Storm blows oiled boom into Louisiana wetlands

By JEFFREY BALL
JULY 27, 2010 GRAND ISLE, La.—To keep crude oil out of Louisiana’s sensitive marshes, workers have spread barriers known as boom in unprecedented amounts. Now the marshes face a new threat—from the boom itself. Recent storms have tossed dozens of miles of oil-soaked boom into the marshes, mowing down grass and threatening the birds, snakes and shellfish that live there. “This has turned from an oil spill to a boom spill,” said Judy Kitagawa, a BP PLC environmental scientist from Alaska, addressing cleanup workers during a strategy session in Louisiana last week. Local politicians have demanded as much boom as they could get, believing it would minimize environmental damage from the spreading slick, according to federal officials and representatives of BP, which is paying to clean up oil that gushed from its broken well in the Gulf of Mexico. Now that some of that boom has gotten into the reeds, trying to remove it along with the oil could do even more harm, embedding the oil deeper into the marshes, if the removal isn’t done carefully. Some officials overseeing the cleanup said workers early in the process crushed marsh grass by steering their boats onto the vegetation in pursuit of oil and stray boom. … Charlie Henry, a senior official with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, recalls being horrified early in the Gulf spill to see a televised image of a cleanup worker in a marsh using an absorbent pad to wipe oil off the reeds. Swabbing spreads the crude, potentially suffocating the grass. The worker was “trying to do the right thing, not knowing the right thing was the wrong thing,” said Mr. Henry, who immediately reported the incident to a spill-response command center in Houma, Louisiana. … Washed-up boom is a further assault on the marshes. As of Friday, some 800 miles of boom were sitting along the Gulf Coast to keep out the oil—far more, officials said, than in any other oil spill. Earlier this month, Hurricane Alex ripped swaths of that boom from its anchors, tossing it onto beaches and into marshes. Masses of oil and strings of white and yellow boom were visible in coastal marshes during a helicopter flight to survey the damage last week with officials representing BP and the Louisiana government. Barataria Bay, one of the Gulf Coast’s most productive and sensitive estuaries, has been hit particularly hard by oil and washed-up boom. Just after dawn every morning, hundreds of cleanup workers in more than 50 boats head there from Grand Isle, a barrier island to the south. … Out on the water later that morning, Wesley Phillpott stood on the bow of a boat under a blazing sun, tossing a grappling hook attached to a rope toward masses of oil-soaked boom. After repeated throws, he hadn’t snagged any boom, but he had managed to tear off several clumps of grass. …

Storm-Tossed Boom Complicates Spill Cleanup