Press Release: Mississippi Paddler Announces Yearlong Effort to Raise Funds and Awareness for Alzheimer’s

Flora, MS. April 30, 2010—Mississippi paddling enthusiast Keith Plunkett announced today the schedule for a year of paddling Mississippi’s waterways. The effort will begin in July on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and will take Plunkett on a journey across 5 regions of the state to paddle waterways that are both popular destinations and underutilized opportunities. During the trips the Yazoo County native and Flora resident will tell the stories of Alzheimer’s patients and caregivers in each region, and will highlight ongoing efforts by the Alzheimer’s Association and medical professionals to defeat the disease.

Over the next two months leading up to the kickoff of the yearlong event, Plunkett will speak with groups across the state to raise awareness, and to secure monetary pledges for each mile paddled. He has set a goal of 600 miles, or roughly 120 miles per region, and hopes to entice a few others to join him on some of the excursions. Work is ongoing to outfit the current website, www.lucysrevenge.com, with a real-time map that uses GPS to track Plunkett’s whereabouts and a fundraising gauge to show the amount of dollars raised.

“I realize not everyone will pick up a paddle, or has a kayak or canoe. But, I still want people to be with me on this journey,” said Plunkett. “A great way to do that is through offering people an opportunity to see exactly where I am in the process at any given moment.”

While Plunkett is a relative newcomer to the paddling world, he has enlisted two of the state’s foremost authorities on paddling in Mississippi, Scott Williams and Ernest Herndon. Williams and Herndon have both paddled across the state and written extensively on the subject.

“Motivated by love for his late grandmother, who had Alzheimer’s, Keith Plunkett, along with his wife Sharon, has hit on a great way to bring attention to the disease, while accomplishing other objectives as well,” said Herndon whose book, Canoeing Mississippi, provided a template for the schedule Keith’s wife Sharon developed for the project.

Herndon added, “The Plunketts will not only raise funds for much-needed Alzheimer’s research and support services, but will help showcase Mississippi’s beautiful waterways, friendly people and natural attractions—all told, a fun and meaningful way to spend a year’s worth of weekends.”

Plunkett’s grandmother was Lucy Plunkett. The matriarch of the Plunkett family reared six children, and oversaw the upbringing of 9 grandchildren. She was a housewife and an active member of the rural community of Little Yazoo in Yazoo County.

“Mamaw was the most humble and hardworking person I have ever known,” said Plunkett. “She happily awoke before 6 am each morning to cook breakfast for anyone that showed up to her table. That continued throughout the day and the week and culminated in a huge Sunday dinner.”

Lucy Plunkett’s dedication also extended to Concord Baptist Church where she served for many years and in many different capacities, including director of Women’s Missions and director of Vacation Bible School.

“Lucy Plunkett put her faith out there every day. She worked out in her life and others, the blessings that God had given her,” Plunkett said. “To have a disease rob her of the memories of those blessings was tough for my family to watch.”

“I see this project as a symbol of me taking back what Alzheimer’s and Dementia took from her.”

“The Mississippi Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association is honored to partner with Keith Plunkett on this campaign across Mississippi to raise awareness and funds for those affected by Alzheimer’s disease. Keith is making a substantial contribution of volunteered time and effort on behalf of the Association,” said Patty Dunn, State Operations Director for Mississippi Chapter. “We urge individuals to use their voice to educate the public about their experiences with Alzheimer’s disease and Keith is doing that and more,” continued Dunn.

“The number of people affected by Alzheimer’s disease is growing at a rapid rate. In Mississippi alone, 53,000 people have been diagnosed with the disease with an additional 148,000 caregivers providing unpaid care. The personal cost of Alzheimer’s disease is increasing and will have a significant impact on the state,” said Dunn.

