First Gulf oil spill natural resource study reveals extensive damage in shoreline, deepwater habitat
Source: New Orleans Times-Picayune
The extensive damage caused by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the ensuing cleanup efforts to natural resources along the shoreline and in deepwater habitats of the Gulf of Mexico were outlined for the first time Friday (Dec. 6) in a comprehensive environmental assessment.
The assessment, released by federal and state oil spill trustees, accompanies a plan for spending $627 million on 44 projects aimed at restoring some of the damage outlined in the report, or compensating the public for lost resources. That plan is the third batch of projects to be paid for with $1 billion set aside in 2011 by BP to build "early restoration" projects under the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process required by the federal Oil Pollution Act of 1990.
The release of the report and tentative approval of the projects were announced Friday by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell at the Jean Lafitte Historical National Park's Barataria Unit in Marrero on Friday morning.
The report cites studies showing continued problems with growing oysters in both Louisiana waters, where freshwater diversions designed to keep oil out of wetlands killed oyster beds, and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, which may be linked to toxic chemicals associated with the BP oil. It also recounts concerns about the deaths of hundreds of bottlenosed dolphins, thousands of sea turtles and migratory waterfowl -- plus potential reproductive problems for these species.
Read more: http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/12/bp_oil_spill_natural_resource.html#incart_river_default
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It was mostly covered over and everyone told "Come On Down to NOLA!" The Oysters are Great and so are the Shrimp...Hold your Convention Here.
I think that NO needed that boost after what they'd been through. But, if their seafood had to be imported..(which we don't know) then it gave them some time to hopefully see their local fishing habitat come back.
BUT...if Mismanagement by pouring Chemicals in the waters to cover up the possible damage by causing the oil to sink, but pollute for years ,rather than trying to find methods to suck it up (like Norway (I think) offered) then it would seem that we have a devastated site there along the LA Coast/NO's that means all you eat there comes from elsewhere. And maybe TIME will manage to bring back the habitat...but...it may take decades.
I never could understand why we refused to allow other countries to help us with the clean up when they volunteered expertise because of their own oil spills. It reminds me of Japan and how they wanted TEPCO to clean up what might be the world's worst Nuclear Disaster...and they still can't get their act together because they want Tepco to pay rather than calling in the world's Nuclear experts to pay them to figure out how to get the radioactive tube contained and somehow deal with the leaking.
Well, let's see . . . . that's $14.25 million per project, which should be enough to, uh, I dunno, bring in some trucks loaded with clean sand 44 times?
