Anglers who catch trophy kingfish along the Texas Gulf coast can admire
them, measure them and photograph them, but they shouldn't eat them.
Kingfish, also known as king mackerel - as well as other varieties
in some Southeast Texas lakes - are likely to have high levels of mercury
in their systems that can cause health problems, according to the Texas
Department of Health.
And seafood aficionados shouldn't eat the oysters here either. It's
bacteria, not mercury, that makes them too funky to be food...
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Texas Fisherman Free - For now- Of Dead
Zone
By: ROBERT SLOAN , The Beaumont Enterprise 08/15/2004
The "dead zone" - an oxygen-depleted water mass just off the
Gulf Coast - is larger this year than in the past few years, but doesn't
extend as far west as it often has.
In years past, the dead zone has been as far west as Galveston
and Freeport, according to surveys conducted by Dr. Nancy Rabalais of the
Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.
As the nation's foremost authority on the dead zone, Rabalais
has been instrumental in bringing attention to the problem of Gulf of Mexico
hypoxia, or oxygen-depleted water, for the past 20 years. Right now, most
of it is underwater from about a half-mile to 40 miles off Louisiana's coast.
But this year the 5,800-square-mile dead zone only extends to
within a few miles of the east Sabine jetty. That's good for fishing on the
upper Texas coast, where recreational catches of fish such as ling, king
mackerel and tarpon are better now than they have been in years past, local
fishermen say.
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Hurricane Charley Races
Across Florida.. 2 NEW Storms Develope
weather.com - Fri, Aug 13,8:55PM ET
James Wilson, Senior Meteorologist, The Weather Channel
Major Hurricane Charley ripped ashore north of Fort Myers, Florida
and into the Port Charlotte area with winds of 100 to 127 mph being reported
with storm surge and najor structure and roof damage across coastal western
Florida from Port Charlotte to just north of Fort Myers. The worst of the
damage as been at Captiva on Sanibel Island where reports of 160 homes destroyed
and 160 heavily damaged have come in. At Port Charlotte, there are reports
of roof damage and the airport hangars being heavily damaged. There have
been numerous reports of tornadoes associated with Hurricane Charley as some
of the outer squalls have rapidly preceded the hurricane. This threat will
continue well into the overnight hours. We'll watch for continued destructive
winds and torrential rains with extreme tree, power line and structural damage
along with widespread flooding all along the path of Charley from central
Florida to northeast Florida.
Rainfall amounts of 4 to 6 inches are likely to soak Florida
all along its path. Most of the Florida Peninsula is already soggy with August
rainfall over the first 12 days 1 to 8 inches above average. Charley will
head toward coastal Georgia overnight and then race into the Carolinas with
a history of gusty winds and blinding rains. Over the weekend, a weakening
Charley will cause flooding up the East Coast as it rapidly zips northward.
East of its track, the threat for tornadoes will be high so be very cautious
until Charley finally passes.
In the central and eastern Atlantic, two tropical depressions
have formed and have the potential for development as the 2004 hurricane
season moves into high gear. Tropical Depression # 5 is of the greatest concern
as it is forecast to approach the Lesser Antilles by late Sunday with watches
and warnings likely. This system will then strengthen quickly into a hurricane
well south of Puerto Rico and will need to be monitored closely by all in
the Caribbean, especially Jamaica and western Cuba again. Stay tuned and
come back frequently for updates.
Texas State Aquarium kicks-off
redfish program
By Mike Baird, Corpus Christi Caller-Times July 22, 2004
About 20 summer camp grade-schoolers hugged a fence this morning as they
watched about 200 fingerling redfish kick-off a new program at the Texas
State Aquarium for raising redfish. The Aquarium, Saltwater-fisheries Enhancement
Association, and Texas Parks and Wildlife partnered with Earl C. Sam’s
Foundation to provide about $150,000 in funding to convert an experimental
wave tank into a redfish production pond. Thursday was the inauguration of
the Aquarium’s Red Drum Grow-Out Pond at Sea Lab.
"Can’t just take, got to give back," said Tom Schmidcq, CEO of the Texas
State Aquarium. Up to a million fish will be raised here annually, Schmidt
said. Commercial fisherman took out hundreds of metric tons of redfish from
the Gulf of Mexico during the 1970s, said Phil Silvacq, conservation scientist
with coastal fisheriescqdown of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
"Eighty-five percent of the sport fisherman weren’t catching anything
in the bays," he said. But lobbyists convinced state legislators in 1981
to pass legislation to prevent commercial collection of redfish or sun trout,
Silva said. Since then more than 450 million redfish have been raised in
fisheries to replenish the eight major bays along the Texas Coast, Silva
said. "We’re working to continue the fishing opportunities for local
anglers," said Jim Atkinscq, president of the Saltwater-fisheries Enhancement
Association. "What we do today has to be carried on by future generations.
It’s an integral part of the continuing enhancement of our bays."
Bruce Hawncq, of the Earl C. Sam’s Foundation, has been considering
ways to use the SeaLab as a resource for an educational program, Schmid said.
"I’ve seen the sun crab, golden poker drums and other fish populations
go down too," Hawn said. "We’re real proud of this project." The
aquarium’s redfish project is one of the programs that creates an
opportunity for students in South Texas to see a fishery conservation and
enhancement program in action, Schmid said.
