addressed. more info |
| Be Courteous on the Water It’s that time of the year when boaters hit the waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the river systems in South Mississippi on a daily basis. more info |
| Good luck on an important job No single official will have more influence over how well our region is positioned to remain a place to live and work into the future. Doing so will require not just levees, but the natural defenses that have always protected this area — the barrier islands, the coastal wetlands. more info |
| Sargent beach may get river dredge sand Sargent beach has been historically one of the most quickly eroding shorelines along the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Gulf Council Public Hearings Announced The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council has scheduled a series of public hearings to solicit comments on a proposed amendment developed to address the bycatch of hard-shell sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico bottom longline reef fish fishery. Due to the higher than expected numbers of endangered sea turtles that observers reported being killed as bycatch by longliners, changes will need to be made to the longlining fishery in the Gulf. more info |
| NMFS report shows reason to revise regulatory scheme By this time next year, commercial fishing will no longer be limited by days at sea or access to fishing grounds, but by dividing the acceptable catch into shares distributed to fishing collaboratives known as sectors. more info |
| Development, human behavior lead to pollution With the water runoff comes animal droppings, fertilizer, motor oil from the roads, chemicals, debris, all manner of waste left by humans and other animals. The stuff ends up in the rivers, bays and the Gulf of Mexico. more info |
| Dauphin Island needs beach renourishment In our view, Congress and the Corps of Engineers should do their part to help restore Dauphin Island. The island is an economic asset for Alabama and a national ecological treasure. more info |
| Time to prepare: storm season officially begins Monday "With our close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, it's important that we keep vigilant this hurricane season. Knowing your vulnerability and the proper actions to take can reduce the effects of a hurricane disaster," Guidroz said. more info |
| One Summer, 14 Weekends: Dauphin Island Expect to mingle with nearly 100,000 spectators at what promoters say is the largest and oldest saltwater fishing tournament in the United States: the Alabama Deep-Sea Fishing Rodeo on this 14-mile-long barrier island. more info |
| Experts say urgent action needed to save Terrebonne, Lafourche Following years of fights and frustration, 2008 felt like a banner year for coastal advocates. more info |
| 1000 Signatures for Save Our Subs! The discoveries it has made have been so vital to not only our scientific understanding of the deep sea but to our commercial sector as well. It has played a key role in the discovery of vast communities of animals with the base of the food chain living off methane and sulfide gases. more info |
| 'Hurricane Highway' Islands: Rebuild Or Retreat? If any U.S. homes are destroyed during this hurricane season (which runs from June through November), they will probably be rebuilt. That's because it has become routine to rebuild at almost any cost, in even the most vulnerable areas. more info |
| Ocean Explorer Sylvia Earle Calls for Action to Protect Earth's Life-Support System Oceans are vital to life, she says. Not only are they central to the fresh-water cycle, they preserve biodiversity, consume carbon dioxide, produce oxygen and impact climate. Despite her optimism, she's troubled that more than half the world's ocean species have disappeared during her lifetime. more info |
| Long-line fishermen: New rules are ‘draconian' Gulf of Mexico long-line fisherman are facing new regulatory proposals after a consortium of environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council. The council is being sued after 21 loggerhead sea turtles were observed "affected" by long-line fishing equipment over an 18-month period beginning in July 2007 by the Southeast Fisheries Science Center. more info |
| Significant Gas Resource Discovered In Gulf Of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico contains very thick and concentrated gas-hydrate-bearing reservoir rocks which have the potential to produce gas using current technology. more info |
| Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone A new report - Making EQIP Work for Water Quality in 10 Mississippi River Border States - by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), found that enrolling farmers into the voluntary federal Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is unlikely to result in cleaner water unless taxpayer funds are targeted to the highest priority locations and used in watershed-scale clean-up projects. more info |
