[StBernard] St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro, Jr. urges decision makers to fully approve and fund the Barrier Island Plan

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro, Jr. urges decision makers to
fully approve and fund the Barrier Island Plan

 


St. Bernard Parish President Craig P. Taffaro, Jr. reissued his plea for
decision makers to fully approve and fund the Barrier Island Plan in an
interview this morning with John Roberts of CNN's American Morning.

 

"It's a fight every day as the heavy oil moves in," Taffaro said. "We have
fifty boats a day going out. We're cautiously optimistic." 

 

"Our universe is undefined in terms of how much we're fighting and what
we're up against. We're doing flyovers every day over the gulf and there are
multiple layers of this oil. We're very concerned about what we're not
seeing under the water. We feel like we're fighting an enemy we can't see.
Skimming is not enough," he said.

 

The Barrier Island Protection Plan is an aggressive plan to add a new line
of coastal protection for Louisiana, which faces devastating effects as the
oil reaches the marsh and continues to leak from the well site.  The plan
calls for dredge operations to build a "sand boom" along the existing
barrier island chains, which would provide a more reliable means of
protecting against oil intrusion as compared to the current booming methods.
The plan was only partially approved recently, and funding has not been made
available for the plan at this time. President Taffaro spoke of this in his
interview this morning.

 

 "We feel like we've been a little cheated here," Taffaro said. "The
dredging plan is a comprehensive plan and shouldn't be piecemealed. We've
asked the Governor to ask the President and Coast Guard to authorize the
building of the entire plan immediately. We recently received a U.S. Coast
Guard Commander in our EOC to help troubleshoot at the highest level. We
have a great team on the ground right now that is well functioning. The
holdup is when our plans and actions leave the EOC and don't get executed.
We need the decision makers to implement plans without obstruction."

 

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