[StBernard] St. Bernard preparing for growing oil mass in Gulf

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard preparing for growing oil mass in Gulf 

by Scott Satchfield / Eyewitness News

wwltv.com

Posted on June 20, 2010 at 12:08 PM


HOPEDALE, La. -- In Hopedale, the nerve center of the effort to protect the
St. Bernard coastline from crude, boom and equipment sit, waiting to be
deployed.

Parish President Craig Taffaro says crews remain on alert, although to this
point, the area has dodged major contamination problems.

"There's no doubt we've been much more fortunate than our neighbors to the
west. We only have about a mile and a half of coastline, and primarily
that's island coast, versus actual inland coast, in terms of being impacted
directly by oil," Taffaro said. "One of the things that we've been very
fortunate with is the Mississippi River level, and the height of the river
and the push that that water actually provides at the mouth of the river has
almost given us almost a natural barrier."

But Taffaro said plenty of work has gone into keeping oil away from St.
Bernard, in case of wind or current shifts, which he believes are real
threats. Taffaro said more than 50 miles of hard boom and about 20 miles of
absorbent boom are in place in the water and along the coast in his parish.

Crews are still holding between 10 to 20 miles of boom on shore in case the
situation gets worse. In the meantime, Taffaro says St. Bernard officials
are pitching in elsewhere.

"We redirected about 70,000 feet of boom today, to head towards Jefferson
Parish, because they're in more need of it than we are right now, and we
still have enough to respond as we need to," Taffaro said.

And while more keeps gushing from the gulf floor, St. Bernard officials are
at least encouraged by what they call an improvement in the overall command
structure, by both the Coast Guard and BP. Better, but far from perfect.

"The well is still not capped. Until that happens, we're still dealing with
an undefined universe, and the threat continues to grow," Taffaro said. "But
in terms of getting the infrastructure of decision making and response down,
I think we're starting to turn the corner. The problem still exists, though,
that there are not enough resources to go around for everyone at the same
time."