GOMAEEN News Archive
We have recently changed RSS Feed Generators and these stories reflect Gulf news from June & July, as well as GOMA press. It will continued to be updated from this point forth.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 | No reports of oil leaking from platform fire Daybreak brought no reports of oil leaking from an offshore oil platform that erupted in flames Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico, the Coast Guard said. more info |
| National Preparedness Month, September 1-30 September is National Preparedness Month (NPM). The goal of this thirty-day campaign is to encourage homeowners, business managers, and local officials to prepare for natural and technological disasters in their communities. National Preparedness Month is sponsored by the Ad Council, Citizen Corps, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) Ready Campaign. more info |
| Oil spill adds poignancy to Horn Island artwork The annual sojourn on the narrow Mississippi Gulf Coast island is designed to bring students, faculty and friends of the college into direct and intimate contact with nature and provide challenges to creating works of art in isolation outside of the studio environment. more info |
| Gulf Spill Reveals New Oil-Eating Bacteria Researchers reporting in the journal Science say they have discovered a new species of oil-eating bacteria living half a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico. Study author Terry Hazen discusses the finding and what these bacteria might mean for future oil spills. more info |
| Teaching out of the box For the next 10 months, interns John Armstrong of Ocean Springs and Randy Parson of Moss Point will rotate through the school working with teachers one-on-one to help them bring technology into education. The interns are there because of a $50,000 education grant from the IP Resort Casino and Spa. more info |
| Oil sheen spreading from Gulf platform explosion A mile-long oil sheen spread Thursday from an offshore petroleum platform burning in the Gulf of Mexico off Lousiana, west of the site of BP's massive spill. more info |
| USF researchers heading back into gulf Friday "As important members of the 'business-end' of the food chain, these deeper living species form a critical link in the ocean's economy," Torres added. "We will be sampling to look for evidence of exposure to sub-surface oil and to compare present abundances with those obtained in years past, prior to the spill. Using both strategies we should be able to get a good measure of the spill's impact." more info |
| National Marine Sanctuaries Highlighted at Blue Ocean Film Festival Aug. 24-29 America's national marine sanctuaries played a starring role at the BLUE Ocean Film Festival held August 24-29 in Monterey, California. The 14 federally designated marine protected areas were featured in many of the 80+ films screened during the festival, including the winner for Best Ocean Exploration and Adventure Film, "Jean-Michel Cousteau Ocean Adventures: America's Underwater Treasures," a feature produced by Cousteau's Ocean Futures Society. more info |
| Pepsi Refresh Project Doubles its Monthly Commitment to America's Communities The Pepsi Refresh Project has doubled its monthly commitment of $1.3 million to refresh America's communities by awarding $2.6 million in grants during the month of September. Each month, Pepsi awards up to $1.3 million in Refresh Grants to the 32 ideas that garner the most votes. Through the Pepsi Refresh Project: Do Good for the Gulf extension, Pepsi has allocated an additional $1.3 million to refresh communities in the Gulf Coast for the month. more info |
| Feds Reopen Fishing From Fla. Panhandle To La. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials said Thursday about 5,130 square miles of federal waters from Pensacola west through Alabama and Mississippi are open to fishing and shrimp harvesting. more info |
| Audubon Aquarium of the Americas turns 20 Originally conceived of as a tourist attraction and a breakthrough for the Audubon Nature Institute, the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas has relied on a core group of paid and volunteer support to become something more: For many local and out-of-town visitors, it's a primer on the Gulf of Mexico and coastal wetlands; and for injured animals in the wild, it provides a lifeline as the state's official "marine mammal and sea turtle stranding coordinator, " a role that has expanded significantly in response to the BP oil spill, said Karyn Kearney, senior vice president and managing director for the aquarium. more info |
| Scientists gather to exchange ideas, help shape plan for oil spill cleanup Scientists and others from the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, the Northern Gulf Institute and various government agencies under the Unified Command met in Biloxi on Wednesday. The meetings will conclude this week - the last is in New Orleans on Thursday - and a final draft of the plan could be complete by the end of next week. more info |
| Gulf's 'dead zone' swelled this summer to one of largest areas on record In a sense, the dead zone is a local issue for Minnesota and every other state flanking the Mississippi. From farms to cities, people throughout the mighty river’s basin contribute to the problem. more info |
| Oysters under scrutiny Meanwhile the AP reports that DHH, which has been testing oysters since the BP rig blew in the Gulf in April, has found no oysters with high levels of hydrocarbon contamination. “We have not found anything at a level of concern,” Olivia Watkins, a DHH spokeswoman told the AP. “What we have found is extremely low." more info |
| BP begins removing cap from Gulf well The cap has shut off all oil flow from the leak since July 15. Once it is gone, BP can remove a failed blowout preventer and replace it with another before plugging the leak through a relief well. more info |
