WELCOME TO BILL'S CORNER!

Dear Constituents,

It has been six months since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and devastated many coastal towns along the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. We’ve recently seen New Orleans coming back to life through annual Mardi Gras celebrations. It is comforting to see that the spirit of a city can’t be broken, even in the midst of such widespread destruction. Just as the land-based reconstruction has been taking place, NOAA’s environmental work in the offshore waters of the Gulf continues, as well as other NOAA contributions to the Gulf recovery effort. This month, I’d like to update you about our progress.

NOAA’s first priority after the hurricane was the safety and accounting for of its employees. Second, was providing support for local recovery and clean-up efforts including the opening of navigation and ports, as well as providing the Gulf states with additional joint enforcement agreement funding. NOAA lost facilities during the hurricane, and many of our employees lost their homes and were displaced. I am pleased to announce that all of NOAA’s operations in the Gulf were reconstituted very quickly although many continued to work out of temporary trailers due to the destruction and loss of facilities in Mississippi.

Both the National Weather Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service have received supplemental funding to aid in the recovery process. Additionally, in the most recent supplemental, the Administration has requested additional funds for the rebuilding of our fisheries laboratories in Pascagoula. They say you can tell a lot about people by how they respond in times of adversity. I’d like to publicly acknowledge and thank the amazing commitment of our staff in Pascagoula and Bay St. Louis for their dedication to continue the important work of NOAA, even when many of them lost their homes and offices in the storm.

Two weeks after the hurricane, we launched an aggressive environmental assessment program to check for any possible contamination of seafood in the Gulf of Mexico. To-date, we have conducted over a dozen cruises to collect samples of animals, water and sediments from hurricane-impacted waters of the Gulf. We tested the samples for both chemical contaminants and bacteria.

Alongside NOAA, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the States of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi conducted analyses of additional areas and species. I also began holding regular calls with the Gulf state fisheries directors and the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission to enhance communications and better understand their needs. Those calls continue and on March 7th we discussed how to gain access to oyster funding that had been provided to the Department of Agriculture.

On December 6, 2005, these agencies issued a joint statement that deemed Gulf seafood safe to eat. Although we have recently found slightly higher levels of some hydrocarbons in the shrimp, these levels are still well-below levels of concern for human safety. NOAA’s environmental sampling continues today. We will monitor for any bio-accumulation of chemicals over time, and we will report any changes we may find.

In addition, NOAA launched a socio-economic study to assess the extent of fisheries infrastructure loss. We know that many fishing boats were badly damaged or destroyed, but we still do not yet know the total impacts of the hurricane on the industry. Our study is looking at damage to fishing docks, fish dealer and processing facilities, bait & tackle shops, and a variety of other fishing industry support facilities. The preliminary drafts of this comprehensive study will be completed shortly.

Hurricane Katrina caused severe economic impacts to both the commercial and for-hire fishing industries. Most affected were the commercial oyster, shrimp and menhaden fleets, as well as the for-hire charterboat fleet. Fishermen tell us that the fishing is good and the price of fuel is coming down as both hard-working industries slowly recover. However, commercial fishermen continue to deal with lost or damaged vessels and gear, while for-hire fishermen, who are dependent on tourism, wait for the tourist industry to strengthen throughout the Katrina affected areas in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

One of our main concerns now is long-term damage to Louisiana’s wetlands. Louisiana has been losing its coastline at a rate of 25 square miles per year for several decades. Louisiana’s shoreline could move 33 miles inland by 2040 if the current rate of loss is not reduced. This loss could deal a tremendous blow to the marine environment, since Louisiana’s wetlands provide valuable habitat and nursery areas for hundreds of species. It is estimated that Hurricane Katrina caused a loss of 118 square miles of wetlands in the southeastern Louisiana marshes alone.

There is some good news to report about Louisiana’s wetlands: NOAA has been funding and collaborating on habitat projects to restore Louisiana’s wetlands since 1990 under the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act. Since Hurricane Katrina made landfall, we’ve surveyed all nine projects currently underway and found that eight out of nine of them functioned as designed to protect and begin to restore degraded habitats. In January, we launched two new restoration projects. We granted $17.7 million to create 1,400 acres of wetlands in Lafourche Parish, which could be completed as early as next winter. We also granted $50 million – the largest award ever given for a restoration project under CWPPRA – to restore 750 acres of wetlands that protect shores from storms. We look forward to continued collaboration on these projects with partner organizations and local communities in Louisiana.

I am pleased to report that fish stocks are doing well in the Gulf of Mexico, despite both Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Our annual fall survey of species population sizes found that overall abundance of shrimp and bottom fish have increased by about 30 percent from 2004 levels. While the reduction in fishing activity in the Gulf could be a contributing factor to this news for some species, we were pleased nonetheless to find that the hurricanes did not cause any large-scale fish die-offs. Shrimp catch rates in the offshore areas of the northern Gulf also actually have increased post-Katrina.

As I write this, Congress is debating a supplemental budget package proposed by the Administration that would provide us funding to survey marine debris, continue our contamination and abundance of species surveys, determine market-based solutions for fisheries management and produce multi-hazard maps to assist in rebuilding in the coastal zone.

We will continue to monitor all these hurricane-related issues, and take action as the situation warrants. I thank all of our constituents for your continued support of NOAA as we work to do important work for the people and the environment in the Gulf of Mexico.

References

NOAA's Hurricane Environmental Impacts Site

Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act Program

Joint Federal/State Announcement Concerning Safety of Gulf Seafood