The Chandeleur Sound is a sound that lies between mainland Louisiana and the Chandeleur Islands in Saint Bernard Parish. It is situated east of Breton Sound and south of Mississippi Sound. It was formed by the mixing of the Gulf of Mexico and the waters of the Mississippi River, protected by the Islands.
Similarly to the rest of Louisiana, the Sound experiences a semitropical climate. [1] The average water temperatures range from 70˚F to 84˚F (21–29°C) by month and the humidity ranges between 73% and 84%. Due to the humidity, clouds often form overhead, reducing the amount of daily sunlight that the area receives to as little as 4 hours. [2] The Sound is a part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge and is situated near the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge.
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall as a category 3 hurricane and destroyed part of the Chandeleur Islands, exposing some of the Sound to the Gulf. [3]
The Sound has served a major purpose for a long time, including fishing, as it is located just outside of the New Orleans metropolitan area. The metro has an estimated population of 1,275,762 as of 2017 and has been served by the Sound since the area was settled in 1718. [4] [5]
The Sound is accessible to fishermen in both Mississippi and Louisiana, the two states that border it. Because the Chandeleur Islands protect the Sound from rough seas, ships of all sizes can roam it. Most boats that enter the Sound are used for fishing. [6]
Fish is a primary export from the region, including Redfish and Speckled trout. The abundance of fish in the sound has helped the region flourish and thrive by allowing humans to settle as early as 1718, when the French arrived in New Orleans. Other fish that can be found in the Sound include, but are not limited to, Flounder, Bluefish, Spanish mackerel, Cobia, Tarpon and Jack crevalle. The prime fishing season is during the Summer. [6] [4] The city of New Orleans itself was founded in 1718 and the Sound has served it for over 300 years. [5] However, fishing was banned across the Gulf Coast for a period of time after the 2010 oil spill, causing the industry to temporarily die out.
Nearby cities that have developed with help from the Sound include Gulfport, Mississippi, located about forty miles (60 km) north and New Orleans, Louisiana, which is about sixty miles (100 km) west. The Sound has helped both cities grow tremendously, due to the abundance of fish and the ability to travel the region with ease. [6]
Pollution has been a major issue for the region in recent years that has caused wildlife to die as a result of waste being carried in the Mississippi River and oil spills in the region.
In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon , an oil–drilling machine, sprung a leak in the Gulf of Mexico. A reported 4.9 million barrels of oil were spilled off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and to a lesser extent, Texas. [7] Louisiana's marshes were impacted heavily by the spill, which occurred just forty miles (60 km) off the coast of the state. More than 450 miles (720 km) of the Chandeleur Sound's coastline marshes were oiled and destroyed. The reduction of the marshes by cause of human activity accelerated rapidly after the spill. [8] [9]
In 2008, a dead zone was discovered by scientists in the Sound that grew extensively after the oil spill. The likely starting cause is waste nutrients being carried into the estuaries by the Mississippi River, although the oil made it worse. The dead zone appeared to be created by low amounts of oxygen in the region, known as hypoxic zones, as a result of phosphorus and nitrogen blocking out sunlight. It grows the most during the summer, when the flow of these nutrients is the highest. [10]
The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South or the South Coast, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, and these are known as the Gulf States.
Grand Isle is a town in Jefferson Parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana, located on a barrier island of the same name in the Gulf of Mexico. The island is at the mouth of Barataria Bay where it meets the gulf. The town of Grand Isle is statistically part of the New Orleans−Metairie−Kenner metropolitan statistical area, though it is not connected to New Orleans' continuous urbanized area.
In usage in the Southern United States, a bayou is a body of water typically found in a flat, low-lying area. It may refer to an extremely slow-moving stream, river, marshy lake, wetland, or creek. They typically contain brackish water highly conducive to fish life and plankton. Bayous are commonly found in the Gulf Coast region of the southern United States, especially in the Mississippi River Delta, though they also exist elsewhere.
The Mississippi River Delta is the confluence of the Mississippi River with the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana, southeastern United States. The river delta is a three-million-acre area of land that stretches from Vermilion Bay on the west, to the Chandeleur Islands in the east, on Louisiana's southeastern coast. It is part of the Gulf of Mexico and the Louisiana coastal plain, one of the largest areas of coastal wetlands in the United States. The Mississippi River Delta is the 7th largest river delta on Earth (USGS) and is an important coastal region for the United States, containing more than 2.7 million acres of coastal wetlands and 37% of the estuarine marsh in the conterminous U.S. The coastal area is the nation's largest drainage basin and drains about 41% of the contiguous United States into the Gulf of Mexico at an average rate of 470,000 cubic feet per second.
The Chandeleur Islands are a chain of uninhabited barrier islands approximately 50 miles (80 km) long, located in the Gulf of Mexico, marking the outer boundary of the Chandeleur Sound. They form the easternmost point of the state of Louisiana, United States and are a part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge. They are an important migrating point for many birds on their way south, and are a prime marsh and forest wildlife area.
The wetlands of Louisiana are water-saturated coastal and swamp regions of southern Louisiana, often called 'Bayou'.
