Posted on 07/09/2019 6:24:47 AM PDT by C19fan
Mississippi closed all mainland beaches on the state's coastline during the Fourth of July weekend due to toxic bacteria sweeping the state's Gulf Coast.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has been closing beaches due to blue-green algae blooms since June.
By Sunday, the spread of the noxious bacteria forced the department to close the state’s last open mainland beach.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
It’s really messing up my fishing, that’s my primary fishing grounds. I was down there yesterday without the boat just checking things out and the bait shops said the shrimp catch is really off too. All the fresh water being exhausted from the Mississippi river into the Mississippi sound has really screwed it up. The river carries all kinds of agricultural runoff from the midwest and I think it’s all the fertilizer residue that’s causing the algae bloom. Hopefully they’ll close the Bonnet Carré Spillway soon so things can get back to normal.
Judging from all the red on the online weather maps of the rivers in the Mississippi basin, this is going to go on for a good while.
Hopefully the brewing depression/TS Barry expected end of the week will stir up the water and dissipate the bloom. Nature doing its own cleanup.
This has been a problem for years, and as I saw the lede and saw NBC as the source, I remarked to the wife that I’d see “climate change” in the article.
Bingo.
Journalists are such simpletons. One can see their excrement oozing miles away.
Been a while since I’ve been to the Magnolia State and Biloxi. Are the casinos still situated on the beach, and are they still open?
Never go in the Water
The casinos are on the north side of US 90 now; Katrina did away with the “floating” casino nonsense.
Just came back from there yesterday. They closed the beaches, but failed to post any signage that I saw warning people of the closures and the dangers involved. They did stick up orange flags at each of the beach entrances. I saw lots of people in the water including many kids.
Funny thing is, there were plenty of signs and orange tape saying that fireworks were prohibited (to protect the terns). Just none saying that the beaches were closed.
Thanks.
That article is poorly worded, the beaches are not closed, they just don’t want people in the water. As long as you stay on the sand everything’s fine, which 95% of the people do anyway.
This isn’t a normal occurrence, it’s happening because the army corps of engineers is diverting Mississippi River water into the Mississippi sound to reduce the volume of water flowing through New Orleans and protect the levees. The heavy rains and high snow volume in the upper Midwest this spring has the river at record levels and one of the relief mechanisms is a spillway into lake pontchartrain they’ve opened, it’s flooding the Mississippi coast with fresh water and causing havoc. When the spillway is shut it’ll fix itself but they can’t do it right now because there’s too much water in the Mississippi River.
The casinos on the coast are doing very well, they’ve got a lot of really nice ones and they’re very busy.
The rivers are still high up here in Minnesota. I think it’s going to last a while.
Yes, the casinos were doing good business as were most other businesses in the area as well. I went down for about five days for a family reunion and, as usual, had a great time. It just looked weird to see the beaches mostly empty at this time of year.
And yes, the waters from the upper Midwest snowfalls are wreaking havoc all along the Mississippi this year. Many people’s houses and deer camps are completely under water around the river from Memphis on down. Oh well, I heard that the crawfish are doing well.
On my way back to Northern Virginia tomorrow to return to work. Always hard to leave here. No matter where else I roam in this world, Mississippi and Louisiana are my home.
American by birth, Southern by the grace of God.
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