Blogging for a Healthy Gulf

The Mississippi Water Resources Conference happened in Jackson on April 3-4 and provided many presentations on an array of ground and surface water issues in the state. Rodney Knight from the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center in Nashville moderated a great session. Usually at this reliably well-run conference, there are one or two presentations that focus on things in Mississippi that are on-point with my and GRN’s work. Rodney’s presentation was one of those. He presented about how the USGS and other research organizations are assessing streamflow to support bay and estuary restoration along the Gulf of Mexico.

Rodney told us first about a Phase I Gulf-wide project to assess where streamflows have been altered the most and the least, and to identify gaps in flow information. The USGS installs and monitors a vast network of stream gauges that transmit real-time information about river stage,...

The Florida Legislature has been on an anti-environment tack for most of the past 15 years, even as Floridians become increasingly concerned about issues such as growth, water shortages, and the health of the State’s waterways where so many of us fish and swim. Unfortunately, this year’s just-completed legislative session brought more of the same—with at least one glimmer of hope.

Florida’s natural landscape and waterways are so unique compared to those of the rest of the nation, that they are a defining element of life in the Sunshine State. As these places degrade, so too does the very quality of Florida that makes people want to live, visit, and do business here.

Despite the fact that Florida has lost more wetlands than any other state, legislators passed a bill--HB 7043—that allows the State’s Department of Environmental Protection to...

Mississippi’s elected leadership may be getting a better understanding about how river flow and oysters are related. It would seem that a coastal state such as ours would protect the rivers that feed fresh water to the coast. River flow helps keep moderate salinities in marshes and coastal bays- the nursery areas - that make it possible to have a seafood industry that harvests fish, shrimp, crabs and oysters. Oysters, unlike the other marine life, cannot move, and the water conditions where they grow either sustain them or harm them.

One executive agency of the state, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, (MDMR) is trying to restore oyster production. In the west end of the Mississippi Sound, near the Hancock County marshes,  Rigolets and Lake Borgne, oyster growth and production depend on the right conditions - created by the Pearl River’s fresh water flow mixing with the Sound’s higher...

The rivers of Louisiana are intricately connected to our unique and valuable wetland forests. You may recognize some of these iconic southern riverine landscapes, such as cypress-tupelo dominated swamps.

Wetland forests provide effective shelter from floods and storms, a filter for safe clean water, and are an integral part of the Gulf’s cultural and natural heritage. Streams cooled by these non-coastal forests provide productive habitats for a variety of fish and wildlife species, including those that are not found anywhere else on the planet, like the inflated heelsplitter mussel and the broadstripe topminnow.

Decades of unregulated sand and gravel mining has degraded Louisiana's iconic rivers and the surrounding wetland forests. In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, residential development has rapidly increased in these river basins. As a result, large swaths...