Latest Mississippi River Delta News: August 16, 2012

Saving the Delta
By Marc Airhart, University of Texas.
Gumbo and jazz, beignets and accordions, tipsy revelers festooned with plastic beads. The city of New Orleans evokes zesty images. Add to your mental slideshow two more images: that of a major economic crossroads — it’s part of the largest port complex in the country, handling more cargo than the next two largest ports, Houston and New York, combined — and that of a thriving coastal fishery that supports a $3.5 billion a year commercial and recreational fishing industry…” (Read more)

Congressional staffers get local seafood tour
By Mike Nixon, The Tri-Parish Times (Houma, La.). August 15, 2012.
“Lasting impressions are made with working examples. That is why area seafood industry leaders, in cooperation with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, invited 21 congressional staff members to join them in Terrebonne Parish and New Orleans for an inside look at the business…” (Read more)

Salt creeping up the Mississippi River
By Tom Watkins, CNN. August 15, 2012.
“A drought in Louisiana has lowered the Mississippi River, leaving its southern tip awash in saline from the Gulf of Mexico and prompting health officials in Plaquemines Parish to issue a drinking water advisory…” (Read more)

UNO program promotes early interest in geology
By Quo Vadis Hollins, The Times-Picayune (New Orleans). August 15, 2012.
“Shikari Washington, a John Curtis Christian School senior, recently participated in a University of New Orleans program called Minority Education through Traveling and Learning in the Sciences. UNO science faculty, led by science education coordinator Ivan Gill and Dinah Maygarden of the university’s Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences, hosted the summer geosciences camp to encourage minority high school students to pursue academics in the earth sciences…” (Read more)