The aquarium is redesigning its estuary gallery to help teach visitors and
students about the redfish program. "It’s a great addition for us,"
said Debbie Edwardscq, assistant director of the aquarium’s SeaCamp
program for 3rd- to 5th-grade students. "This is part of what helps us teach
youngsters about being more responsible citizens."
Contact Mike Baird at 886-3774 or bairdm@caller.com
A study in Gulf Coast
shipwrecks
U-boat and other submerged WWII vessels will be examined for their
impact on sea life
By ERIC BERGER
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
SUNKEN TREASURES
A new scientific expedition will explore seven wrecks that have lain on the
Gulf of Mexico sea floor for more than six decades:
• Alcoa Puritan :397-foot freighter carrying 10,000 short tons of bauxite,
no crew lost, sunk by U-507 on May 6, 1942
• Gulf Penn: 481-foot tanker carrying 90,000 barrels of oil, at least
13 crew members lost, sunk by U-506 on May 12, 1942
• Virginia : 501-foot tanker carrying 180,000 barrels of gasoline, 27
crew members lost, sunk by U-507 on May 12, 1942
• Halo : 435-foot tanker carrying 64,000 barrels of crude oil, 39 crew
members lost, sunk by U-506 on May 20, 1942
• Robert E. Lee : 376-foot passenger freighter, 25 passengers and crew
lost, sunk by U-166 on July 31, 1942
• U-166 : 252-foot German submarine, 50 crew members lost, sunk by Robert
E. Lee's escort patrol on July 31, 1942
• Anona : 117-foot steam yacht carrying potatoes, no crew lost, sunk
after plates under the steam engine buckled in June 1944
Source: U.S. Minerals Management Service
German U-boats sunk nearly six dozen Allied ships in the Gulf of Mexico during
World War II, but researchers have explored the wreck of just one, the passenger
freighter Robert E. Lee. That will change this summer, when an 18-day, $1.2
million expedition investigates the wrecks of five Allied ships, one submarine
and a steam yacht, all having sunk during the war.
As much as archaeologists anticipate viewing the wrecks, scientists are less
interested in their fiery deaths than the new marine life they may have spawned
as artificial reefs. "We're not going to lose sight of the archaeology,"
said Jack Irion, a marine archaeologist with the Minerals Management Service,
a U.S. agency that oversees the nation's offshore oil and other mineral
resources. "But the main thrust of this whole expedition is biology."
Since the mid-1980s, the federal government has successfully worked with
coastal states and oil companies to convert nearly 200 oil and gas structures
into artificial reefs by toppling them into the Gulf or transporting them
to other sites. On the muddy Gulf floor, the artificial reefs provide 2 to
3 acres of living and feeding habitat for thousands of species. These reefs
also provide focal points for divers and fishers. Although the "rigs-to-reefs"
program has been effective in shallower waters, it's unclear whether steel
structures will provide the same benefits in deep water.
That's where the seven shipwrecks, all at least 60 years old and buried at
depths between 280 and 6,500 feet, come in handy for the scientists."The
Gulf is the ideal laboratory," said Rob Church, who will lead the project.
Funded by $350,000 from the minerals service and another $800,000 from the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, four biologists will lead
the project with a support team and deep submersible provided by Sonsub,
of Houston. The expedition will depart from Port Fourchon, La., on Thursday.
By taking samples from the sea floor, extensive video, and collecting crabs,
shrimp, tube worms and other creatures, microbiologists will be able to study
whether sea life can thrive on and near artificial reefs at various depths,
said Herb Leedy, a marine biologist with the minerals service. The scientists
also want to study the effect of rusticles in the Gulf, which have led to
the disintegration of the Titanic in the northern Atlantic Ocean. Rusticles
are living communities of bacteria and fungi that grow in the rusted iron
in steel hulls, eventually consuming entire ships.
Finally, the marine biologists will try to discover whether cargo carried
by the vessels, primarily oil and gasoline, has enhanced or harmed the biological
communities that have grown around the reefs. It was cargoes such as these
the Germans sought to stop, hoping to bring England into submission by cutting
off energy and food supplies from America.
Adm. Karl Doenitz, commander of the German submarine fleet, and later the
entire navy, sent six U-boats to the U.S. East Coast after America entered
the war. The boats had great success, sinking nearly 400 ships and 2 million
tons of cargo and killing 5,000 people, Irion said.
Eventually the United States and its allies caught on and began sending material
to England in long, protected convoys. So in May 1942, Irion said, the U-boats
were dispatched to the Gulf of Mexico, where ports in New Orleans, Houston
and elsewhere were launching unprotected cargoes to support the war effort.
The U-boats sank 56 Allied ships and damaged 14 others. Just one U-boat,
U-166, went down. It was discovered, with some fanfare, 45 miles off the
tip of the Mississippi River Delta in 2001.
The U-boats so disrupted the flow of oil to the East Coast that, beginning
in 1942, the first interstate pipelines, The Big Inch and Little Big Inch,
were built to link gas-rich East Texas to the northeast states.
Matters might have been worse had Hitler given Doenitz the 13 boats he asked
for, instead of just six, Irion said. England could have collapsed and the
United States lost its foothold for a European invasion. "We might all be
speaking German today," he said. |
