Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Wisner Beach - "No further response needed" - October 12th, 2013

Last Saturday, October 12th, I got up at the break of dawn (a major feat for me) and took a trip down to Wisner Beach at Port Fourchon to meet with one of the landowners.  We wanted to see if the recent tropical disturbance had left any new oil deposits on the property.  We found numerous oil balls, some bigger than grapefruits, in a specific area of the beach.  As the tide receded we realized there was a huge oil "mat" in that area right below the surface of the water.  It was estimated to be around 30 to 40 feet in diameter but it was hard to tell because it was mostly submerged.

Later in the day a large BP clean-up crew showed up and attempted to extract the oil in that area.

Thibodaux's Daily Comet reported that over a ton of oil has been recovered in the wake of Tropical Storm Karen according to the Coast Guard.  The article is incorrect in that it implies the oil was discovered by BP crews during a standard clean up process but it was actually discovered by Wisner employees monitoring the beach.  This is important because this area, "Zone 4", was taken out of response by BP after they labeled it "clean" and that it needed "no further response".  Not that this was the Daily Comet reporter's intention but the article implies that BP is continually monitoring this area and that is simply not true.

Here are some of the pix I took.  I actually shot video but I had a camera issue so I'm just showing stills here.
A clump of oil 
 A large weathered "tar ball"
Multiple tar balls clumped together
Tar ball on some seashells
Another tar ball
A "tar ball" washes in as I was shooting
Clean up crew attempting to extract the oil mat
At first we could only see the edge of the mat due to the tide
As the tide receded the size of the mat became clearer
Workers attempting to remove the oil
The workers could could only get to the oil that washed ashore, not the oil still below the surface of the water
It's brazenly clear that there is still a massive amount of oil in the Gulf and particularly along this area of the Louisiana coastline.  Even though BP sunk most of the oil after the spill by using dispersant, the oil didn't magically disappear as they would have us believe.  If this much of it, a ton, is coming in after a minor tropical disturbance you can only imagine what is still in the Gulf itself and how long this problem is going to last.  What I can't imagine is what all that oil is doing to the ecosystem of the Gulf.

BP has already designated this area as needing "no further response" and declared cleanup efforts in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida "complete" according to the Daily Comet article.

Meanwhile, I've got some explosive news regarding the DHECC I'm going to share with you by week's end....stay tuned.

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