Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina,
Virginia, Maryland, New York, Connecticut,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine,
Oregon, Washington

United in Conservation

Modification to Fisheries Closed Area in the Gulf of Mexico

NOAA Fisheries Constituent and Stakeholders - We have posted a  modification to the closure area on our Southeast Regional office > website at.  http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/  Attached is a map of the new closure area.
 
Briefly, NOAA Fisheries is expanding the western, southwestern and southeastern boundaries of the closure to encompass most of the reported actual location and projected path of the oil based on initialization data and the 48-hour trajectory.  Specifically:
 
     * NOAA Fisheries is extending the western and southwestern boundaries slightly to the south to capture oil reported outside the current boundary.
 
     * We are extending the southeastern boundary by about 60 miles to encompass the full extent of the main slick.  We are not attempting to capture a smaller, isolated mass located farther to the southeast.  We determined it is not practical to incorporate such masses into the closure because we expect them to move quickly and erratically and to frequently change in size and dimension.
 
The closure measures 24,241 sq mi (62,784 sq km), which is about 10% of  hte GOM EEZ as compared to the May 14th closure comprising 19,377 sq. mil (8% of the GOM Federal waters).