The schedule is planned using the 5 regional areas of the Alzheimer’s Association as a template. Since weather may be a factor, many other rivers are possible that could also cover multiple regions and the additionally needed mileage to meet the goal of 600 miles. These rivers include the Pascagoula, Pearl, several segments of the Mississippi River from Memphis to Natchez, Big Black, Yazoo, and a several oxbows, lakes and reservoirs.

• Kickoff July 10th—Public Canoe Trail on Old Fort Bayou in Ocean Springs.

*July and August (Coast Region)—Wolf River, Escatawpa, Davis Bayou in Ocean Springs, and paddle in Mississippi Sound to Deer Island. If the schedules permit then possibly a trip to Horn Island with guest paddlers.

• September & October (Southeast – Meridian and Hattiesburg areas) - Chickasawhay; Chunky; Black Creek; Red Creek; Buckatunna and Bowie.

• November & December (Northeast – Columbus/Tupelo District) – Tenn-Tom, Bear Creek, Noxubee NWR (Louisville) has two great paddling lakes; Buttahatchee.

• January & February (Northwest/Delta) - Yalobusha (Grenada); Sunflower River; Mississippi River segments around Clarksdale.

• March, April & May (Southwest – Jackson & Vicksburg) Bogue Chitto; Leaf (also overlaps into Southeast) district); Strong River; Magee’s Creek; Homochitto; Bayou Pierre; Big Black River; Yazoo River.

• June – “Finale” trip with Ernest, Scott and other outfitters and paddling enthusiasts on the Pascagoula or lower Pearl.

Things seem to be getting worse with the Oil Spill, Things worse than expected.

Gulf Coast oil spill could eclipse Exxon Valdez

VENICE, La. – An oil spill that threatened to eclipse even the Exxon Valdez disaster spread out of control with a faint sheen washing ashore along the Gulf Coast Thursday night as fishermen rushed to scoop up shrimp and crews spread floating barriers around marshes.

The spill was bigger than imagined — five times more than first estimated — and closer. Faint fingers of oily sheen were reaching the Mississippi River delta, lapping the Louisiana shoreline in long, thin lines.

"It is of grave concern," David Kennedy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told The Associated Press. "I am frightened. This is a very, very big thing. And the efforts that are going to be required to do anything about it, especially if it continues on, are just mind-boggling."

The oil slick could become the nation's worst environmental disaster in decades, threatening hundreds of species of fish, birds and other wildlife along the Gulf Coast, one of the world's richest seafood grounds, teeming with shrimp, oysters and other marine life. Thicker oil was in waters south and east of the Mississippi delta about five miles offshore.

The leak from the ocean floor proved to be far bigger than initially reported, contributing to a growing sense among many in Louisiana that the government failed them again, just as it did during Hurricane Katrina. President Barack Obama dispatched Cabinet officials to deal with the crisis.

Associated Press

U.S. may send Navy to oil spill as threat to environment grows

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday designated a widening oil slick pill in the Gulf of Mexico as "a spill of national significance" as government officials acknowledged that the amount of oil spewing daily from the well is far more than earlier thought.

The designation of the spill as a national event allows the White House to dispatch the U.S. military to assist in efforts to contain the spill, which now covers more than 4,000 square miles of the Gulf and threantes to become the largest oil spill in the nation's history.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration may dispatch military ships to the area, and a spokesman for BP, the oil company whose well exploded last week, said the company would welcome such help.

President Barack Obama began his daily intelligence briefing with an update on the spill. Obama then announced that he was dispatching three Cabinet secretaries, including Napolitano and Interior Secretary Ken Salzar to the site.

Meanwhile, Democrat and Republican members of Congress from Florida urged Obama to rethink his plans to lift a ban on offshore oil drilling, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican, declared a state of emergency.

Tampa-area U.S. Reps. Kathy Castor, a Democrat, and Bill Young, a Republican, said the administration plan, which could place oil rigs within 125 miles of Florida's Gulf coastline, threatened Florida's economy.

