Little Lagoon Preservation Society (LLPS) invites members and the general public to attend a quarterly membership meeting Tuesday 5:30 p.m., at the Adult Activity Center in Gulf Shores.

The first 30 minutes is an opportunity to mingle and enjoy refreshments with LLPS members, officers, guest speakers, and the general public.  Featured guest speaker, Dr. J. Steven Picou, will present “Contested Uncertainty and the BP Catastrophe: Lessons from the Exxon Valdez.”

He will frame the BP Oil Spill in terms of issues that gulf coast communities are facing that parallel what we have learned from the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

These contested issues will unfold during the next decade and include ecosystem, economic, community, family and physical and mental health impacts. A series of secondary disasters may emerge around the claims payment process, seafood safety, water quality, air quality, resource loss, community conflict and litigation thereby insuring long term problems well into the future.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill does provide Gulf Coast communities with mitigation strategies to reduce the severity of community impacts and many of these programs have already been activated, hopefully improving resiliency for chronic impacts. These programs will be briefly reviewed.     

Other topics to be discussed following our guest speaker include:

• Update on restoration of Lagoon Pass to pre spill configuration and status of bridge replacement/pass redesign;
• Bays and Bayous Conference summary;
• Website update, and;
• Financials.

The general public is invited to attend this event and encouraged to join our non-profit society. LLPS strives to: “Preserve and improve the quality of life on and around Little Lagoon by:

1) Endeavoring to assure that the quality of water in the Little Lagoon is maintained to the highest standards set by the appropriate State and Federal regulatory agencies and;

2) Banding together as a group to influence items of interest or concern to the majority of the membership to include:

A) Endeavoring to protect the lagoon and surrounding wetlands and wildlife habitat, and;

B) Monitoring local, state and federal governments as an advocate and watchdog group to influence matters that might impact Little Lagoon.”