Green water. That’s what they called it. Could have also called it green tide (or elsewhere, brown tide or red tide). Fish turned up dead. Crabs, too. What is it? A harmful algal bloom – and last week we heard about one in rural Montegut, Louisiana, just a little bit north of the Isle de Jean Charles, in lower Terrebonne Parish near the Gulf of Mexico.
Local resident Alice Brunet snapped some pictures in late July and August, and shared them in a private Facebook group. Albert Naquin, the traditional chief of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe that occupies the Isle, is a member of the group. And it was Albert who brought the images here to ISeeChange.
Harmful algal blooms are all over the news lately. Some members of the U.S. Congress think they’re happening more often and that red and brown and green tides economically harm fisheries and tourism around the country. They also think it’s hard to get money for scientific research about these blooms.
We’ll tell you what happened when Alice Brunet and Albert Naquin and other Terrebonne Parish residents reported green water.
*THIS WEEK WE'RE WONDERING*
Louisiana's under a Flash Flood watch. Mississippi too. Florida got heavy rain, high humidity, AND ON TOP OF THAT temperatures well over 100 degrees, which is a recipe for my personal nightmare. Do you live in these places? Come tell us what you're seeing, and how you're coping, and what does to you and your landscape to be so wet inside and out you can't remember dry anymore. Or forward this email to your friend, so they can complain to us. We're all in this together.
-Molly Peterson
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