As spill grows, birds suffer
BARATARIA BAY, La. — As officials approached to survey the damage the gulf oil spill has caused in coastal marshes, some brown pelicans couldn’t fly away Sunday. All they could do was hobble.
Several pelicans were coated in oil on Barataria Bay off Louisiana, their usually brown and white feathers now jet black. Pelican eggs were glazed with rust-colored gunk, and new hatchlings and nests were coated with crude.
It is unclear whether the area can be cleaned or whether the birds can be saved. It also is unknown how much of the Gulf Coast will end up looking the same as before because of a well that has spewed untold millions of gallons of oil since an offshore rig exploded more than a month ago.
"As we talk, a total of more than 65 miles of our shoreline now has been oiled," said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who announced new efforts to keep the spill from spreading.
A mile-long tube operating for about a week has siphoned off more than half a million gallons, but it began sucking up oil at a slower rate over the weekend. Even at its best, the effort did not capture all pg the oil leaking, and the next attempt to stanch the flow won’t be put into action until at least Tuesday.
With oil pushing at least 12 miles into Louisiana’s marshes and two major pelican rookeries coated in crude, Jindal said the state has begun work on a chain of berms, reinforced with containment booms, that would skirt the state’s coastline.
Jindal, who visited one of the affected nesting grounds Sunday, said the berms would close the door on oil pouring from the mile-deep gusher about 50 miles out in the gulf. The berms would be made with sandbags and sand hauled in. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is considering a broader plan that would use dredging to build sand berms across more of the barrier islands.
At least 6 million gallons of crude have spewed into the gulf, though some scientists have said they think the spill already surpasses the 11 million gallon 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska as the worst in U.S. history.
Obama administration officials continued defending their response while criticizing that of BP PLC, which leased the rig and is responsible for the cleanup. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he is "not completely" confident that BP knows what it’s doing.
"If we find they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, we’ll push them out of the way appropriately," Salazar said.
But federal officials have acknowledged that BP has expertise that they lack in stopping the deep-water leak.
Each day the spill grows, so does anger with the government and BP. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson was headed Sunday to Louisiana, where she planned to visit with frustrated residents.
Salazar and Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano were to lead a Senate delegation to the region today to fly over affected areas and keep an eye on the response.
In Barataria Bay, orange oil had made its way a good 6 inches onto the shore, coating grasses and the nests of brown pelicans in mangrove trees. Six months ago, the birds had been removed from the federal endangered species list.
The pelicans struggled to clean the crude from their bodies, splashing in the water and preening themselves. One stood at the edge of the island with its wings lifted slightly, its head drooping — so encrusted in oil it couldn’t fly.
Wildlife officials tried to rescue oil-soaked pelicans Sunday, but they suspended their efforts after spooking the birds. They weren’t sure whether they would try again.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Stacy Shelton said it is sometimes better to leave the animals alone than to disturb their colony.
Pelicans are especially vulnerable to oil. Not only could they eat tainted fish and feed it to their young, but they could die of hypothermia or drowning if they’re soaked in oil.
The spill’s impact now stretches across 150 miles, from Dauphin Island, Ala. to Grand Isle, La.
On Sunday, oil reached an 1,150-acre oyster ground leased by Belle Chasse, La., fisherman Dave Cvitanovich. He said cleanup crews were stringing lines of absorbent boom along the surrounding marshes, but that still left large clumps of rust-colored oil floating over his oyster beds. Mature oysters might filter out the crude and become fit for sale, but this year’s crop of spate, or young oysters, will perish.
"Those will die in the oil," Cvitanovich said. "It’s inevitable."
The leak might not be completely stopped until a relief well is dug, a project that could take months. Another effort that BP said will start Tuesday at the earliest will shoot heavy mud, and then cement, into the blown well, but that method has never been tried before in mile-deep water, and engineers are not sure it will work.