This oil-stained island near the South Pass of the Mississippi River was photographed Friday, 21 May 2010. Patrick Semansky / The Associated Press

By Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune
May 23, 2010, 9:00AM For those saddened by the scenes of thick oil washing into Louisiana’s coastal wetlands a month after the BP oil disaster began, experts on oil spills and the coastal ecosystem have some advice: Get used to it. The crews mopping up oil on beaches and marsh shorelines this week are fighting just the first of what will probably be a series of rolling skirmishes that will last for months, if not years — even after the runaway well is finally capped. In fact, the untold millions of gallons of oil already fouling the Gulf off the Louisiana coast could stay in the area for at least a decade, and on the sea floor for more than 100 years. “I’m afraid we’re just seeing the beginning of what is going to be a long, ugly summer,” said Ed Overton, an LSU professor who has consulted on oil spills for three decades. “I hope and pray I’m wrong, but I think what we’re in for is seeing a little bit come in each day at different places for a long, long time — months and months. “That’s not what I said in the beginning of this. But events have made me amend my thoughts.” …

Louisiana coast’s battle against drifting oil expected to last months, if not years