Mark Schleifstein / The Times Picayune 8 July 2019 National Hurricane Center forecasters believe a tropical depression or storm is very likely to form later this week in the Gulf of Mexico, but they're hedging their bets on exactly where it might pop up. In their 2 p.m. forecast Monday, forecasters estimated there’s an 80 [...]

Michelle Lou / CNN 7 July 2019 (CNN)Summer's the perfect time to hit the beach -- unless you live in Mississippi. Along the state's Gulf Coast, all 21 of the state's beaches have been shut down for swimming due to a blue-green harmful algal bloom (HAB), according to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ). [...]

Justin Gremillion / LDH/OPH Sanitarian Services 3 July 2019 Pursuant to the provisions of LSA RS 40:5.3, as amended and re-enacted by Act 1 of the First Regular Legislative Session of 1988, and RS 40:5, molluscan shellfish growing areas 1, 2 and a partial section of 3, as designated by attached map, are hereby [...]

Bob Warren / The Times-Picayune 25 June 2019 The poor quality of the water in Lake Pontchartain has prompted authorities on the North Shore to close beaches and the popular fishing pier near Slidell. The recent proliferation of algae in the water has also led state health officials to issue warnings to the public. [...]

Trey Iles / Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries June 25, 2019 The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) announced the 2019 spring inshore shrimp season will close at 6 p.m. on Friday (June 28) from the Mississippi/Louisiana state line westward to the Louisiana/Texas state line except for the following waters: The open [...]

Christina Watkins / BRProud.com 24 June 2019 The Louisiana Department of Health issued an advisory Friday for a potentially large algal bloom developing in Lake Pontchartrain. The department is advising people to avoid contact, including swimming, with blue-green algae as exposure can be harmful for some people. An algal bloom is the rapid growth [...]

Rebecca Lindsey / Climate.gov 18 June 2019 The extremely wet 2019 spring that brought terrible flooding to large parts of the Missouri and Mississippi River watersheds has also set the stage for a very large ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico later this summer. Last week, NOAA issued its annual forecast, saying that the summer dead zone—an [...]

Tony Briscoe / Chicago Tribune 14 June, 2019 Just off the coast of Louisiana, where the Mississippi River lets out into the Gulf of Mexico, an enormous algae bloom, fueled by fertilizer from Midwestern farm fields and urban sewage, creates an area so devoid of oxygen it’s uninhabitable to most marine life every summer. [...]

Jessica Corbett / Common Dreams 11 June 2019 While the near-record forecast is partly due to the "abnormally high amount of spring rainfall" in the Midwest, experts also called for agricultural reforms to address the alarming long-term trend. U.S. scientists on Monday warned that because of runoff from human activities—such as urbanization and agriculture—this [...]

Nsikan Akpan / PBS NewsHour 11 June 2019 April showers might mean May flowers, but this year’s May showers could bring a giant choking swarm of death to wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico. On Monday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its annual Gulf forecast for this summer’s “dead zone” — a pocket of [...]