America's Wetland Foundation

Cheers and Jeers: May 3, 2013

By: Dailycomet.com, Dailycomet.com

A worldly cause — Rebecca Templeton knows a lot about the unique challenges and difficulties facing the local bayou communities. And she is taking her message halfway around the world to spread it to an international audience.

Local nonprofit leader heads to Vietnam to discuss coast

By: Nikki Buskey, Houmatoday.com

A Terrebonne resident and nonprofit leader will head to Vietnam later this month to discuss the challenges faced by those who live on river deltas worldwide.

Infrastructure upgrades needed now to Mississippi River system

By: KHQA Newsdesk, KHQA

Over the last few weeks we've all been reminded of how important the Mississippi River is to life in the Tri-States.

Science Communication Both an Opportunity and an Obligation

By: Donald Boesch, Scientific American

In the 1980s I was working in the middle of nowhere to build Louisiana’s first marine laboratory. We had two new research vessels in the works, but before they were in the water, my colleagues and I were working farther offshore in the Gulf of Mexico than we should have, in small boats on unpredictable seas. We were beginning to document a disturbing region in the Gulf where the oxygen is depleted from bottom waters during the summer.

Washed away

By: Advocate Staff Writer, The Baton Rouge Advocate

Yellow Cotton Bay, officially, no longer exists. The bay, along with Bayou Jacquin and 29 other places in Plaquemines Parish, have been lost from Louisiana’s shrinking coast.

28,000 Rivers Disappeared in China: What Happened?

By: ANGEL HSU AND WILLIAM MIAO, The Atlantic

As recently as 20 years ago, there were an estimated 50,000 rivers in China, each covering a flow area of at least 60 square miles. But now, according to China's First National Census of Water, more than 28,000 of these rivers are missing. To put this number into context, China's lost rivers are almost equivalent, in terms of basin area, to the United States losing the entire Mississippi River.

Millions of gallons of raw sewage flowing into Mississippi River daily

By: KMOV.com Staff, KMOV.com

It’s been one week since flood waters forced two large pumps at a north St. Louis treatment plant to fail. The pumps have allowed hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage to run into the Mississippi River.

Dead zone research is vital

By: Lafourche Parish Daily Comet

The Gulf of Mexico’s annual dead zone is located just off the shores of Louisiana. But it is just the manifestation of a problem that resides up and down the Mississippi River. The zone, which is depleted of oxygen every summer, causes a massive shift of ocean life that must either move or die.

Up to 375 flood gauges to turn off because of fund cuts

By: Doyle Rice, USA Today

Flooding will remain a major concern over the next few days and weeks in the Midwest. (Photo: USGS file photo via AP) STORY HIGHLIGHTS The USGS will discontinue operation of up to 375 stream gauges nationwide due to budget cuts The total yearly maintenance and upkeep cost of all 8,000 gauges is $150 million The shutoff of the gauges could start as early as Wednesday, May 1 Just in time for the spring flood season, the federal sequester is threatening to shut off funding for hundreds of stream gauges used by the U.S. Geological Survey to predict and monitor flood levels across the country.

Congress needs a plan for the Mississippi

By: St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

When St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and 11 other mayors from cities along the Mississippi River went to Washington, D.C., last month to bring attention to the nation's most important waterway, the dominant problem on their minds was drought. Today, for many of those mayors, it's flooding.

Mississippi River's Many 'Parents' Look To Unify

By: NPR

Life on the Mississippi River is a roller coaster of highs and lows: record high floodwaters one year, a drought and near-record low water levels the next. And those are just two of the many problems faced by river stakeholders like barge operators, farmers and conservation groups.

Cuts would jeopardize dead zone research

By: Houma Today

A long-running project aimed at mapping the annual dead zone that forms off Louisiana’s coast each summer could be in jeopardy because of federal budget cuts.

Why Chicago has stake in saving Mississippi delta

By: Thomas Frisbie, Chicago Sun Times

The erosion of the MIssissippi River delta in Louisiana might not seem like Chicago's problem, but a group of environmentalists was in town last week for The Big River Works leadership forum to argue it is.

Scott Fujita, former New Orleans Saint and friend of AWF, retires.

By: America's WETLANDS Foundation

Scott Fujita officially retired yesterday from the NFL. He signed a one day contract with the Saints atop Machu Picchu where he is traveling with Steve Gleason to raise awareness for ALS. He signed the one day contract in order to retire from the game as a Saint. Here's America's WETLAND Foundation's PSA Scott helped us with from a few years ago.

Congress needs to hold the corps accountable: Editorial

By: Nola.com Editorial Board, Nola.com

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval spoke for South Louisiana residents last week when he expressed frustration that there is no way to hold the Army Corps of Engineers legally accountable for levee failures during Hurricane Katrina. In what is likely his last ruling in an almost eight-year legal saga, the judge excoriated the corps for engineering mistakes that led to massive flooding and bemoaned the blanket immunity long-granted the agency.