by NOAAnews.gov

GULF OF MEXICO – MAY 16, 2012 – A record six fish populations were declared rebuilt to healthy levels in 2011, bringing the number of rebuilt U.S. marine fish populations in the last 11 years to 27, according to a report to Congress out today from NOAA’s Fisheries Service. This report documents historic progress toward ending overfishing and rebuilding our nation’s fisheries, due to the commitment of fishermen, fishing communities, non-governmental organizations, scientists, and managers.

“With annual catch limits in place this year for all domestic fish populations and the continued commitment of fishermen to rebuild the stocks they rely on, we’re making even greater progress in ending overfishing and rebuilding stocks around the nation,” said Samuel Rauch, acting assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries. “Healthy and abundant fish populations and marine ecosystems support seafood for Americans, create lasting jobs, and enhance saltwater recreational fishing opportunities.”

NOAA’s Status of U.S. Fisheries report declares Bering Sea snow crab, Atlantic coast summer flounder, Gulf of Maine haddock, northern California coast Chinook salmon, Washington coast coho salmon, and Pacific coast widow rockfish fully rebuilt to healthy levels.

Two indicators of stock health increased slightly over 2010:
•86 percent of the populations examined for fishing activity (222 of 258) were not subject to overfishing, or not fished at too high a level, compared to 84 percent in 2010
•79 percent of assessed populations (174 of 219) are not overfished, or were above levels that require a rebuilding plan, compared to 77 percent in 2010.

These data continue a long-term trend in rebuilding U.S. fisheries to sustainable and more productive levels that NOAA began tracking in 2000.

Although it is sometimes assumed that a fish population is low or “overfished” due to too much fishing, other factors also influence the health and abundance of fish populations, including environmental changes, disease, and degraded fish habitat.

by: By Esther Tanquintic-Misa, International Business Times

GULF OF MEXICO – MAY 15, 2012 – Natural gas and oil development projects near the Atlantic Ocean, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico, could be facing potential damages in the coming months with the onset of the rainy season. This early, two pre-season storms have been spotted in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by the National Hurricane Center, Bloomberg News reported.

Storms that enter the Gulf of Mexico could damage and halt both operations and production of natural gas and oil development projects in the area. Just this past March 2012, according to a one-year progress report on the Obama administration’s Blueprint for a Secure Energy Policy, it said that the Gulf of Mexico is safely back to strong production after the  2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Of the two pre-season storms spotted by the National Hurricane Center, the stronger one was found in the Pacific about 550 miles or 885 kilometers south-southwest of Acapulco, Mexico. In a weather bulletin, the center said it has a 50 per cent chance of becoming a tropical depression in the next day or two.

The one in the Atlantic, meanwhile, was 460 miles west-southwest of the Azores, with a 20 per cent probability of becoming a sub-tropical storm in the next two days. The eastern Pacific and Atlantic hurricane seasons officially start on May 15 and June 1, respectively. The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico flowed for three months in 2010.

GULF OF MEXICO – MAY 14, 2012 -The Gulf of Mexico Education Program Manager, Suraida Nanez-James recently took part in an event for school age children at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on Thursday, May 10, 2012. More than 4 school districts from around central and south Texas took part in the day long event. The GMF participated by engaging students in a fun-filled game in which they learned all about the migration patterns on Whooping Cranes. The game was developed by the GMF Education Program Manager and was first debuted at the Earth Day/Bay Day Celebrations in Corpus Christi, Texas back in April 2012. The game which is called Let’s Migrate Like A Whooping Crane will soon be uploaded to the GMF site along with educational curriculum geared towards educating students about the importance of preserving the habitat of the Whooping Crane along the Gulf Coast. For more information about the GMF’s educational program please visit www.gulfmex.org

By  infozine.com

ST. PETERSBURG, FL – MAY 9, 2012 -  The National Marine Fisheries Service today proposed new protections for sea turtles that would require escape hatches in shrimp nets used by boats that operate in the shallow, inshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico and southeast Atlantic Ocean. The new regulations would close a deadly loophole that allows roughly 28,000 endangered and threatened sea turtles to be caught each year by shrimp boats that are currently not required to use “turtle excluder devices,” or TEDs. Last year, more than 3,500 sea turtles turned up dead or injured in the Gulf of Mexico and southeast Atlantic Ocean. The Fisheries Service linked many of those sea turtle strandings to drowning in shrimp fishing nets. Because strandings represent only 5 percent to 6 percent of the turtles actually killed in shrimp nets, however, scientists estimate thousands of turtles died in shrimp nets last year.

