The Trustees are committed to providing annual reports to the public to show our restoration progress, as well as how we’re spending settlement funds.

It’s been one year since we settled with BP and began implementing our programmatic plan to restore the Gulf. Since then, we’ve been busy planning, implementing restoration, and hearing from you about what restoration should look like.

The Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Groups requested your projects ideas for restoration. Florida held a webinar on its restoration planning process. They will consider those comments when developing their plans. Mississippi held a restoration summit and got feedback on its draft restoration plan. Louisiana and Alabam

The implementation phase of the Florida Oyster Cultch Placement Project has been completed. It will enhance and improve oyster populations affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Oyster secondary productivity along Florida’s panhandle suffered adverse impacts from the spill.

The $5 million project placed an estimated 62,000 cubic yards of cultch material over approximately 300 acres of previously constructed oyster bars in Pensacola, St. Andrew, and Apalachicola bays. The cultch will promote native oyster larvae settlement and oyster colonization in those areas.

The Apalachicola

The Alabama Trustee Implementation Group has approved its first restoration plan and environmental impact statement (EIS). The restoration activities described in the plan will address natural resource injuries from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This restoration plan focuses on lost shoreline recreational use opportunities and is consistent with the Trustees’ programmatic restoration plan.

The restoration plan identifies six preferred projects in Mobile and Baldwin counties. The total estimated cost of the projects is $70.7 million. The projects include:

• Gulf State Park Lodge and

The Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group is holding a webinar on Thursday, April 27 from 12:00-1:30 p.m. Eastern. Participants will be able to learn about our restoration planning process, request for project ideas, and next steps for the Open Ocean Restoration Area.

The deadline for submitting project ideas is May 15, 2017. Project ideas can be submitted to our database. We are targeting restoration for wide-ranging and migratory species at important points during their life cycles and geographic ranges, including inland, coastal, and offshore areas. Open Ocean restoration types include:

The Open Ocean Trustee Implementation Group is planning restoration activities for the 2017-2020 planning years. We would like your input on restoration opportunities in the Open Ocean Restoration Area.

We will target restoration for wide-ranging and migratory species at important points during their life cycles and geographic ranges, including inland, coastal, and offshore areas. Open Ocean restoration types include:

• water column fish and invertebrates
• sea turtles
• birds
• marine mammals
• sturgeon, and
• mesophotic and deep benthic communities.

Some open ocean species are highly

The Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group is planning restoration activities and would like your input. We are focusing on the restoration type that restores and conserves wetland, coastal, and nearshore habitats.

Seven Louisiana fishers have volunteered to stop using their pelagic longline fishing gear in the Gulf of Mexico starting today through June 30, 2017. This will reduce fish mortality, which allows fish to grow and reproduce—supporting healthier populations of fish throughout the Gulf.

Vessel owners will be compensated for participating. During the repose period, they will be able to harvest yellowfin tuna by using greenstick, an alternative fishing gear. This gear results in low bycatch but is not widely used in the Gulf. This will provide an opportunity to study and improve the efficiency of

We're almost finished with construction of the Chenier Ronquille Barrier Island restoration project. This project is restoring beach, dune, and marsh habitats. In May 2016, we began creating the barrier island. A hydraulic dredge has been scooping up sediment from the shoreline, mixing it with water, and pumping the mixture through a pipeline to the island. The mixture is then shaped into dune and marsh habitat by powerful earth moving equipment.

Construction of the new marsh began in September 2016 and was completed in January 2017. Beach and dune construction began in October 2016, and the

The creation and enhancement of three artificial reef sites off the coast of Texas began in December 2016. These are three of five Texas-based projects approved in 2014 to compensate for lost recreational use resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Reefing—the process of creating an artificial reef—began at the Freeport Artificial Reef Project site in December. Over the next several months Callan Marine LTD, a contractor for the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife, will install 800 concrete pyramids for this project. The project is located at the George-Vancouver nearshore