State
Church to get $8M from Tronox settlement
Commercial Dispatch
After nearly 15 years, Maranatha Faith Center is receiving what its attorney described as potentially the largest property damage claim ever settled in Lowndes County's history, after the discovery of creosote on its property from the former Kerr-McGee plant.
Pearl River County Utility Authority holds monthly meeting
Picayune Item
The Pearl River County Utility Authority’s Board of Directors met Thursday afternoon to discuss several matters.
...After some discussion, the Board approved a motion for Wallace to bring a proposal for a permanent fix during the next meeting and notify the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, about the Board’s future plans.
Senior Center inconvenienced with sewage backup
Vicksburg Post
A collapsed and blocked cast iron sewer line serving the Vicksburg Senior Center caused sewage to backup into the center, forcing city officials to install a new line adjacent to the damaged line.
Litter joins death and taxes as inevitable, trio say
Daily Times Leader
WEST POINT, MS
Death and taxes. Statesman and founding father Benjamin Franklin forever left the world with those things that can't be avoided.
Add litter to the list.
Sunday Focus: Recent Floods have sparked fierce debate about control of Mississippi River
Natchez Democrat
NATCHEZ — The Mississippi River reached its fourth-highest crest ever at Natchez on Saturday — yet based on recent history, that ×gure is just par for the course.
OCEAN SPRINGS BEACH SAND DISAPPEARING: WHAT IS BEING DONE?
WXXV
The sand keeps wearing away at the beaches in Ocean Springs and on rainy days it’s making matters worse.
Gain information Monday on deadly deer disease
Vicksburg Post
Monday, hunters in Warren County will have the chance to learn and ask questions about the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks’ response to a confirmed case of chronic wasting disease, a fatal infectious deer disease, in Issaquena County.
MSU turkey research tracks habitat, movement
Starkville Daily News
An ongoing Mississippi State University study is tracking wild turkey populations across the state and making efforts to understand the turkey’s relationship to the landscape.
State Government
Mississippi lawmakers seek to widen property tax break
AP
JACKSON -- Mississippi lawmakers want to open one of the state's richest tax incentive programs to smaller projects, in hopes of helping the state recruit more businesses.
Oil Spill
Amid financial woes, oil spill money might be redirected
AP
As Louisiana lawmakers scrounge for money, state senators are eyeing an annual stream of Gulf oil spill recovery money tied to economic losses from the disaster.
Regional
Volkswagen settlement provides $25.5 million for projects to reduce vehicle emissions in Alabama
WKRG
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WKRG) - The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs will conduct five public listening sessions to determine how the state’s portion of a federal settlement with Volkswagen should be used to reduce diesel pollution and improve air quality.
National
Scott Pruitt, Trump’s Rule-Cutting E.P.A. Chief, Plots His Political Future
NY Times
WASHINGTON — The headline speakers at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s annual showcase, the Ronald Reagan Dinner, have historically been rising stars in the Republican Party — firebrand pundits, prominent activists, future presidential candidates.
Last month, it was Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
TAMING THE MIGHTY MISSISSIPPI
A picaresque tour of infrastructure reveals a struggle for control all along America’s great river, full of questions about what it once was, doubts about what it will become and who will pay for any of it.
Washington Post
ALONG THE RIVER — The Mississippi runs the spine of America, touching 10 states and draining waters from 21 more, a vast waterway with a rich mythology, a sometimes powerful beauty and an always alarming propensity to flood.
Fiat Chrysler’s Attempt to Dismiss Emissions-Cheating Case Fails
Civil case in California alleges environmental violations
WSJ
Minnesota aims for equitable urban-rural split on VW settlement spending
Midwest Energy News
Minnesota environmental regulators are proposing to split the state’s $47 million share of the Volkswagen settlement between urban and rural areas based on where the fraudulently marketed vehicles were registered.
Report: Major Texas Industrial Facilities Rank First Nationally In Illegal Water Pollution
KERA
About half of Texas’ major industrial facilities released illegal levels of pollution into rivers, lakes and other waterways over a 21-month period ending September 2017, according to a new report by Environment Texas and California-based think tank Frontier Group.
Firefighting foam used by unit of Johnson Controls poses toxic threat to Green Bay
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
An underground plume of contamination from a firefighting training facility in Marinette has spread from the site and could be seeping into Lake Michigan’s Green Bay, a little more than a mile away.
State of New Hampshire wants control of wastewater permits
AP
DOVER, N.H. —New Hampshire could move to handle its own wastewater permitting instead of the federal Environmental Protection Agency under a bill.
EPA Wants Mine Company to Help Pay for Superfund Study
AP
DURANGO, Colo. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection agency wants a mining company to pay for a potentially costly investigation of underground water flows at a southwestern Colorado Superfund site to help the agency devise a cleanup plan.
Press releases
MS State Expenditure Plan Amendment Recommended for RESTORE Council Chair Approval
On March 15, 2018, the Acting Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council (Council) recommended the Council Chair, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, approve Mississippi’s 2017 State Expenditure Plan (SEP) Amendment. Under the Spill Impact Component of the RESTORE Act, commonly referred to as “Bucket 3”, 30 percent of the funds in the Gulf Coast Restoration Trust Fund are disbursed to the five Gulf Coast States. Each state is required to develop SEPs and submit it to the Council Chairperson for approval, the same is true for SEP amendments. SEP projects, programs, and activities will be implemented in a manner consistent with the requirements of the RESTORE Act, as well as the goals and objectives of the Comprehensive Plan. States amend SEPs to increase funding for projects or programs in existing SEPs and/or to add new activities to the SEP.
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MDWFP to Host Second CWD Public Meeting in Vicksburg
From MDWFP
VICKSBURG - The Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks (MDWFP) will host a public meeting to discuss Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) at the Vicksburg Convention Center on Monday, March 19 at 6:30 p.m. Presentations will be given by Dr. Margaret Wild, National Park Service Veterinarian and Cory Gray, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. In addition, MDWFP personnel will provide updates on Mississippi’s CWD Response Plan. Biologists, scientists, and Law Enforcement officials will be available to answer questions.
On February 9, 2018, the MDWFP was notified that a single sample collected from a white-tailed deer in Issaquena County tested positive for CWD, marking the first time the disease has ever been documented in Mississippi. Upon notification of the positive sample, the MDWFP enacted the CWD Response Plan. The disease is caused by a malformed protein or prion and is known to affect white-tailed deer and other related animals, such as elk, moose, and reindeer. There is no known treatment for CWD, which can only be confirmed through laboratory analysis.