Barataria Bay, also Barrataria Bay, is a bay of the Gulf of Mexico, about 15 miles (24 km) long and 12 miles (19 km) wide, in southeastern Louisiana, in Jefferson Parish and Plaquemines Parish, United States. It is separated from the gulf by two barrier islands, Grand Isle and Grand Terre.
Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean and operated by BP. On 20 April 2010, while drilling at the Macondo Prospect, a blowout caused an explosion on the rig that killed 11 crewmen and ignited a fireball visible from 40 miles (64 km) away. The fire was inextinguishable and, two days later, on 22 April, the Horizon sank, leaving the well gushing at the seabed and causing the largest marine oil spill in history.
Breton National Wildlife Refuge is located in southeastern Louisiana in the offshore Breton Islands and Chandeleur Islands. It is located in the Gulf of Mexico and is accessible only by boat. The refuge was established in 1904 through executive order of President Theodore Roosevelt and is the second-oldest refuge in the National Wildlife Refuge System.
The Delta National Wildlife Refuge is located 10 miles (16 km) east of Venice, Louisiana along the Mississippi River. The area formed when a breach in the natural levee of the Mississippi River occurred in 1862 approximately 100 miles (160 km) below New Orleans, Louisiana. The 48,000-acre (190 km2) refuge was purchased in 1935 with the primary purpose to provide sanctuary and habitat to wintering waterfowl. Access is by boat only.
The Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA) was passed by Congress in 1990 to fund wetland enhancement. In cooperation with multiple government agencies, CWPPRA is moving forward to restore the lost wetlands of the Gulf Coast, as well as protecting the wetlands from future deterioration. The scope of the mission is not simply for the restoration of Louisiana's Wetlands, but also the research and implementation of preventative measures for wetlands preservation.
The Gulf of Mexico is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southwest and south by the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo; and on the southeast by Cuba. The Southern U.S. states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, which border the Gulf on the north, are often referred to as the "Third Coast" of the United States.
Omega Protein Corporation was a publicly traded US company, founded in 1913 as a fishing operation. As of 2015 it still operated a fishing fleet, and produced food ingredients, dietary supplements and animal feed. Their products included fish oil, fish meal, and proteins. In the 2000s it expanded via acquisitions into ingredients produced from milk and plants. On December 19, 2017 Cooke Inc. completed its acquisition of Omega Protein for $22.00 per share.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010 off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered to be the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8 to 31 percent larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill, also in the Gulf of Mexico. The United States federal government estimated the total discharge at 4.9 MMbbl. After several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010. Reports in early 2012 indicated that the well site was still leaking. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is regarded as one of the largest environmental disasters in world history.
This article covers the effect of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the resulting oil spill on global and national economies and the energy industry.
The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force is the organization created by President Barack Obama to recover from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and preserve the ecosystem of the Gulf Coast of the United States.
The Gulf killifish is one of the largest members of the genus Fundulus; it is capable of growing up to 7 inches (18 cm) in length, whereas the majority of other Fundulus reach a maximum length of 4 inches (10 cm). Therefore, F. grandis is among the largest minnows preyed upon by many sport fish, such as flounder, speckled trout, and red drum. Fundulus derives from the Latin meaning "bottom," and grandis means "large". The Gulf killifish is native to the Gulf of Mexico from Texas to Florida and the eastern coast of Florida and the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean. Threats to the survival of the Gulf killifish include extreme changes in salinity, changes in temperatures, and toxic events such as the hypoxic dead zone in Louisiana and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The Gulf killifish is currently being used to test the effects of oil and oil dispersants on the physiology of marine species affected by these substances. This is significant to conservation biology, because with the continued extraction of oil and other natural resources from North American waters, it has become increasingly important to understand the risks and consequences in worst-case scenarios, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the lasting effects on the marine ecosystem.
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been described as the worst environmental disaster in the United States, releasing about 4.9 million barrels of crude oil making it the largest marine oil spill. Both the spill and the cleanup efforts had effects on the environment.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was discovered on the afternoon of 22 April 2010 when a large oil slick began to spread at the former rig site. According to the Flow Rate Technical Group, the leak amounted to about 4.9 million barrels of oil, exceeding the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as the largest ever to originate in U.S.-controlled waters and the 1979 Ixtoc I oil spill as the largest spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has challenged this calculation saying that it is overestimated as it includes over 810,000 barrels of oil which was collected before it could enter the Gulf waters.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred between 10 April and 19 September 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. A variety of techniques were used to address fundamental strategies for addressing the spilled oil, which were: to contain oil on the surface, dispersal, and removal. While most of the oil drilled off Louisiana is a lighter crude, the leaking oil was of a heavier blend which contained asphalt-like substances. According to Ed Overton, who heads a federal chemical hazard assessment team for oil spills, this type of oil emulsifies well. Once it becomes emulsified, it no longer evaporates as quickly as regular oil, does not rinse off as easily, cannot be broken down by microbes as easily, and does not burn as well. "That type of mixture essentially removes all the best oil clean-up weapons", Overton said.
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