June 18, 2019 — Louisiana’s governor says floodwaters from the Midwest are severely hurting people who make their living from coastal seafood, so he’s asking the federal government to declare a fisheries disaster for the state.
Floodwaters rushing from the Bonnet Carré Spillway north of New Orleans have killed oysters, hurt fish catches and damaged livelihoods, Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
The fresh water has driven crabs, shrimp and fish out of bays and marshes and into saltier water where they can survive. But oysters are stuck — glued to the bottom.
“On a scale of 1 to 10, we are 9-and-a-half destroyed,” said Brad Robin, whose family controls about 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) of oyster leases in Louisiana waters.
The full impact won’t be known for some time because the spillway, which protects New Orleans’ levees by directing huge amounts of Mississippi River water into usually brackish Lake Pontchartrain, remains open, Edwards said in a letter sent Thursday and released Monday.
If a long-range forecast of little rain holds up, spillway closing might begin in about four weeks, Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Matt Roe said Monday.