Interesting Items

Around the Gulf...
The Mississippi Department of Natural Resources (DMR) was honored with an Award of Excellence from the National Association of Government Communicators at their annual meeting in July. DMR received the communicators’ group’s Blue Pencil Award for excellence in written, filmed, audio/videotaped, published and photographed government information products for its 2005 Marine Information Calendar featuring the theme “Preserving and Enjoying Mississippi’s Coastal Resources.” The calendar featured student art as well as information useful to fishermen such as tide data, sunrise/sunset times, moon phases, and saltwater fish size and possession limits.

Naval Station Pascagoula will be closing its doors by November 15, in accordance with a recommendation by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. The 437-acre station currently houses around nine hundred sailors. It is located on Singing River Island, which was built from dredged material in 1985. The property will be returned to the State of Mississippi. A variety of options are being considered for redevelopment of the site, including use by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems or expansion of existing Coast Guard operations.

The federal government has announced that it will cover one hundred percent of removal costs for Hurricane Katrina debris removed from the Mississippi Sound and other waterways in south Mississippi through May 15, 2007. Land debris removal will be reimbursed at a rate of ninety percent, with local governments and the state footing the bill for the remaining ten percent.

ConocoPhillips has withdrawn its bid to build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the Gulf off the coast of Alabama, south of Dauphin Island. The Compass Port facility would have used the controversial “open loop” method of regasification, which can harm marine life. Alabama governor Bob Riley had indicated that he would veto ConocoPhillip’s application if the company insisted on using an open loop system instead of the more environmentally protective closed loop technology. ConocoPhillips has kept open the possibility that it will go back to the drawing board and return with an improved proposal in the future.

An economic analysis performed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has concluded that the cost of designating critical habitat for the endangered Alabama beach mouse would be between $18 million and $51 million. In its press release announcing the analysis the Service appears to embrace the highly questionable view that critical habitat designations provide little additional protection for endangered species.

Around the country…
A group of ten climate experts has publicly spoken out against runaway development in coastal areas that are at risk of hurricanes. The group, led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology climatologist Kerry Emanuel, decries government policies like federal flood insurance that subsidize “our lemming-like march to the sea” and recommends that government and industry “undertake a comprehensive evaluation of building practices, and insurance, land use, and disaster relief policies that currently serve to promote an ever-increasing vulnerability to hurricanes.” The scientists’ statement may be viewed at http://wind.mit.edu/~emanuel/Hurricane_threat.htm.

The Nature Conservancy, long renowned for its efforts in the purchase and preservation of environmentally valuable land, has expanded its efforts to purchasing fishing permits in California. As of mid-July the Conservancy had bought six federal trawling permits and four trawling vessels, with the goal of limiting what the group considers to be ecologically destructive fishing practices. Bottom trawling, in which large, weighted nets are dragged across the ocean floor, can damage marine habitat and also result in significant bycatch. Fishers have been generally receptive to the Conservancy’s approach because it offers significant financial incentive, as opposed to increased regulation.

University of Mississippi