"Fisheries, tourism, the health of the Gulf's pristine beaches are all imperiled by this massive slick looming just 90 miles from the Florida Panhandle,'' the two wrote. They were circulating the letter to the entire Florida delegation and hoped to gather as many signatures as possible, Castor said.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which oversees offshore energy development, will hold a hearing May 6 to look at the Interior Department's plans to lift the drilling ban, as well as the accident in the Gulf of Mexico.

Coast Guard efforts to contain the spill have met with little success. Efforts to burn off part of the spill were on hold Thursday because of high winds.

National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration experts are estimating that 5,000 barrels a day of oil are spilling into the gulf. The slick's leading edge drifted toward the salt marshes of the Louisiana Delta, only 20 miles from a fragile wetland rich with shrimp, crabs and crayfish. But response teams in Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle were carefully watching shifting winds that could ultimately steer the blob just about anywhere on the Gulf Coast.

The spill was near the Gulf's powerful "loop current,'' which could potentially suck in the brown goo and spit it back out in the form of tar balls, fouling the Florida Keys and beaches along the Atlantic Coast. But the Coast Guard's highest-ranking officer said South Florida appeared to be out of the impact zone -- at least for now.

"I'm not going to rule anything out, but it's pretty remote,'' said Adm. Thad Allen, commandant of the Coast Guard, which is directing efforts to contain the spreading spill while BP Exploration and Production struggles to seal its well 5,000 feet below the ocean.

Allen, in an interview with The Miami Herald's Editorial Board Wednesday, said if the well can't be capped quickly, the accident could potentially surpass the notorious Exxon Valdez -- which dumped 11 million gallons of crude into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989 -- as the largest discharge in North American history.

BP, which operated the floating rig that exploded last week, killing 11 workers, has failed in efforts to close a shutoff valve with robotic subs. Deploying a dome to collect and pump leaking oil has worked in shallower coastal areas, but never in such deep water, and could take weeks. The permanent fix, drilling a relief well, could take months.

There also is concern that the damaged wellhead could give way, spewing up to 100,000 gallons a day from the site about 50 miles south of Venice, La.

"If we lose the integrity of that wellhead, it could be a catastrophic spill,'' Allen said.

The Coast Guard was already treating the spill as a worst-case scenario, Allen said, putting coastal crews on notice from Venice to Pensacola and using every tool in the slick-fighting book. Nearly 50 vessels were working the spill, either skimming oil or spraying dispersant to break it up.

With the plume still growing, the Coast Guard took the extraordinary step of trying to burn off large patches of it, beginning with test fires Wednesday.

"What we want to do is fight the oil spill as far off shore as we can,'' Allen said.

Wherever it winds up, the spill promises a messy and expensive cleanup at the least and potentially a major ecological disaster. Because the spill is far from land, industry experts predicted the sun and waves would dilute the impact to a degree, breaking up and evaporating much of it.

Edward Overton, a professor emeritus of environmental sciences at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, said it could still be nasty stuff to clean from marshes or beaches. Overton, who tested samples for the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the oil has an unusually high amount of asphaltene -- heavy ingredients that make it more suitable for paving roads than powering cars.

"My level of apprehension went from moderate to the red zone when we found this stuff,'' he said. "It's not going to be easy to degrade. It's not going to be easy to burn. It's not going to be easy to disperse.''

While the slick might not roll ashore as feather-coating ooze, the oil could still do broad and chronic damage. Those tarry lumps, scientists say, can become poison pills spread through the food chain from sea grasses to pelicans to crabs.

Nick Shay and Villy Kourafalou, professors at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science who have been tracking the spill, said a shift to the south could pull it into the loop current, which pushes into the Gulf in a clockwise swirl, spills back into the Straits of Florida through the Keys and then back north in the Gulf Stream, where prevailing winds push material onto tourist-filled beaches.

Shay, a professor of meteorology and physical oceanography, said it was impossible to predict where the spill might wind up. He said some oil could get swept up in small ``cyclones'' that swirl from the loop. The loop moves larval shrimp and fish from shallow estuaries into open water, but it also can pump everything from chemical runoff to red tide down toward the Keys, Shay said.

