Andrew Whitehurst

On June 4th, in Long Beach, Miss., trustees for the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) held a public meeting for commenting on funding proposals for ten projects across the five Gulf States. These are restoration projects funded by penalties generated by the Oil Pollution Act in the wake of the BP disaster. This federal act […]

On May 13th, the first annual State of our Coast Conference was hosted in Biloxi, Ms. by the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. Speakers included Jamie Miller, the MDMR Director, Secretary of State, Delbert Hosemann, and State Tourism Director, Malcolm White. While the morning sessions focused on economics and tourism, the afternoon sessions branched out

On April 7th the Pearl River in Louisiana and Mississippi was named to American Rivers’ list of the ten Most Endangered Rivers in the United States because of plans to create another dam and lake on the river in Jackson, Mississippi. A two-county drainage District has submitted a feasibility study and Environmental Impact Statement for

Gulf Restoration Network held its fourth annual “Jackson for A Healthy Gulf” event at Hal and Mal’s Restaurant in the Capitol City last Thursday night. Despite a cold front moving through Jackson, with rain and bad traffic near party time, twenty-five people attended to hear about GRN’s Mississippi work over the last year. I summarized

The St. Tammany Parish Council hosted the 2015 Pearl River Basin Watershed Conference in their chambers in Mandeville on March 17th. This was a meeting led by the Louisiana and Mississippi offices of the National Weather Service (NWS). There were very good presentations and discussions of Pearl River flood forecasting and emergency management operations between

Oysters inspected. Photo credit: MDEQ.Mississippi’s Governor Phil Bryant recently announced the formation of the Governor’s Oyster Council to help the coast’s oyster industry restore a fishery that has been hurt and diminished over just a few years by hurricanes, the BP drilling disaster and its aftermath, and oyster reef mortality due to salinity changes. The

Gulf Restoration Network requested a meeting with the Vicksburg District Corps staff to ask about the status of the WRDA Section 211 flood control (lake) project on the Pearl River. We wanted to discuss the project and ask questions about the process since a local sponsor, and not the Vicksburg Corps, is doing all the

The Greater Jackson Partnership gave an update on its Vision 2022 plan on Thursday September 25th. Vision 2022 was begun in 2012 as a 10 year master plan for development in downtown Jackson. Its centerpiece is a new lake along the urban reach of the Pearl River, but there are parts of the plan that

Robert Bowcock visited Louisiana and Mississippi on September 9-10th doing investigations into water pollution problems. Bowcock’s consulting business, Integrated Resource Management, deals with the safety and security of drinking water systems. His investigations have supported some of Erin Brockovich’s environmental defense work. On he was in St. John Parish, upriver from New Orleans. The Parish

An oilfield waste injection well has been operating for 18 years with minimal oversight in a suburban neighborhood in Laurel, Mississippi. Since 1996 this disposal well has allowed salt water, produced during drilling operations, combined with oil and drilling fluids to be injected into the earth 4020 feet down a “dry hole” oil well from