Louisiana: Dolphin Die-Off Underway, Spillway Re-Opening, Governor Denies Human Climate Impact
Well, good luck with all of that, Louisiana.
As an unprecedented amount of floodwater makes its way down the Mississippi River, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today opened the Bonnet Carre Spillway for the second time this year. Done to prevent New Orleans from being flooded, the action marks the first time the spillway, which diverts the Mississippi’s nutrient- and pollutant-heavy freshwater into Lake Pontchatrain, has been opened twice in the same year. The historic opening of the spillway is happening in the midst of an ongoing and mysterious dolphin die-off in the Gulf of Mexico and the same week that the United Nations released its most comprehensive report on the state of biodiversity.
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This morning, May 10, inclement weather postponed a meeting scheduled for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the lead agency investigating the dolphin deaths to meet with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF); the Army Corps of Engineers; the National Audubon Society; and local officials and fishermen in St. Bernard Parish to discuss how to respond to the dolphin die-off. “Everything is weather-related in Louisiana,” said Randy Myers of LDWF when he alerted me of the postponed meeting. His comment comes off as particularly poignant in a state where climate science deniers continue to govern as if humankind's role in climate change were insignificant.
On May 1, Gov. John Bel Edwards tripled-down on climate denial at the Grow Louisiana Coalition “Oil and Natural Gas Industry Day” in Baton Rouge. Edwards acknowledges that the climate is changing but diverges from mainstream climate science by saying he is unsure what humanity's role is. His stance is echoed by his administration’s efforts to welcome new oil and gas industry projects in the state, including numerous petrochemical plants.
George Ricks, a fishing charter boat captain, and founder of The Save Louisiana Coalition, was disappointed that the meeting with NOAA was canceled. He and other fishermen in St. Bernard Parish have taken to monitoring the recent dolphin die-off on their own. I accompanied him on a monitoring trip on May 7. We found three dead dolphins in three hours. “This is not normal,” Ricks said, visibly upset when our boat approached each dolphin. In the 52 years he has been out on the water in this area, he had only come across two dead dolphins, and those were likely killed by boat strikes, he told me. This year he started spotting dead dolphins on April 10. Two were found within two miles of each other. Since then, he has documented 36 dead dolphins, including the three we found that day.
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https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/05/10/bonnet-carre-floodwaters-dolphins-dying-louisiana-climate
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