The proposal is the result of an agreement conservation groups reached with the Fisheries Service to advance protections for imperiled sea turtles. In addition to the proposed rule, the agency agreed to complete its long-overdue analysis of the impacts of shrimp trawling on threatened and endangered marine life in the Gulf of Mexico and southeast Atlantic Ocean.

“We are delighted that the agreement lead to a proposal to help bring these special creatures a step closer to the protection they need,” said Jaclyn Lopez, staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Fisheries Service has a duty to protect sea turtles from drowning in nets; this proposed rule helps it move toward upholding that duty.”

“Finally closing this deadly loophole will give sea turtles another chance to escape drowning in shrimp nets,” said Todd Steiner, executive director of Turtle Island Restoration Network, an international marine conservation group with offices in the Gulf and California. “Based on available data, Gulf shrimping is the leading killer of sea turtles in the U.S. and the leading killer of the critically endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles.”

“There are 28,127 reasons for requiring TEDs in skimmer trawls as soon as possible. According to Fisheries Service estimates, the skimmer fleet caught that many animals each year, and many die,” said Marydele Donnelly, director of international policy at the Sea Turtle Conservancy. “While it shouldn’t have taken our lawsuit to get this proposed rule out, it has. The Fisheries Service now needs to move expeditiously to make it happen.”

The proposed regulation is intended to address sea turtle captures in skimmer trawls — fishing equipment, used primarily in bays and estuaries, that are currently exempt from using TEDs. TEDs prevent turtles from drowning in nets, but limited applicability and lax enforcement are thought to have led to thousands of deaths in 2010 and 2011. Currently, skimmer trawls can use tow-time restrictions instead of TEDs. Tow times limit the amount of time shrimpers can keep their trawls in the water, but evidence is mounting that even when these restrictions are followed, skimmers drown turtles. The proposed rule would abandon the tow time restrictions and require skimmer trawls, pusher-head trawls and wing nets to use TEDs.

“The number of dead turtles we saw in 2010 and 2011 was unprecedented, and today’s settlement will help make sure that type of catastrophe doesn’t happen again,” said Sierra Weaver, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife. “We look forward to the Fisheries Service fully complying with the Endangered Species Act and to Gulf waters becoming safer for these remarkable animals.”

Conservation groups reaching the settlement include the Center for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network, Sea Turtle Conservancy, and Defenders of Wildlife. The groups were represented by the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic.

By Dianna Wray, Victoria Advocate

GULF OF MEXICO – MAY 7, 2012 -  The commercial shrimp season in state and federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico closes 30 minutes after sunset on May 15, 2012. the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department announced today. Opening and closing dates vary seasonally depending on the growth of shrimp. When they reach about 3.5 inches, they begin their migration from bays and estuaries back to the Gulf. “The closure is designed to allow these small shrimp to grow to a larger, more valuable size before they are vulnerable to harvest,” Robin Riechers, director of the department’s Coastal Fisheries Division, said in a news release. “The goal is to achieve optimum benefits for the shrimping industry while providing proper management to protect the shrimp.” The statutory opening date for the Gulf season is July 15, 2012 but could change depending on shrimp samples taken in June.

Corpus Christi, Texas – May 4, 2012 - The cargo tanks on a tanker involved in a Wednesday morning collision off the coast of Port Aransas, Texas weren’t damaged, a U.S. Coast Guard official said. “As it stands right now, there’s not a concern about any type of spills or leaks,” Coast Guard Lt. Steven Vanderlaske said. The FR8 Pride lost power near the entrance to the Corpus Christi Ship Channel about 7:15 a.m. Wednesday, May 2, 2012, striking the . The impact damaged the tanker’s forward ballast, which began to flood. The tanker’s crew was able to control the flooding and ground the tanker two miles offshore. The Rowan’s crew stabilized the drilling rig by anchoring it with its legs. The rig’s damaged crane leaked hydraulic oil, which did not enter the water, according to Coast Guard reports.