| Weird Science-Focus on Funding & Research for the BP Oil Spill Studying such a complex event takes time even in the best of cases. BP and the government, gearing up for a potential court battle over how much the oil company will have to pay in fines and for restoration, are hiring researchers to find answers, but those who are trying to remain independent, like Hooper-Bui, are being caught in a hard place. They are outside the official Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process, but often without sufficient funding—or in some cases access—to conduct the research they believe is needed. At stake is the rigor and comprehensiveness of the data that will inform our ultimate understanding of the spill’s effects, and most important, that will determine how risks of future spills could be reduced and responses improved. more info |
| BP Assures Governors It Will Restore The Gulf State leaders want to be sure BP cleans up the mess and gets the region back on its feet. It was was one of the main topics being discussed at the Southern Governors' Association annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala. more info |
| How the Media Covered the Gulf Oil Spill Disaster Coverage of the disaster also required a significant amount of technical and scientific expertise. News consumers were introduced to a series of new terms and concepts as the media tried to explain the efforts to contain the spill and formulate reliable estimates of the extent of the environmental and economic damage. more info |
| Tiny Gulf Sea Creature Could Shed Light on Oil Spills Impact Using molecular techniques, Jenny and his collaborators will determine which genes in the anemones collected from oil-exposed sites have been affected and how this impacts various functions, including the animals ability to store energy and reproduce. more info |
| WALDROP EXHIBIT LOOKS AT COASTAL ENVIRONMENT A series of paintings and sculptures in the exhibit address some of the still unresolved environmental issues regarding the rehabilitation of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Waldrop said issues include the current state of specific ecosystems, the area’s marine biology, fortification of the coastline/landscape, and restoration of the barrier islands along the border of the Mississippi Sound. more info |
| Looking for Trouble on ‘Highway’ for Manatees Though that has not come to pass, another danger is yet to come when the manatees return home in late fall, said Ruth Carmichael, who leads manatee research at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Dauphin Island, Ala. Researchers who model the spill’s progress expect subsurface oil to collect in the shipping channel, which the manatees use on their migration, Dr. Carmichael said. more info |
| Deep Water Dead Zone Predicted in the Gulf Many researchers have been speculating that the deepwater plume would create a dead zone as microbes ate the undersea oil and gas, consuming oxygen in the process. The new work combines the best estimates for how much oil was released with detailed models of ocean currents and information about typical microbial oil degradation rates to show that the conditions in the Gulf should, indeed, produce one. more info |
| Officials: Lack of oxygen likely killed thousands of fish in Gulf Bloomberg pointed out that these fish kills occur every year when fish, crabs, eels and shrimp move toward the shoreline to escape the low-oxygen waters, but this year scientists have seen the kills occurring “in open water for the first time, raising concern that low-oxygen areas are expanding” because of the oil. more info |
| Invisible Disaster: Fall Migration Over the Gulf It’s not just oil-covered pelicans. Billions of birds -- some from your backyard -- face risks this fall. more info |
| Locals Track Gulf Oil Spill's Health Impacts, Paving Way for Federal Study But though the surveys may not yield a scientific conclusion about the oil leak's long-term fallout, local nonprofits such as the brigade -- one of several groups around the country that teach communities how to test for air toxics using little more than a bucket and a hand-held vacuum -- are poised to become key players as the federal government begins to track the health consequences faced by Gulf residents recruited into BP PLC's sprawling cleanup operation. more info |
| USA Scientists Receive National Science Foundation Funding The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded University of South Alabama scientists funding through grants to research the long-term effects of the BP PLC oil spill on the Gulf Coast environment. more info |
| Millions of birds at risk as fall migration to oil-fouled Gulf Coast nears .Millions of birds at risk as fall migration to oil-fouled Gulf Coast nears, conservationists worry Posted on August 31, 2010 | 0 Comments Tags:birdsCanadaconservationendangered speciesforestsmangrovesmigrationsNorth Americaoceanspollution Millions of Canada's migratory birds, representing more than a hundred species, could be at risk when they return this fall to areas in the Gulf of Mexico affected by the oil spill, the Boreal Songbird Initiative (BSI), a conservation charity, said today. more info |
| Helping coral reefs, oceans and ourselves President Obama's newly announced national ocean plan is an invaluable insurance policy on the future health of our oceans - providing us with the chance to make decisions on the use of our limited marine resources based on the best available biological, physical, economic and social sciences. As illustrated so dramatically by the tragic Gulf oil spill, today's mistakes will only increase the hardships felt tomorrow and become more costly to fix the longer we wait. more info |
| Experts: Submerged oil threatens organisms Two of coastal Alabama’s foremost marine experts agree that using dispersants to combat this summer’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill will cause problems in the northern Gulf of Mexico for years to come, but not because the chemicals BP PLC administered to break the crude into microscopic pieces pose any significant human health risk. more info |
| Shark Attacks: Worry More About Lightning Studies show that lightning is a far greater killer than sharks, at least in the United States. From 1959 to 2008 nationwide, 1,930 people were killed by lightning, while only 25 died from shark attacks. In Texas during that same time period, 208 fatalities occurred from lightning strikes compared to only 1shark attack death. The drive to the beach is far more dangerous than any shark encounter, says Texas A&M University at Galveston marine expert Andre Landry. more info |
