State
ONE LAKE PROJECT ONE STEP CLOSER TO REALITY; SECOND REVIEW FINISHED
Northside Sun
Another milestone has been reached with the One Lake project.
Canton Municipal Utilities credit card charges under the microscope
WLBT
CANTON, MS (Mississippi News Now) -We have confirmed with the Rankin County District Attorney's office thousands of dollars in questionable credit card spending by employees with Canton Municipal Utilities have been turned over to the State Auditor's Office.
Vicksburg leaders take steps to improve aging water treatment plant
WLBT
VICKSBURG, MS (Mississippi News Now) -Vicksburg leaders say they are taking steps to improve the aging water treatment plant.
Mississippi Dept. of Marine Resources receives environmental award
WLOX
The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources in Biloxi was recognized for exceptional leadership in Gulf Coast preservation efforts.
Crosby Arboretum’s garden becomes way station for monarch butterflies
Picayune Item
Members of the Monarch Watch Program met at the Crosby Arboretum Wednesday afternoon to rededicate the kid’s butterfly garden into a monarch butterfly waystation.
State Government
Questions arise about future of public retirees' 13th check
WLBT
JACKSON, MS (Mississippi News Now) -Public retirees get a cost of living adjustment added to their benefits every year. It's known as the 13th check. And there's talk on social media that it could be in jeopardy next session.
Regional
How are chickens and pigs altering the Gulf of Mexico? Sustainability group asks Tyson CEO to help protect Gulf
The Advocate
NEW ORLEANS — Shrimpers and environmentalists gathered on the banks of the Mississippi River here Thursday to call on livestock farmers to help protect the Gulf of Mexico.
Spilled pipeline oil near Pointe a la Hache to be burned: Coast Guard
Times-Picayune
National
EPA Chief Denounces Water Rule in Visit to Kentucky
AP
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt found a friendly audience Thursday in his native Kentucky as he lambasted an Obama-era clean-water rule.
GOP crafts spending bill provisions aimed at speeding repeal of water protection rule
Washington Post
House and Senate Republicans have inserted language into spending bills aimed at blocking legal challenges to the Trump administration’s effort to repeal a 2015 water protection rule that gave two federal agencies broad leeway in regulating activities that could affect streams and tributaries.
House passes EPA contaminated site clean-up bill
The Hill
The House passed a bill Thursday reauthorizing an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) contaminated site clean-up program.
EPA raises biofuel targets slightly, draws scorn from refiners
Reuters
The Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday it will require fuel companies to blend slightly more biofuels into gasoline and diesel sold in the U.S. next year, angering oil refiners who view them as a competitive threat.
MIT Study Suggests U.S. Vastly Overstates Oil Output Forecasts
Bloomberg
Turns out, America’s decade-long shale boom might just end up being a little too good to be true.
Press Releases
Mississippi Department of Marine Resources in Biloxi Receives First Place Gulf Guardian Award in the Partnerships Category
WASHINGTON (November 30, 2017) — Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Gulf of Mexico Program recognized the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources in Biloxi, Miss., with a first place 2017 Gulf Guardian Award in the Partnerships Category. The award was presented at a ceremony today at the Grand Hotel Marriott Resort in Point Clear, Ala.
“Whether for individual recreational use or as an economic engine supporting a wide variety of jobs and industry, the Gulf of Mexico is a vibrant yet vulnerable ecosystem,” said Ben Scaggs, Gulf of Mexico Program Director. “Protecting this national resource requires innovative approaches and proactive measures. The Gulf Guardian award winners are paving the way for ‘out of the box’ thinking and replicable practices.”
The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources collaborated with the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory (GCRL) to establish the derelict crab trap removal program in 1999. The program addresses the problem with derelict crab traps in the Mississippi Sound and adjacent tributaries. A derelict trap can be defined as a trap, which is un-buoyed, unmarked and not actively fished. Since the start of the project, more than 21,500 derelict traps have been removed from Mississippi waters. Of those, more than 15,000 were recovered by commercial fishermen.
