[StBernard] Shoreline and Wildlife Impact in St. Bernard Parish, Evidence of Submerged Oil

Westley Annis Westley at da-parish.com
Fri Jul 16 09:37:43 EDT 2010


Shoreline and Wildlife Impact in St. Bernard Parish, Evidence of Submerged
Oil



There were 31 oil sightings in St. Bernard Parish waters in the past 48
hours. Five of these sightings were on the water and 24 were shoreline or
marsh impact. Several of these sightings included impact to wildlife with
either oiled or deceased birds. Cleanup task forces were deployed to the
Chandeluer Islands yesterday, which had confirmed shoreline impact. Rapid
Assessment vessels with U.S. Coast Guard Pollution Investigators are working
in cooperation with Air Operations, who will contact these vessels directly
and immediately in the event of an oil sighting. Vessels are deployed to
impacted areas to fortify these areas with hard and soft absorbent boom, and
recovery vessels have also been deployed to these areas to assess impact and
remediation activities. Skimming will be conducted where possible in these
areas.



There was an oil sighting on Tuesday that could not be confirmed by a
pollution investigator, as it had apparently disappeared and could not be
verified. There is now shoreline impact in the same area, a 100-foot long
oiling near Point Lydia, evidence of submerged oil in parish waters. St.
Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro directed operations personnel to
institute a program to track submerged oil. Local fishermen have begun
constructing and deploying "sentinel snare booms," which are snare or "pom
pom" boom stretching from a buoy to an anchor, thus covering the entire
water column, in anywhere from 6-foot to 12-foot depths. These snare booms
are being placed 300 feet apart just outside of the Chandeleur Islands to
detect how oil is getting into parish waters.



At the direction of President Taffaro, testing is being conducted this
morning on existing technology to remediate oiled marsh. If this technology
proves to be successful, operations will be able to use this process to
begin cleaning oiled marsh areas in parish waters.



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