"Whether it's nutrients, whether it's bacteria, whether it's toxic material, it's a transport mechanism,'' he said.

Kourafalou echoed Shay, saying the loop current was largely overlooked in the decision by the White House this year to expand oil and gas exploration into areas of the Gulf where the effect is the strongest.

"Things come through the Keys. Things that happen in the Gulf will find their way here one way or another,'' said Kourafalou, a research associate professor.

Doug Helton, incident operations coordinator for the NOAA team tracking and projecting the spill's movement, echoed Allen's view, downplaying risks to South Florida.

Helton said the current remains well south of the spill but stressed that NOAA's predictions extend only out 72 hours. The slick already has floated back across the rig site once. It's also continually changing and unlike anything crews have dealt with before -- a mix of both degrading and fresh oil.

Gulf of Mexico to Burn Today.

NEW ORLEANS – The response to BP/Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon incident continues as responders have scheduled a controlled, on-location burn to begin at approximately 11 a.m. CDT today—a strategy designed to minimize environmental risks by removing large quantities of oil in the Gulf of Mexico following the April 20 explosion.

Part of a coordinated response combining tactics deployed above water, below water, dozens of miles offshore, as well as closer to coastal areas, today’s controlled burn will remove oil from the open water in an effort to protect shoreline and marine and other wildlife.

Workboats will consolidate oil into a fire resistant boom approximately 500 feet long. This oil will then be towed to a more remote area, where it will be ignited and burned in a controlled manner. The plan calls for small, controlled burns of several thousand gallons of oil lasting approximately one hour each.

No populated areas are expected to be affected by the controlled burn operations and there are no anticipated impacts to marine mammals and sea turtles. In order to ensure safety, the Environmental Protection Agency will continuously monitor air quality and burning will be halted if safety standards cannot be maintained.

The Minerals Management Service is in contact with the oil and gas operators in the sheen area to discuss any concerns with operations that may arise from their activities with the response efforts underway. Currently, no production has been curtailed as a result of the response activities.

The vast majority of this slick will be addressed through natural means and through use of chemical dispersants. Today’s burn will not affect other ongoing response activities, such as on-water skimming, dispersant application, and subsurface wellhead intervention operations. Preparations are also underway in Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama to set up a protective boom to minimize shoreline impact.

These efforts are happening concurrently with BP/Transocean’s continued efforts to stop the crude that is still leaking from the well. BP is the responsible party due to the fact that they own the oil that was leaking from their well.

Emphasizing the importance of continued vigilance and interagency coordination in the response to BP/Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar yesterday announced the next steps for the investigation that is underway to determine the causes of the explosion, which left 11 workers missing, three critically injured, and an ongoing oil spill that the responsible party and federal agencies are working to contain and clean up.

Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Carol Browner, White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, Secretary Napolitano, U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen, Secretary Salazar and DOI Deputy Secretary David Hayes also held meetings yesterday with BP, the responsible party in the oil spill, to discuss the response effort.

A coordinated response continues by federal, state and local partners while BP and other contractors work to stop the flow of oil and minimize its environmental impact. Approximately 1,100 total personnel are currently deployed and have used approximately 56,000 gallons of oil dispersant so far. Approximately 260,000 gallons of oily water have been collected. Nearly 50 vessels—including 16 skimming boats, four storage barges, 11 support vessels—and multiple aircraft are conducting containment and cleanup operations in the area.

Oil Spill being monitored from space

ESA Envisat images capture the oil that is spilling into the Gulf of Mexico after a drilling rig exploded and sank off the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi, USA, on 22 April.

In the black-and-white radar image the oil spill is visible as a dark grey whirl in the bottom right, while in the optical image it is seen as a white whirl. The Mississippi Delta is at top left, and the Delta National Wildlife Refuge extends out into the Gulf.

