The Mississippi Trustee Implementation Group recently approved the Upper Pascagoula Water Quality Enhancement Project for funding. Now the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is requesting applications from land owners or controllers interested in financial assistance to participate in the project.

If selected, participants will help develop and implement plans that reduce nutrient and sediment runoff into Mississippi’s coastal waters.

The NRCS is seeking applicants from Clarke, Jasper, Kemper, Lauderdale, Neshoba, and Newton counties to implement

The Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group greatly appreciates all the ideas provided before the end of the Open Ocean project idea submittal period in May of last year. As highlighted during our April 2017 webinar, we organized submitted ideas and screened them based on the Trustee Council’s programmatic restoration plan and our restoration goals and priorities.

Ideas emerging from this initial screening are being reviewed and considered for additional development and evaluation.  We received hundreds, and a number of them are helping shape project alternatives that will be included in two

The Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group greatly appreciates all the ideas provided before the end of the Open Ocean project idea submittal period in May of last year. As highlighted during our April 2017 webinar, we organized submitted ideas and screened them based on the Trustee Council’s programmatic restoration plan and our restoration goals and priorities.

Ideas emerging from this initial screening are being reviewed and considered for additional development and evaluation.  We received hundreds, and a number of them are helping shape project alternatives that will be included in two

The Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group has initiated drafting of its first and second post settlement draft restoration plans to address natural resource injuries caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Open Ocean Draft Restoration Plan 1, expected release summer 2018:

• Birds
• Sturgeon

Open Ocean Draft Restoration Plan 2, expected release near the end of calendar year 2018:

• Sea Turtles
• Marine Mammals
• Fish and Water Column Invertebrates
• Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities

Both plans will be consistent with the Trustee Council’s programmatic restoration plan and will

Many members of the Deepwater Horizon Trustee Implementation Groups and the Cross-Trustee Monitoring and Adaptive Management work group will participate in the upcoming Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference in New Orleans.

Members will give presentations covering a host of different topics. We encourage partners and stakeholders who are at the conference to stop by the following sessions.

• February 7 from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.: “Linking monitoring, adaptive management and restoration at the Local, State and Regional Scale”

Including presentations on the recently

Due to the inclement weather and hazardous road conditions in South Louisiana tomorrow, the January 17 Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group’s public meeting scheduled prior to the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Board meeting in Baton Rouge has been CANCELLED.

The January 17 meeting was originally scheduled for 9 a.m. and was to provide the public opportunity to comment on two Louisiana draft restoration plans released in December, the Draft Recreational Use Plan and the Draft Barataria Strategic Plan.

The Louisiana Trustees are asking the public to attend a meeting on January

Finding a suitable place to build a nest can be a challenge for osprey that live along the Alabama coast. Thanks to an early restoration project approved by the Trustees in late 2015, osprey now have five new nesting platforms to choose from in Mobile and Baldwin counties. The Osprey Restoration in Coastal Alabama project provided these additional locations to increase the nesting success of osprey and help mitigate the injuries they suffered due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The large poles and platforms have been installed by the Alabama Coastal Foundation at Delta Port Marina (Coden)

The Deepwater Horizon Oceanic Fish Restoration Project, which aims to restore a portion of pelagic fish populations in the Gulf of Mexico, began its second year on January 1.

NOAA and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation are working with Gulf pelagic longline vessel owners to reduce fish mortality through a temporary, voluntary fishing repose. The Trustees selected this project, formerly known as the Pelagic Longline Bycatch Reduction Project, in the fourth phase of early restoration.

During the 2018 repose, ten vessel owners from Florida and Louisiana will refrain from pelagic longline

In the Programmatic Restoration Plan, the Trustees committed to develop a set of guidelines for monitoring and adaptive management practices that support implementation and evaluation of restoration projects.

In January 2018, the Trustee Council approved the Monitoring and Adaptive Management (MAM) Manual Version 1.0, which contains these guidelines. The MAM Manual serves as guidance for the Trustee Implementation Groups. It was written by the Cross-TIG Monitoring and Adaptive Management work group, which includes representatives of each of the Trustees.

The MAM Manual includes recommended

Public comment period starts December 20, Louisiana Trustees will hold a public meeting in New Orleans