May 18, 2020 — U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced the allocation of USD 88 million (EUR 80.6 million) in disaster-relief funding to Gulf of Mexico fisheries in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi to counter the impacts of the opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway.
The Bonnet Carre Spillway is a flood control system for the Lower Mississippi Valley, with its opening releasing massive amounts of freshwater from the river into the Gulf of Mexico. In April, the spillway was opened for the third straight year, something that has never happened in the spillway’s history.