This project benefits the environment in many ways. It removes lost traps, which continue to “ghost fish” or trap a wide variety of marine as well as terrestrial species. The majority of the traps removed are from coastal marshes, which are critical nursery ground habitat for finfish, crabs, shrimp and many other marine animals. The program also helps prevent navigational hazards to boaters occurring when traps are caught in the propellers. Finally, unsightly traps are removed that diminish the aesthetic value of the beautiful Mississippi coastal region and the Gulf of Mexico.
The Gulf of Mexico Program initiated the Gulf Guardian awards in 2000 as a way to recognize and honor the businesses, community groups, individuals, and agencies that are taking positive steps to keep the Gulf healthy, beautiful and productive. First, second and third place awards are given in seven categories: individual, business/industry, youth environmental education, civic/nonprofit organizations, cultural diversity/environmental justice, partnership and bi-national efforts.
The Gulf of Mexico Program began in 1988 to protect, restore, and maintain the health and productivity of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem in economically sustainable ways. The Gulf of Mexico Program is underwritten by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is a non-regulatory, inclusive consortium of state and federal government agencies and representatives of the business and agricultural community, fishing industry, scientists, environmentalists, and community leaders from all five Gulf States. The Gulf Program seeks to improve the environmental health of the Gulf in concert with economic development.
The 34th Street Wholistic Gardens and Education Center, Inc. in Gulfport Receives Second Place Gulf Guardian Award in the Environmental Justice/Cultural Diversity Category
WASHINGTON (November 30, 2017) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Gulf of Mexico Program recognized 34th Street Wholistic Gardens & Education Center in Gulfport, Miss., with a second place 2017 Gulf Guardian Award in the Environmental Justice/Cultural Diversity Category. The award was presented at a ceremony today at the Grand Hotel Marriott Resort in Point Clear, Ala.
“Whether for individual recreational use or as an economic engine supporting a wide variety of jobs and industry, the Gulf of Mexico is a vibrant yet vulnerable ecosystem,” said Ben Scaggs, Gulf of Mexico Program Director. “Protecting this national resource requires innovative approaches and proactive measures. The Gulf Guardian award winners are paving the way for ‘out of the box’ thinking and replicable practices.”
The 34th Street Gardens and Education Center (the Gardens) is a purposefully designed organic and hydroponic garden model and wellness park that allows people of all age groups and cultures to grow healthy foods and participate in activities that promote health, wellness and good stewardship of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Region.
The Gardens was established in April of 2016 to address food deserts and food insecurities and promote environmental education among the vulnerable communities in the region. To date, the Gardens has recruited over 25 volunteer master gardeners, and provides workshops, training and seminars that promote health, wellness, gardening and environmental education. The Gardens houses outdoor classrooms and offers a year-round Environmental Earth Youth Club and a summer youth camp to educate and motivate youth about gardening and the environment while promoting healthy eating and living.
The Gulf of Mexico Program initiated the Gulf Guardian awards in 2000 as a way to recognize and honor the businesses, community groups, individuals, and agencies that are taking positive steps to keep the Gulf healthy, beautiful and productive. First, second and third place awards are given in seven categories: individual, business/industry, youth environmental education, civic/nonprofit organizations, cultural diversity/environmental justice, partnership and bi-national efforts.
The Gulf of Mexico Program began in 1988 to protect, restore, and maintain the health and productivity of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem in economically sustainable ways. The Gulf of Mexico Program is underwritten by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is a non-regulatory, inclusive consortium of state and federal government agencies and representatives of the business and agricultural community, fishing industry, scientists, environmentalists, and community leaders from all five Gulf States. The Gulf Program seeks to improve the environmental health of the Gulf in concert with economic development.
Clemson researchers seek public’s help in spotting Gulf pelicans
CLEMSON, South Carolina — A passion for seabirds led Rochelle Streker to Clemson University to study and join a research team respected for its work with brown pelicans.
