Tagged: environment

HOUMA — The U.S. Attorney's Office in New Orleans says a Houma towboat company must pay $525,000 in fines and penalties after pleading guilty to violating federal environmental regulations.

The Courier reports that Cenac Towing violated the Clean Water Act between June 2008 and January 2010 by failing to collect samples of the raw sewage discharged by its former yard. 

BATON ROUGE — A scientific study has found that heavily oiled areas in Barataria Bay showed twice the normal land erosion rates in the year and a half after the massive BP oil leak in 2010. The study found oil killed marsh plants and that led to the higher rates of erosion. 

Scientists from Louisiana and Michigan have very different predictions for the size of this year's "dead zone" of low-oxygen in the Gulf of Mexico. It will be the smallest in nearly a quarter century at just under 1,200 square miles — or five times that size. 

Listen to two award-winning authors speak about the importance of the sea and its inhabitants this week on Louisiana Eats!. Paul Greenberg talks about the importance of preserving fish, and a children's book by Mark Kurlansky spreads the word about marine ecology.

The federal government is set to sell off oil and natural gas leases in the central Gulf of Mexico off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

The sale, taking place in the Superdome, starts at 9 a.m. CDT and ends at noon, when the U.S. Department of the Interior is expected to announce the results.

The government is offering 7,434 tracts covering about 38 million acres. As of Tuesday, 593 bids were submitted by 48 companies for 454 tracts.

The blocks are located from three to about 230 miles offshore.