For Immediate ReleaseContact: Matt Rota, GRNAugust 7, 2007Grand Isle Dead Zone ConferenceA Call to Fishermen and Concerned CitizensSept 7, 2007 1:00-4:30pm Grand Isle Community Center Hwy 1, Grand Isle, LAThe Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico is growing! This year, it is expected to be larger than in any year since its discovery. Are you concerned? Well, this is your call to action! Join your coastal neighbors by participating in a strategy session on the problem. It will be held on Grand Isle, Louisiana’s only inhabited barrier island, on Friday, September 7, 2007, from 1:00PM until 4:30PM at the Community Center located at 3811 HWY 1.This session is positively NOT a government hearing. It is NOT part of any existing project. It is NOT part of any grant. It is NOT a call to additional research or study. THIS IS A SPECIFIC CALL TO PRIVATE CITIZENS to engage your ideas, input and support to work on reducing the size of the Dead Zone. We are requesting all citizens, commercial and recreational fishermen, charter captains, concerned individuals, business people involved in the tourism industry and our coastal neighbors to attend this important event.The four hour session will include a short welcome from Mayor David Camardelle and a brief presentation on the latest research by Dr. Nancy Rabalais, executive director of the Louisiana University Marine Consortium (LUMCON) and the foremost expert on gulf hypoxia. Additionally, Dr. Gregory Stone, director of the LSU Coastal Studies Institute, Kerry St.Pe, director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP), and Doug Daigle, Coordinator of the Lower Mississippi River Sub-Basin Committee will make brief opening comments. The facilitated session will then brainstorm and strategize creative and effective ways to enforce and implement existing measures and develop new ones to counteract the causes and effects of gulf hypoxia.Join the Grand Isle Port Commission, Mississippi River Basin Alliance, LSU Ag Center, LA. SeaGrant, America’s Wetlands, BTNEP, the Nature Conservancy and the Gulf Restoration Network and others as we build strategies to reduce gulf hypoxia to natural levels. Following the strategy session, a free dinner will be provided. Please RSVP for dinner by September 5, 2007.For more information and dinner RSVP, please contact Wayne Keller, director of the Grand Isle Port Commission by email (preferably) at waynek@grandisleport.com or by calling 985.787.2229.