The FR8 Pride contains an unconfirmed amount of fuel oil bound for Valero Energy Corp.’s oil docks along the ship channel’s inner harbor in Corpus Christi, Texas. None of the fuel oil leaked during the incident. No one was injured, and the ship channel was never closed during the incident. Both the tanker and the rig remain anchored offshore. The respective owners must put together proposals for safely moving the tanker and rig to port, Vanderlaske said. Once the Coast Guard accepts those proposals, the owners will be granted permission to move the vessels to shore. The Coast Guard’s investigation continues. During a typical investigation, officials will study each moment of a collision to determine who is at fault or whether any changes may be necessary to industry best practices during such collisions, Vanderlaske said.

GULF OF MEXICO – MAY 3, 2012 -It’s here! The sanctuary’s Final Management Plan is complete and the resulting regulatory changes were posted to the Federal Register on Friday, April 27^th. The final product is a guiding document for sanctuary management over the next 5-10 years.

A lot of effort went into this, taking into consideration public input and the most current science information available. In fact, both the 2012 Management Plan and the Federal Register notice include a listing of responses to public comments raised after the release of the Draft Management Plan.

You can download the plan from the NOAA website at http://flowergarden.noaa.gov .

Story by: Corpus Christi Caller-Times

Port Aransas, Texas – MAY 2, 2012 – The U.S. Coast Guard’s response moved into investigation mode after the collision between a fuel oil tanker and a drilling rig off the coast of Port Aransas. The oil tanker FR8 Pride lost power and went adrift Wednesday morning near the entrance to the Corpus Christi Ship Channel. The tanker collided with the Rowan EXL-1, a mobile offshore drilling rig. The Coast Guard first received a report of the collision at 7:25 a.m. Wednesday. The tanker and the rig were able to separate themselves with the help of tugboats. The Rowan’s crew moved the drilling rig farther offshore and anchored it using the rig’s legs. The impact caused the FR8 Pride’s forward ballast space to flood. The tanker’s crew was able to control the flooding and ground the tanker two miles offshore, according to Coast Guard reports.
No one was injured. The force of the collision left debris in the water and caused a hydraulic oil leak from the rig’s damaged crane, though the oil did not spill into the water, Coast Guard Lt. Steve Vanderlaske said. None of the FR8 Pride’s fuel oil leaked, he said. By afternoon, the tanker and rig had been hooked to an offshore anchor point. Teams of Coast Guard inspectors, investigators and pollution responders will continue to monitor the area. Part of the investigation involves deciding whether or not to remove the FR8 Pride’s oil, which could affect the tanker’s stability, Vanderlaske said. “If the fuel is contained, it may not be necessary to remove it from the ship,” Vanderlaske said. The collision did not close the ship channel but did block a portion of the waterway while the Coast Guard set up a safety zone around the collision area, Vanderlaske said. Outbound traffic from the port was on hold for some time Wednesday morning until port officials determined whether the FR8 Pride could drift into shipping lanes and pose any danger to passing ships, said Tony Alejandro, operations director for the Port of Corpus Christi.
The FR8 Pride is flagged in the Marshall Islands and was bound for Valero’s docks along the ship channel. Neither Valero, Citgo nor Flint Hills reported any delays to their operations because of slowed shipping traffic.

GULF OF MEXICO – MAY 1, 2012 -April 20, 2012 marked the two year anniversary of the explosion on Deepwater Horizon MC252 drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico which killed 11 people and led to one of the nation’s worst man-made environmental disasters.  Trustees recently announced that an estimated $60 million in early restoration projects  will soon begin along the Gulf Coast.  The eight projects selected provide for marsh creation, coastal dune habitat improvements, and artificial reef creation, as well as construction and enhancement of boat ramps to compensate for lost human use of resources.

