Blogging for a Healthy Gulf

Urgent Action on Bayou Bridge Pipeline

Raleigh Hoke
Thursday, May 11, 2017 - 3:25pm

Update: Great news! Rep. Richmond responded to all of your calls and emails by sending the Corps a letter asking for an Environmental Impact Statement for the Bayou Bridge pipeline. You can thank him for sending the letter here.

The Bayou Bridge pipeline, which is one of the largest pipelines ever proposed in Louisiana, would snake through 11 parishes, destroy flood-buffering wetlands, risk drinking water sources for hundreds of thousands of people, and impact historic African-American communities that are already bearing the burden of decades of pollution and industrial development.

You have led the resistance against Bayou Bridge at public hearings, events and through thousands of letters and phone calls. We need to keep up the fight!

If you live in Representative Cedric Richmond's district, take action to tell him to not let the Army Corps rubberstamp Bayou Bridge.

The state of Louisiana recently issued Bayou Bridge’s coastal use...

Update on Bayou Bridge - It's Not Over

Natasha Noordhoff
Monday, May 8, 2017 - 5:22pm

It’s been a minute since we updated where GRN is in the fight to stop the Bayou Bridge pipeline. This is the largest proposed pipeline we have seen in Louisiana in years and it is meeting massive resistance from people all over the state.

The Coastal Use permit for Bayou Bridge has been issued by Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR). GRN and partners filed a "request for reconsideration" with the state because, as we’ve stated before, this pipeline clearly impacts our coast. Last week, that request was denied.

This is a big disappointment, but it’s not over.

In order to move forward, the Bayou Bridge pipeline also needs permission from the Army Corps to fill in the 600+ acres of wetlands along it’s route. This permission comes in the form of a 404 Wetland Permit. At this time, the Army Corps can do one of three things:

Grant

Support American Fisheries

Harry Lowenburg
Thursday, May 4, 2017 - 4:37pm

Congressman Garret Graves (R-LA) recently authored H.R. 2023, a bill known as “The Modern Fisheries Act”- but is quite the opposite. The bill rolls back many of the fishery protections that we've relied on for the past 4 decades.

Conservation efforts under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which is the main federal law overseeing our fisheries, have brought back over 40 species of fish from collapse. Over 50 more species are in the process of rebuilding. Frequently consumed fish such as black sea bass, red grouper and summer flounder have seen complete recoveries after a lack of management led to their collapse in the first place.

The Modern Fisheries Act ironically takes a step back in time by eliminating some of the most crucial components of successful management, such as annual catch limits, in order to appease small private interest groups. Let Congress know that you will not stand for this.
...

In Memory of Mike Blackwell

Andrew Whitehurst
Thursday, May 4, 2017 - 7:30am

Mike's 33 lb. Flathead catfish April 2017

Mike Blackwell of McHenry Ms. , a passionate advocate for Red Creek, passed away on May first after emergency heart surgery. In his 7 decades of time on earth he explored and fished on Red Creek for more than 50 years. In his retirement, he lived in his camp on the Creek in Jackson County and split his time among trot-line fishing for flathead catfish, helping renovate creek camps for his friends and family, and organizing his neighbors to petition the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality to identify and remedy the sediment problem on Red Creek that comes from incompatible land uses and wetland destruction caused by an upstream recreation business. Mike lived more than 10 miles downstream from the source of sediment and runoff, but expressed to me more than once that the layers of mud that now coat the sandbars on the Creek down near his camp were...

“Something has to be done for our future.” - Comments from the Coast

Maris Jones
Wednesday, May 3, 2017 - 4:36pm

Name: Anitra Woods

GRN Partner Organization: Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing (BISCO)

Hometown: Thibodaux, Louisiana

Parish: Lafourche

At the rate of a football field per hour, Louisiana’s coast is rapidly vanishing. Residents in our coastal parishes stand firm on the frontlines. They live with the knowledge that sea level rise, coastal erosion, and intensified storms threaten their homes and their way of life. In the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan, our state has proposed “nonstructural” options for responding to these threats, including resources for voluntary buyouts from their homes and assistance with floodproofing and elevation. According to the state of Louisiana, if an area would flood more than 14 feet during a 100 year storm event, that area is deemed an unsafe and not resilient community. The state calls these areas “Resettlement Zones.” To ensure that communities are prepared for the future and understand where predicted Resettlement Zones will be,...

