Louisiana Voice

In 2017, during a rash of sperm whale stranding reports from Cameron and Terrebonne parishes in Louisiana to Pensacola, Oregon and Australia, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Marine Mammal Stranding Coordinator MANDY TUMLIN was permitted to respond to reporters’ inquiries.

But in 2019, when the openings of the Bonnet Carre Spillway were blamed for more than 300 dolphin deaths along the Gulf Coast, she was denied access to adequate resources with which to conduct her research and was cut off from media requests for information. A year later she was fired in what now appears to have been a classic example of political damage control.

The proposed Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion. A $1.4 billion project to create a controlled opening in the Mississippi River levee south of New Orleans is designed to flush fresh river water into Barataria Bay in an effort to rebuild state wetlands with sediment carried by the river.

The problem with that, according to project opponent Capt. George Ricks, is that it would allow fresh water to pass through the levee for longer than the 118 days the spillway was opened in 2019, which he said would lead to more dolphin deaths.

A REPORT released in March for the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project pointed to the potential of the project to have “immediate and permanent major adverse impacts on bottlenose dolphins in Barataria Bay. Another study, done for the MARINE MAMMAL COMMISSION, said in May that the project would result in the “functional extinction” of dolphin populations in two areas of Barataria Bay because of prolonged exposure to freshwater, which causes burn-like lesions on dolphins.

Tumlin agrees. “Freshwater lesions will make them more susceptible to viral infections that will cause mortality,” she said. “Their skin turns into what looks like a Brillo pad.”

Of the 337 dolphin deaths in 2019, more than 150 were in Mississippi, which Moby Solangi, executive director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, attributes to the spillway opening. He said the spillway opening also was responsible for deaths of oysters, blue crab and shrimp. “These animals cannot just swim away,” he said. “By the time they realize things are bad, they are sick and die.”

She said she was disappointed and disheartened to be fired as large numbers of dolphins were perishing. “We feel this was done so that the State of Louisiana can proceed with its plan to construct and operate the Mid-Barataria Bay and Breton Sound Diversion projects which will actually be lethal on dolphin populations in those areas due to freshwater lesions and other impacts,” she said.

She began her career with LDWF in 2005 and responded to marine mammal strandings during the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. She saved hundreds of sea turtles during that crisis. “I gave my life to this. I missed out on celebrations and holidays,” she said. “My personal cell phone was the statewide hotline for marine mammal strandings. I was on call constantly.”

Of course, to no one’s surprise, that means little when civil servants, who are supposed to be protected from arbitrary reprisals, become a PR problem. There are always ways to terminate an employee. In Tumlin’s case, LDWF documents indicate the reason was that she failed to enter data into an online system about dolphin and sea turtle strandings by a federal deadline.

Not so, says Baton Rouge attorney J. Arthur Smith, III., who is representing Tumlin. “The termination was a bogus, contrived set-up,” he said. “Mandy made all deadlines for which she was responsible.”

Ricks testified on Tumlin’s behalf at one of three meetings of the Louisiana State Civil Service Commission held on her appeal. “She got terminated because they didn’t want her saying too much about the river water causing these dolphins to die,” he said.

Civil service is expected to make a decision on the case in the next few months.

Meanwhile, Tumlin remains concerned about the future of marine mammals in Louisiana waters. “These diversions are going to cause the salinity levels in these areas to drop drastically,” she said. “We can’t catch 2,000 or more dolphins and move them.”