The Environmental Law Institute has released “Gulf Coast Recovery and Restoration: 101″ as an introduction to key recovery and restoration processes initiated in the wake of Deepwater Horizon.  The concise resource includes an overview of funding sources, explanations of the origin and status of processes underway, and answers to frequently asked questions.

By Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post

GULF OF MEXICO, April 30, 2012 – Pacific reef shark populations have plummeted by 90 percent or more over the past several decades, according to a new study by a team of American and Canadian researchers, and much of this decline stems from human fishing pressure.

Quantifying the decline for the first time, the analysis, published online Friday in the journal Conservation Biology, shows that shark populations fare worse the closer they are to people — even if the nearest population is an atoll with fewer than 100 residents. The team of eight scientists examined the results of a decade of underwater surveys across 46 Pacific islands and atolls and found densities of reef sharks — gray, whitetip and blacktip reef sharks, as well as Galapagos and tawny nurse sharks — “increased substantially as human population decreased” and the productivity and temperature of the ocean increased. “Our results suggest humans now exert a stronger influence on the abundance of reef sharks than either habitat quality or oceanographic factors,” the authors wrote.

Near populated places, such as the main Hawaiian Islands and American Samoa, the study found, there were roughly 26 sharks per square mile. Remote reefs, such as in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and Johnson Atoll, a U.S. territory west of Hawaii, by contrast, boasted 337 sharks per square mile. “In short, people and sharks don’t mix,” Marc Nadon, the study’s lead author and a scientist at the University of Hawaii’s
Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, said in a statement. The scientists relied on more than 1,600 “towed-diver surveys” for their study. This form of underwater survey, aimed at reaching a more accurate count of fast-moving, wide-ranging fish, entails having a pair of scuba divers record the number of sharks they see while being towed behind a boat.

The researchers said previous underwater surveys, which focused on a small tran­sect of the ocean or a stationary point, skewed results by double-counting some sharks that passed through the same area multiple times. “These types of surveys can vastly overcount numbers of large mobile fishes (such as sharks),” one of the paper’s co-authors, Julia Baum, an assistant professor at British Columbia’s University of Victoria, wrote in an e-mail. Mahmood Shivji, who directs the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University in Florida, said the new
paper’s “results are consistent with other studies showing a decline in reef shark numbers elsewhere.”

A 2010 study by Australian and British researchers, for example, showed that reef shark populations had declined 90 percent since the 1970s at three remote atolls in the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. “In this case, even though the atolls have few people, the decline is attributed to distant-origin fishing fleets,” Shivji wrote in an e-mail. The study showed both the potential conservation benefits, and limits, of creating marine reserves in remote areas. Several of the areas the researchers surveyed — including the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, three Mariana Islands and all of the islands in a region known as the Pacific Remote Island Area — enjoy a significant level of federal protection. Enforcement,
however, is often absent. Baum wrote in an e-mail that she regularly sees a large fishing vessel in U.S. waters near Kiritimati atoll in the northern
Line Islands while conducting field work, and this operation hires local villagers to cut fins from sharks. “To me, enforcement of these islands is a major unsung conservation challenge, and I suspect that if this is not effectively addressed [as soon as possible], the reef sharks on these islands will be fished out within the next 10 years,” she wrote.

By  Janet McConnaughey, Associated Press

New Orleans – MARCH 27, 2012  — A big increase in reports of Asian tiger shrimp along the U.S. Southeast coast and in the Gulf of Mexico has federal biologists worried the species is encroaching on native species’ territory. The black-and-white-striped shrimp can grow 13 inches long and weigh a quarter-pound, compared to eight inches and a bit over an ounce for domestic white, brown and pink shrimp. Scientists fear the tigers will bring disease and competition for native shrimp. Shrimp are all bottom feeders, eating detritus and small animals. Bigger shrimp would eat more and these get so big they also eat small shrimp and fish, marine ecologist James A. Morris said.