“American freedom--who want leaving, leaving. Who want move, move. Who want stay, stay.”- Comments from the Coast

Maris Jones
Wednesday, May 3, 2017 - 4:49am

Name: Sang Ho

Interview Date: April 5, 2017

GRN Partner Organization: Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation (MQVNCDC)

Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana

Parish: Orleans

Everyday, Louisiana loses football fields of its coastal wetlands. Few know this as well as the fishermen whose work depends on the Gulf’s waters. They live with the knowledge that sea level rise, coastal erosion, and intensified storms threaten their homes and their way of life. In the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan, our state has proposed “nonstructural” options for responding to these threats, including resources for voluntary buyouts from their homes and assistance with floodproofing and elevation. According to the state of Louisiana, if an area would flood more than 14 feet during a 100 year storm event, that area is deemed an unsafe and not resilient community. The state calls these areas “Resettlement Zones.” To ensure that communities are prepared for the future...

“I don’t wanna go nowhere else. I don’t wanna live nowhere else.” - Comments from the Coast

Maris Jones
Friday, April 28, 2017 - 11:35am

Name: Clarence Brocks

GRN Community Partner Organization: Zion Travelers Cooperative Center (ZTCC)

Hometown: Phoenix, Louisiana

Parish: Plaquemine

Louisiana’s coast is disappearing at an unprecedented rate. People residing in our coastal parishes bear witness to these changes from the frontlines. Sea level rise, coastal erosion, and intensified storms threaten their homes and their way of life. In the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan, our state has proposed nonstructural options for responding to these threats, including resources for voluntary buyouts from their homes and assistance with floodproofing and elevation. According to the state of Louisiana, if an area would flood more than 14 feet during a 100 year storm event, that area is deemed an unsafe and not resilient community. The state calls these areas “Resettlement Zones.” To ensure that communities are prepared for the future and understand where predicted Resettlement Zones will be, Gulf Restoration Network (GRN) has created ...

Mississippi Water Resources Conference 2017

Andrew Whitehurst
Tuesday, April 18, 2017 - 4:43pm

MSU Nutrient Management Poster from MWRC 2017

This annual Water Resources Conference is hosted by Mississippi State University’s Water Resources Research Institute and provides one of the main ways to keep up with groundwater and surface water issues in the state. It was held at the Jackson Hilton Hotel April 11-12.

Much of the conference’s emphasis was on consumptive groundwater use in the state’s “Delta” region - the center of large scale row-crop commodity agriculture. The Mississippi Alluvial Plain (MAP) aquifer irrigates corn, soybeans and cotton and fills catfish ponds in a cluster of counties in the central Delta. Under this region, a cone of depression and lowered water table exist caused by wide-scale pumping and comparatively slow groundwater recharge. Several United States Geological Survey scientists addressed this problem. Ideas set forth to solve overuse of the aquifer include irrigation efficiency, tail-water recovery and on-farm surface storage, constructing weirs (short dams) on local streams to create...

“Who’s gonna be adversely impacted?” - Comments from the Coast

Maris Jones
Monday, April 17, 2017 - 12:08pm

Name: Donald Bogen, Jr.
Organization: Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing (BISCO)
Hometown: Thibodaux, Louisiana
Parish: Lafourche

Louisiana’s loses a football field of coastal wetlands every hour. Everyday, those who live in our parishes on the coast are visibly confronted with the knowledge that sea level rise, coastal erosion, and intensified storms threaten their homes and their way of life.

In the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan, our state has proposed “nonstructural” options for responding to these threats, including resources for voluntary buyouts from their homes and assistance with floodproofing and elevation. According to the state of Louisiana, if an area would flood more than 14 feet during a 100 year storm event, that area is deemed an unsafe and not resilient community. The state calls these areas “Resettlement Zones.” To ensure that communities are prepared for the future and understand where predicted Resettlement Zones will be, Gulf Restoration Network...

Introducing: Comments from the Coast

Shona Clarkson
Monday, April 17, 2017 - 11:25am

Comments from the Coast Here in the Gulf, every day our seas are rising, our lands are sinking, and our communities face bigger and bigger flood risks.

In 2017 our communities most at risk are being declared “Resettlement Zones” by the Louisiana Office of Community Development. The recently revised Louisiana Coastal Master Plan has proposed nonstructural options for responding to these threats, including resources for voluntary buyouts from their homes and assistance with floodproofing and elevation. Gulf Restoration Network (GRN) has created a series of maps representing communities that have been declared Resettlement Zones in order to ensure that residents are prepared for the future.

These towns are anchor communities for our fishing industries and our local food production. They are not at the end of the road, they are at the beginning of the water. As the seas have risen, these communities have...