Now the graduate student research assistant is seeking likeminded Gulf Coast residents and visitors to help make a real-world impact on the birds and the coastal environment they call home.
Streker spent the summer 2017 breeding season in and around Mobile Bay, Alabama, collecting data on brown pelicans nesting on Gaillard and Cat islands and tagging 145 chicks with leg bands to track their movement after leaving the nest.
In order to do that tracking, however, Clemson’s team needs the public’s help with a citizen science opportunity to spot the banded pelicans.
“These plastic color bands can be seen by the naked eye or with binoculars. Bands are on the left leg of all the birds I worked with, and we use these bands to re-sight juveniles once they become mobile and able to fly,” Streker said. “Now that I am back in the classroom for the school year, I am looking to get the public involved in helping me continue to re-sight the birds as they fly around the Gulf.”
Those who observe the banded pelicans are asked to report their observation online at projectpelican.weebly.com and provide the band code, color, date and location of their observation. The chicks Streker banded this summer are among 750 young pelicans marked with green and blue plastic bands in Texas, Alabama and Florida from 2014 to 2017. The returns from the tagging efforts include one from across the Gulf of Mexico on the Yucatán Peninsula.
The work is part of a larger project funded by a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) that began in 2012. Clemson professor and S.C. Cooperative Research Unit leader Patrick Jodice credited past graduate student Juliet Lamb (Ph.D. 2016) and research associate Yvan Satgé for laying groundwork, creating branding and establishing an online presence that led to the research coming to be known as “Project Pelican.”
Streker’s work builds on scientific data collected from pelicans to focus on restoration efforts for wildlife populations affected by 2010’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill, specifically the reproductive ecology of brown pelicans and factors of habitat that affect the survival of chicks to their fledging point.
“This project is not an oil-spill project, but after the oil spill and the response, there was a huge knowledge gap in the information about brown pelicans,” Streker said.
Clemson’s pelican research is also contributing to a larger effort, the Gulf of Mexico Avian Monitoring Network (GoMAMN), which aims to develop long-term monitoring plans for bird species of concern to provide relevant data to the restoration management community.
A primary concern in those restoration efforts is restoring habitat, and Clemson’s researchers are seeking to determine what features of habitat are significant for a particular species.
“For brown pelicans, one of the questions people wondered is: Are there differences in quality in nesting habitat that we might want to think about if we’re going to go to the efforts of doing habitat restoration?” Jodice said.
One method of restoring habitats is building islands, which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is quite adept at doing — with the Corps-built Gaillard Island serving as a prime example, now the largest pelican colony in the northern Gulf of Mexico.
Thus far, Streker has only received two returns on the 145 chicks she banded: one in Pensacola and another in Tampa, Florida, notable for being the first time a chick banded from Mobile Bay has been re-sighted further south in Florida than the Panhandle.
“I’m the second student to come on the Gulf project,” Streker said, “and the re-sightings already helped us better understand the fledging success and survival of juveniles, but we now want to look at movements within the Gulf and need more data for that.”
Jodice’s research team at Clemson began studying pelicans off the coast of South Carolina in 2004. After the Deepwater Horizon spill, BOEM recognized brown pelicans, in particular, were an understudied species and sought out Clemson’s team — which had already spent six years of research on the species — to aid restoration efforts.
While Streker’s efforts are focused on the Gulf, the success of Project Pelican led to BOEM providing another $1 million in Outer Continental Shelf funds through the U.S. Geological Survey for Jodice’s team to do similar work on the Atlantic coast.
“That $1.2 million grant for Gulf pelicans was made possible by many smaller scale projects conducted in South Carolina with the support of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and S.C. Department of Natural Resources,” Jodice said. “It was that work, conducted by dedicated graduate students at Clemson University, that led to us being recognized as a strong research lab in this field and subsequently to our current research in the Gulf. Rochelle’s research will provide much needed information to help us manage pelicans throughout the region and hopefully lead to even more research opportunities for graduate students at Clemson University.”
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