[StBernard] Large fish kill found at the mouth of the MRGO

[Westley Annis]

Large fish kill found at the mouth of the MRGO

Suspected emulsified oil/tar balls being recovered in the area of Grassy
Island

 

A large fish kill was found Sunday afternoon at the mouth of the MRGO.
Thousands of dead fish were found floating at the top of the water,
collected in pockets in boom that was deployed in the area, and washed up on
the shoreline. 

 

"By our estimates there were thousands, and I'm talking about 5,000 to
15,000 dead fish. Different species were found dead including crabs, sting
rays, eel, drum, speckled trout, red fish, you name it, included in that
kill," St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro said Monday morning.
"There is what we believe to be some recoverable oil in the area as well. We
will be sampling that and recovering what we can. We don't want to jump to
any conclusions because we've had some oxygen issues by the Bayou La Loutre
Dam from time to time. The Marine Division of Wildlife and Fisheries is on
it this morning, and we'll be looking for some preliminary or hard line
information by the end of the day. It does point to the need for us to
continue to monitor our waters and that's what we'll be doing."

 

A half mile long orange thick substance with several tar balls and a strong
diesel smell was located this morning around Grassy Island. Skimming Task
Force 7 is on scene and is recovering this product.

 

SCAT Team Houma and Operations at the St. Bernard Branch have devised a
system to collect boom that has been stranded in the marsh. The Marsh
Flusher is a system currently in use in St. Bernard Parish waters, which
reaches into oiled marsh areas and flushes them with clean water. It uses an
articulating arm to do this. A grapple has now been attached to this arm,
which is now being used in marsh areas as a boom retrieval system. This will
assist in limiting human impact in these sensitive areas. There are two
systems currently in use, both of which can retrieve 2,000 to 4,000 feet of
stranded boom per day.