May 31, 2019 — Louisiana lieutenant governor and several Louisiana seafood industry groups are seeking to ensure that fishermen and harvesters affected by the Morganza Spillway’s opening can apply for federal aid to help them recover.
The Army Corps of Engineers is scheduled to open the spillway June 6, sending massive amounts of water from the Mississippi River into the Atchafalaya Basin. The action aims to relieve pressure on Mississippi River levees that protect cities along its route, including New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
But Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and seafood industry representatives said today that pushing an estimated 1.5 million cubic-feet-per-second of rushing freshwater into a fragile ecosystem of more than 100 species of fish and aquatic life threatens the species and the fishermen, harvesters and businesses that depend on them.
“The opening of the Morganza Spillway will cause severe damage to the Atchafalaya Basin, our nation’s largest estuary,” Nungesser wrote in a letter he sent today to Gov. John Bel Edwards and Louisiana’s congressional delegation.
“The opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway earlier this year already has negatively impacted seafood in Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne,” he said. “New fresh water flow into the basin will further impact the livelihoods of thousands of Gulf fisherman, as well as crawfish and oyster farmers. My office is also asking Congress to include assistance for the seafood industry in any future disaster recovery bills.”
Louisiana’s seafood industry is likely to be negatively impacted for months and potentially years, Nungesser said in a news release.