Reports of tiger shrimp in U.S. waters rose from a few dozen a year — 21 in 2008, 47 in 2009 and 32 in 2010 — to 331 last year, from North Carolina to Texas.”That’s a big jump,” said Pam Fuller, who keeps a federal invasive species database at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Southeast Ecological Science Center in Gainesville, Fla. And those are just the numbers reported to the government.”I’ve had fishermen tell me they have quit bringing them in. They are seeing large numbers in their catch — multiples per night,” said Morris, who works at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research in Beaufort, N.C. The increase “is the first indication that we may be undergoing a true invasion of Asian tiger shrimp,” he said. Though tiger shrimp are edible, Fuller said they are not currently farmed in the United States. The last U.S. tiger shrimp farm closed in Florida in 2004, without ever raising a successful crop, according to a USGS fact sheet about the species. “Nobody knows what happened to their stock. But they have not been commonly caught in the area where that fish farm was,” she said. She said hundreds were caught along South Carolina, Georgia and Florida after a storm hit a South Carolina shrimp farm in 1988, but none was reported in U.S. waters for the next 18 years. Six were reported in 2006, and four in 2007.

To find out whether last year’s increase was a one-time spike or the vanguard of an invasion, the agencies are asking people to keep a wide eye for tiger shrimp, to report where and when they find them, and bring back frozen tiger shrimp to help learn where they’re coming from. Subtle differences in the DNA can indicate whether they have meandered in on ocean currents from the Caribbean or West Africa, where tiger shrimp are farmed, arrived in ballast water of ocean-going ships, or have taken up housekeeping in U.S. waters. Fuller said she thinks ballast water is the least likely explanation because they’re known to be in the wild in areas where they could drift to the United States and because the threat appears widely spread. A map shows most of the reports are from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas, with some in Florida and a few in Texas. “I think it’s quite possible they’re being swept up from the Caribbean,” she said. “There are large farms there that appear to be connected directly to the ocean. Some of those were destroyed in hurricanes. We don’t know if perhaps a large bunch got loose and swept up here and became established. Nobody knows. That’s one reason we want to do the genetic work.” It can be hard to get good data on the shrimp, Morris said. For one thing, shrimp boats often are out for weeks at a time. All but the biggest tigers may go unnoticed, and shrimpers may not remember when and where they were caught.He said it’s also hard to predict their possible effects. Freshwater invasive species have been well studied, but so far lionfish are the only known marine invasive species in U.S. waters, he said.

by www.noaa.gov

GULF OF MEXICO – APRIL 25, 2012 – A group of high school students recently boarded the Dauphin Island Sea Lab’s Alabama Discovery vessel to deploy the first-ever “Adopt a Drifter” for “America’s Sea” in the Gulf of Mexico. The students were joined via distance technology by students at a partner high schools in Vera Cruz, Mexico (Colegio Bilingüe Madison). NOAA coordinated six such deployments nationally as part of its Earth Day celebrations on April 20, 2012.  Drifter events also took place in Boston, Maui, Miami, Santa Barbara and Seattle.

A drifter is a drifting buoy that transmits its location and sea surface temperature data via satellite. Drifter data is used to track major ocean currents and eddies globally, ground truth data from satellites, build models of climate and weather patterns, predict the movement of pollutants if dumped or accidentally spilled into the sea, and assist with the forecast path of approaching hurricanes.  A single drifter typically lasts for an average of 400 days.

NOAA’s Adopt a Drifter Program allows teachers and students to track their adopted drifter and integrate its data and path into their classroom content and activities.  An educational sticker or drawing from each school is adhered to the drifter before deployment. The teachers receive the WMO number of their drifting buoy in order to access data from the school’s adopted drifter online. Participating teachers use existing lesson plans and develop new plans to explore oceanographic concepts with their students, giving them a real world application using the drifting buoy data. Students become more engaged with the study of ocean currents, the Gulf of Mexico and regional ocean surface temperature patterns.

