August 15, 2023 — Mississippi is accepting applications for financial relief from commercial fishermen hurt by the 2019 Mississippi Bonnet Carré Spillway disaster.
The spillway is designed to divert floodwater away from the city of New Orleans and into the Mississippi Sound, but the surge of freshwater spillover into the ocean can shock oysters, crabs, and other aquatic life. When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers opened the Bonnet Carré Spillway twice in 2019 – the first time it was ever opened twice in one year – it severely damaged area fisheries.
In 2020, the Department of Commerce declared the 2019 spillway releases a fishery disaster, allocating $88 million to Gulf of Mexico fisheries in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi to compensate for lost revenue from lower oyster, shrimp, crab, and finfish landings. Of that $88 million, Mississippi received $21 million.
The total was significantly less than the $500 million in financial relief the three states asked for. Louisiana alone estimated it suffered $258 million from the flooding.
Now, four years after the spillway disaster and three years after the federal government announced the relief, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources has launched for the 2019 Mississippi Bonnet Carré Spillway Fisheries Disaster Recovery Program to distribute the received USD 21 million in funding. Financial assistance applications for commercial fishermen, charter boat companies, and related businesses opened 9 August and will close on 7 September.