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Coalition Wants Study Of Climate Change's Effects In Gulf

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By NEIL JOHNSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 14, 2009

TAMPA - A coalition of environmental organizations wants a multistate council studying threats to the Gulf of Mexico to focus on climate change and its effects.

The coalition called the Gulf Restoration Network made a presentation today before the start of a meeting of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance held at the Florida Aquarium, where the alliance asked the public for ideas about future goals.

The alliance was formed in 2004 by Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas to work toward solving problems facing the Gulf such as an excess of farm nutrients flowing down rivers and blooms of red tide.

The six priority issues the alliance intends to tackle include addressing some elements of climate change, but members of the restoration network believe climate change and its effects should be added to the list as a seventh core priority.

Climate change and global warming are a serious threat to states ringing the Gulf, said Joe Murphy, Florida director of the network.

"We could find the Gulf of Mexico in real trouble," Murphy said.

If temperatures increase as some climate researchers believe, melting ice caps will raise the sea level, creating serious problems for low-lying Gulf coastlines.

The Gulf alliance's development of coastal elevation maps and computer models to predict the areas that will be flooded won't solve the problem, said David White with the Ocean Conservancy.

"You can do that until the last wave washes over us," White said.

More money needs to be funneled into study of the effects from climate change and how to plan for those impacts, Murphy said.

But climate change and the alterations it could bring are part of at least some of the alliance's work, said Randy Runnels with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Runnels works on the alliance team looking at habitat conservation and restoration.

Sea level change is one consideration when deciding areas to preserve. Will they be there in 20 years? Runnels said.

"We need to weave it in to our discussions. It's not a separate issue," he said.

Among the groups in the Gulf Restoration Network that was formed in 1994 are: Gulf Coast Conservancy, Florida Wildlife Federation, Ocean Conservancy and the National Resources Defense Council.

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