News

Earlier this week, I spoke to a woman who has spent most of her life living near the Pearl River. One of her fond childhood memories involved sighting a threatened Gulf Sturgeon while on the river with her dad. Because of the Temple-Inland paper plant’s illegal discharge of “black liquor” into the Pearl earlier this […]

Coastal Restoration PanelOn August 12th I attended a Coastal Restoration/Protection Forum in Davant, Louisiana called “Getting the Jobs & Water Right.” The Gulf Restoration Network was a sponsor of this event and I was there to learn about what the concerns and opportunities were for coastal communities as we envision restoration of these critical areas.We

So why am I going to DC to fight tar sands?Earlier this year, an amazing list of 20 environmental and social justice leaders issued an invitation to help fight for our climate. I read it. I thought about it. I shared it on FB. And then I pretty much forgot about it, returning my attention

Strandings data point to more than shrimpers in the deaths of Turtles.The recent spike in sea turtle mortality along the Gulf coast has raised several concerns over the cause of these deaths and how to stop it.Source: 1987-2007, 2008-2011. Decadal averages in Turtle strandings by month, compared to the monthly strandings 2010 and 2011. Note

This morning I set out on a long flight to investigate reports of oil sightings near BP’s Macondo well, the site where the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank into the Gulf killing 11 workers and spewing at least 4.9 million barrels of oil. Whenever I here reports like this I tend to get antsy and

This morning, I had the opportunity, courtesy of South Wings, to fly up the Pearl River to get an aerial view of any remaining dead aquatic life, and of the plant that admitted fault for the fish kill, Temple-Inland. The good news is that we didn’t see a ton of dead fish from the air

People of the Pearl River are feeling their stomachs drop at news of the latest “fish kill” which seems more of a “River Kill.” Temple-Inland’s “slug” of “black liquor” -an untreated mash of tannins, lye, soaps, sulfuric and other unknown compounds that is the regular waste of the pulping process Temple-Inland pumped their noxious slug

When Blue Water turns all the colors of the RainbowA while back, Jonathan Henderson and I were graciously invited to fly with Bonny Schumaker and On Wings of Care, in order to scope for whale sharks, to document an ongoing oil release from one of the 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf, and to check

Last I joined a group of local citizens, along with GRN’s Scott Eustis, on a canoe trip down the Bowie River near Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The Bowie River, which is also sometimes known as the Bouie, is popular spot for fishing and canoeing, but portions of the river have also been severely damaged by a polluting

Over the weekend, there were many reports regarding a massive fish kill on the Pearl River, with the pollution causing this die-off emanating from Bogalusa. Check out some pics here…they aren’t pretty. While an official cause of the death of thousands of fish, turtles, and other critters that live in the river has not been