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Save the Bait Coalition Speaks Out |
On January 20th, the Save the Bait Coalition, a broad group of organizations and businesses including Mississippi RodnGun.com, the Marine Fish Conservation Network, and Ship Island Excursions, will speak out in favor of a healthy Mississippi Sound for future generations.
Menhaden, which are also known as pogies, provide a crucial link between the primary producers of energy – plants – and the upper levels of the food chain, including red drum, sharks, and dolphins. Unfortunately, two large companies vacuum up hundreds of millions of pounds of the most important fish in the Mississippi Sound without any limits even as they accidently capture and kill millions of pounds of other sea life. Other states have already enacted reasonable controls, but the Mississippi Commission on Marine Resources (CMR) has yet to act.
The CMR will discuss the current management practices for menhaden on January 20th at their monthly meeting in Biloxi and members of the Save the Bait Coalition will be there to send a strong message to the Commission and the media that it’s time to protect the health of our coastal economy and natural resources. You can help by attending the meeting to show your support, just email
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to RSVP. Or if you are unable to attend, send the CMR a personal message by clicking here!
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Shell Receives Letter Demanding Wetlands Accountability |
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Groups Seek $362 Million for Louisiana Coastal
Wetlands Damage
New Orleans, LA –
Today, 30 local, national and international organizations, ranging from
Greenpeace USA to the Louisiana Shrimp Association and spearheaded by the Gulf
Restoration Network, sent a letter to Shell Oil, holding Shell accountable for
wetlands loss caused by the company's pipeline canal dredging in coastal
Louisiana, and asking Shell to contribute $361,984,000 to the restoration of
Louisiana's wetlands. This letter is part of an effort which aims at
holding oil and gas companies responsible for the role they have played in
wetlands loss.
"There
is solid evidence that forty to sixty percent of Louisiana's coastal wetlands loss can
be traced to oil and gas activities," says Aaron Viles, Campaign Director for the Gulf Restoration Network.
"It is only fair that companies like Shell pay for the cost of the damage
they have caused."
While
Shell's fortunes continue to rise, coastal Louisiana's marshes are disappearing
at an astounding rate and thus leaving the whole region more vulnerable to
future hurricanes. According to records from the Louisiana Department of
Natural Resources, Shell
Oil has dredged 8.8 million cubic yards material while laying pipelines since
1983. These activities alone have caused the loss of 22,624 acres of wetlands
in the last 25 years.
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Dump the Pumps: EPA Responds to Our Call to Veto the Yazoo Pumps Project |
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On
September 2nd, the EPA took the final step to veto the Yazoo Pumps
Project, an antiquated Army Corps of Engineers project that would have
destroyed over 200,000 acres of wetlands in Mississippi, including
habitat for the endangered Louisiana black bear. In the words of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Pumps would have damaged, "some of the richest natural resources in the nation."
The Gulf Restoration Network and its members have been working to stop the Yazoo Pumps Project for over ten years. We applaud the EPA for taking this historic step to stop the massive wetland loss that would have accompanied the Yazoo Pumps project. The veto is the EPA’s first since 1990 and only the 12th in the
agency’s history.
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