Mississippi Trustee Implementation Group Announces Change to the Graveline Bay Land Acquisition and Management Project

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The Mississippi Trustee Implementation Group is updating the Graveline Bay Land Acquisition and Management Project area to include two additional parcels. The Trustees implementing the project, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of the Interior, have determined that a change to the project is necessary to target the acquisition of two parcels that were not previously available.   

The Graveline Bay Project is a preferred alternative identified and selected in our 2016-2017 Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment. The project includes the targeted acquisition of up to 1,410 acres of habitat adjacent to the Graveline Bay Coastal Preserve. It also provides for preservation and habitat management on both the newly acquired and the existing Coastal Preserve lands.   

The Trustees have evaluated the potential acquisition of two additional parcels for consistency with the environmental review and the Oil Pollution Act analysis conducted for the 2016-2017 plan. The Trustee Implementation Group’s analysis (PDF, 7 pages) determined that the addition of these parcels is consistent with the analyses originally conducted for the plan. Neither the maximum total project acreage (1,410 acres) nor the total project budget ($11,500,000) are affected by this project change.