As More Diverted Floodwaters Head Their Way, Dolphins Keep Dying in Louisiana

As an unprecedented amount of floodwater makes its way down the Mississippi River, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers today opened the Bonnet Carre Spillway for the second time this year.  Done to prevent New Orleans from being flooded, the action marks the first time the spillway, which diverts the Mississippi’s nutrient- and pollutant-heavy freshwater into Lake Pontchatrain, has been opened twice in the same year. 

The historic opening of the spillway is happening in the midst of an ongoing and mysterious dolphin die-off in the Gulf of Mexico and the same week that the United Nations released its most comprehensive report on the state of biodiversity.

The report warns that the rate species are going extinct is speeding up and can only be slowed by simultaneously combating climate change and directly protecting species and their habitats.  But in Louisiana, despite more frequent and intense extreme weather and the current dolphin die-off, the local, state, and federal governments are showing little political appetite to deal with either.  

Only yesterday the Corps announced it would open the spillway again this year, but quickly moved up the planned date of May 14 to May 10 after regional rainfall caused the Mississippi River to rise 6 inches in 24 hours, with more rain expected this weekend. 

Read more at As More Diverted Floodwaters Head Their Way, Dolphins Keep Dying in Louisiana