CORPUS CHRISTI – MARCH 24, 2012 – Join the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Foundation for the next Oyster Reef Building Event this Saturday, April 28th from 8:30am-11:30am! The foundation will help build an educational oyster reef with the Harte Research Institute on Goose Island State Park!  Successful reclamation of oyster shells and use of these shells in fisheries habitat restoration in our bays will provide new opportunities for marine resource conservation coast-wide in the state of Texas. You can read more about it at OysterRecycling.org. Upcoming volunteer opportunities for this project are:

• April 28, 2012 – 8:30 am – 11:30 am, Goose Island State Park
• May 19, 2012 – Oyster Reef Building at Goose Island State Park

Volunteers are needed!  Please wear work clothes, closed-toe shoes, and gloves.  All volunteers will need to fill out  indemnity forms. For more information please visit www.BaysFoundation.org.

CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS – MARCH 21, 2012 -The Gulf of Mexico Foundation in partnership with the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory officially premiered its Whooping Crane game at this years Earth Day/Bay Day celebrations on Saturday, March 21, 2012 at Heritage Park in Corpus Christi, Texas. The Whooping Crane game teaches children about the migration of the infamous Whooping Crane bird! More than 10,000 people took part in the day long celebration. Approximately 72 exhibitor booths were set up at Heritage Park. The free family festival helps raise awareness of the importance of environmental stewardship.

 By www.floridakeys.noaa.gov/

FLORIDA KEY – March 23, 2012 – Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and its advisory council are seeking public comment on issues related to sanctuary boundaries, marine zones in Key West and the Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge’s Back country Management Plan.  The comments received will guide a review of the marine zones and regulations and shape Florida Keys marine conservation for decades to come. Public comments are being accepted through June 29, 2012. Comments may be submitted electronically and via mail, and during five meetings in south Florida and the Florida Keys.

June 19: Marathon, FL; Monroe County Government Center; Emergency Operations Center

June 20: Key Largo, FL; Key Largo Library June 21: Key West, FL; Doubletree Grand Key Resort; Tortuga Ballroom

June 26: Miami, FL; Florida International University; Graham University Center; Room GC243

June 27: Fort Myers, FL; Joseph P. Alessandro Office Complex; Rooms 165 C and D*

For more information visit: www.floridakeys.noaa.gov

By Kristen Hays | Reuters

HOUSTON, TX. – APRIL 16, 2012 – Royal Dutch Shell said an oil sheen near two of its offshore Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas platforms was dissipating and it was “very confident” its installations were not to blame. The Hague-based company said the “orphan spill,” estimated to be about six barrels of oil, was breaking up. Shell said it would continue to monitor the sea floor with a pair of underwater robots. “Shell’s subsea surveillance will continue to determine if there is a connection between natural seeps and this orphan sheen,” the company said. News of the sheen, first reported to U.S. regulators on Wednesday, April 11, 2012 came nearly two years after BP Plc’s deep sea Macondo well blew out on April 20, 2010, killing 11 workers and spewing more than 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The sheen, spotted about 50 miles away from the Macondo well, was estimated to be six barrels of oil stretched one mile by 10 miles.  “The sheen appears to be dissipating,” the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said in a statement, after inspecting the area with helicopter overflights. “It does not appear to be expanding.”

CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS – April 14, 2012 -Three locations in the nature preserve area. Bring: boots, hat, sunscreen and water. Community, civic and volunteer hours available through Mayor Adame’s office. 9am-12pm

Oso Park 1-Behind Bill Witt Park, staging at Safety Steele Road. Volunteers will be cleaning up trash and bulky items.

Oso Park 2-Staging at end of Salsa Street. Take Cimaron to (left) Picante to (right) Salsa Street. Volunteers will be cutting trails, painting signs, trash duty, spreading mulch, and trimming branches.

Oso Nature Preserve-Staging at Paul Jones at Holly. Heavy trash pick-up.

For more information contact: Angela Gonzalez, 826-3673.

by www.noaa.gov

GULF OF MEXICO – April 2012 – Beginning on April 2, 2012, NOAA’s new Northern Gulf Operational Forecast System got underway. This system includes Calcasieu Pass and adjacent areas like Sabine Pass. It’s operated by NOAA CO-OPS and NCEP using both the stations tide and water level data as well as marine and coastal weather models.  The system swill assist in improving the forecasting of low water events and of high water /flood events for the Ports of Lake Charles, Cameron and West Calcasieu.