Proposals and River Diversions!

                The first half of this week was spent going through the other two proposals that I wanted to work on that have recently come in. One is an artificial oyster reef plan in Mississippi and the other is a restoration project in the Choctawhatchee Bay in Florida. After doing some digging I came up with a lot of comments to send back to each of the states. They both have a bit more research to do before going through with their plans. The first thing I look at when analyzing a proposal is plea compliance. It needs to meet the criteria set by the plea made by BP and Transocean after the oil spill. These conditions include what kind of restoration takes place, what species are involved, and if the project has some connection to the Gulf Coast and was affect by the oil spill or can mitigate future similar disasters. The next thing I look for is accurate information. Sometimes proposals cite papers, but they’ll only take out a line from the abstract and they don’t actually explain the whole paper or leave out crucial information. Sometimes certain factors aren’t accounted for like prior research. For example, the oyster proposal would want to do certain surveys in the Mississippi Sound that has already been done by other agencies.

                We also had our weekly update conference call on Monday between all the members of the GEBF to make sure things are staying on track. Thursday was exciting because I got to hang out with the Senior Vice President of the Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund, Tom Kelsch, and our Vice President of Human Resources, Beth Smith. They flew in from DC to help with interviews for a new position that is opening up for NFWF in Baton Rouge.

                Now I am starting to look into river diversion projects. I’ve been looking at the pros and cons of building wetlands with diversions as opposed to building them with dredged sediments and how the fishing communities in coastal Louisiana are responding. I will hopefully be going to see one at some point next week! I can’t believe I only have two weeks left, but I’ve met so many cool people and I’ve learned so much. I’m excited to see what these next two weeks have in store for me!