Officials report that about 1000 barrels of oil a day is escaping from a damaged oil well located 1.5 km under the drilling rig. By yesterday afternoon, the spill was covering an area some 77 km long and 63 km wide.

The US Coast Guard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the London-based BP and oil industry experts are attempting to stem the leak and prevent it reaching the Gulf Coast and the fragile ecosystem there.

In order to observe the clean-up efforts, the US Geological Survey, on behalf of the US Coast Guard, requested satellite maps of the area from the International Charter Space and Major Disasters. The Charter is an international collaboration, initiated by ESA and the French space agency, CNES, to put satellite remote sensing at the service of civil protection agencies and others in response to natural and man-made disasters.

Envisat acquired these images from its Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (black and white) and Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer on 26 April at 15:58 UTC and on 25 April at 16:28 UTC, respectively.

Officials Prepared For Oil Spill to Reach Mississippi Coast

According to a Sun Herald Report officials are prepared for the oil spill on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, but can't be sure when, or if, it will happen.

RESPONSE TEAMS READY

BILOXI — Teams of people and equipment are working in staging areas throughout the Gulf Coast, including Biloxi and Pascagoula, in the event an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico reaches the shoreline.

Coast Guard officials don’t believe any oil will reach land for at least three days, but they said they hesitate to predict any further than that.

One state environmental official said Monday it could be weeks before anybody knows for sure.

“They’ve still got it going 30 miles offshore moving east toward Alabama and Florida,” said Earl Etheridge, on-site coordinator for the state Department of Environmental Quality. “But two to three weeks from now we could see some tar balls on the beaches of the barrier islands and possibly on the main shoreline of the three coastal counties.

“Everything is dependent on the wind current and the sea current,” he added.

The oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, and 11 of the 126 workers are missing and presumed dead, but the rest escaped. Two days later the rig sank. Officials at first believed that oil was not coming out of the rig, but on Saturday they discovered two leaks and estimate that about 1,000 barrels per day are gushing into the Gulf.

 

Sun Herald: Oil spill may hit Coast

The sinking of Deepwater Horizon could be catastrophic for Mississippi’s coastline if hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil makes its way ashore.

Coast Guard and oil company officials at a news conference Thursday said it was not clear whether the 18,000-foot-deep well was still leaking.

Environmental threats include the 336,000 gallons of oil a day that had been spurting from the rig before it sank, though nearly all of it was burning off in the incessant fire, Coast Guard firefighter Katherine McNamara told the Associated Press.

Coast Guard cutters Zephyr, a patrol boat homeported in Pascagoula, and Cobia, a patrol boat out of Mobile, are involved in the search for 11 rig workers missing since the explosion.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry said that the probability of the crewmembers’ survival was decreasing, despite warm waters and calm seas.

At least 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel was in a tank on the rig, but that could have been consumed in the fire before the rig sank, said Doug Helton, incident operations coordinator for the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s office of response and restoration.

“The diesel fuel, if it didn’t burn off, will evaporate and not come to shore,” he said.

The crude oil leaking from the newly drilled well is heavier and will last longer.

“It could float around long enough to reach the shore,” he said.

Cross posted at The Flora Harvester

Big Black River and Sante South-April 23 and 24

Working on a two-day trip from 16 to 49 on Big Black. This is one I've always wanted to do since it is right here in my own backyard. I'm going with a few other folks, but the more the merrier. If you have a boat and are interested let me know via email. floraharvester@bellsouth.net

See more below picture.


View Larger Map

I hope to make it to around the Mount Elam area by Friday evening to make camp. That will put our group at about the 10 mile mark. Then, a bright and early start on Saturday morning to get the other 20 miles, just in time to drive to the house and get ready for the Sante South Wine Festival at 7:00. The wine festival is raising money for Alzheimer's research. If you can't join us for the paddle, join us in Jackson for Sante South.

Click on this link for more info: Sante South Wine Festival