Pruning the Mississippi

Credit: USGS and NASA

Hurricane Katrina demolished New Orleans 10 years ago.

Extensive studies done after Katrina verified what lifelong residents of southeastern Louisiana already knew: Unless the rapidly disappearing wetlands are made healthy again, restoring the natural defense, New Orleans will soon lay naked against the sea

So, how does one reengineer the entire Mississippi River delta—one of the largest in the world—on which New Orleans lies?

Three international engineering and design teams have reached a startling answer: leave the mouth of the Mississippi River to die. Let the badly failing wetlands there completely wither away, becoming open water, so that the upper parts of the delta closer to the city can be saved.

LINK (via: Gizmodo)

The Other Gulf Oil Disaster: Chronic Offshore Pollution

Five years since the BP/Deepwater Horizon disaster began, Sky Truth highlights all of the other oil and hazardous material spills that have been reported in the Gulf since the BP spill was stopped in July 2010.

LINK

Including one well that has been leaking for over a decade!

In a letter Friday to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Sen. Bill Nelson said it is "unacceptable" that oil is still leaking from the site off Louisiana's coast where an oil platform owned by Taylor Energy Company toppled during Hurricane Ivan in 2004.

LINK (via:The A.P)

Timelapse: The Shrinking Mississippi Delta

The wetlands that surround the delta act as a natural barrier, a shock-absorber if you will, to the storm surge or hurricanes and other tropical cyclones. But between levees starving these marshes of sediment, and the impact of thousands of miles of canals servicing oil and gas wells across the coast, the Delta is shrinking.

LINK (via: SkyTruth)

Gulf Coast Islands: Now You See 'Em, Now You...??

Four years have passed since the BP Oil and Gas Disaster began in the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the lasting damage from that spill is just becoming apparent. One possibility: the acceleration of wetlands loss and coastal erosion due to the die-off of marsh vegetation.

Using the Historical Imagery tool in Google Earth, it's easy to see how quickly some of these islands, which provide important habitat for shorebirds and migrating songbirds, are disappearing.

LINK (via:Skytruth)

Rigs to Reefs

In an ironic twist, scientists, fishermen and conservationists are urging that hundreds of dormant oil rigs be left standing in the Gulf of Mexico, arguing that a US federal plan to remove them will endanger coral reefs and fish.

LINK (via Business World)

In it's first life, an oil platform, in its next, a reef?

LINK (via: The NY Times)

Who shot the tiger?