In an aerial view, oil pools in the marshlandsoutside of Venice, La. (April Buffington/NYT Institute)

To the untrained eye, the effects of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on the marshlands of Southern Louisiana might not be easily recognizable from the air. But one look at the oil-stained sand dunes about 20 miles from Venice, La., and the reality of the ever-encroaching oil becomes apparent.

From the air, an intricate pattern of water, marshland and sand dunes stretches as far as the eye can see from the town of Venice to the Gulf. Dark blue water snakes through the maze-like wetlands, some areas covered with a layer of avocado-colored foam, as the muddy Mississippi River escorts barges loaded with containers to shipping points in the North.

Not far from Venice, the mixing of freshwater with saltwater from the Gulf creates a line of juxtaposition reminiscent of a yin and yang sign — tan, muddy freshwater giving way to blue-green saltwater. Discerning what is oil and what is the natural process of these waters converging can be difficult.

But a closer look toward the peppered masses of land shows just how easily identifiable the oil is. Syrupy swirls of black weave into the natural canals and lap against sand dunes, as white and orange booms attempt to isolate them. Some islands look like more oil than sand, something close to a cinnamon swirl pastry.

Miles of white containment boom have been stretched around islands and peninsulas, some with evidence of oil. Boats of all shapes and sizes meander through open water while smaller speedboats stay close to the booms. While the booms out in open water are either white or black, orange booms can be seen almost flush against the sand.

Many fear that the hundreds of birds, turtles and other wildlife that call the marsh home are in danger as their natural habitat is contaminated. Those who rely on the supply of fish, crab and oysters that are harvested from these waters are also concerned with the effect on the local seafood industry, a vital part of the local economy.

As new efforts to stop the leak and contain the damage continue to be explored, for now, residents simply watch and wait.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

President Obama announced on Saturday that he is establishing a commission to investigate the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill. A former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, William Reilly, and Bob Graham, a former Florida governor and Democratic U.S. senator, will head the seven-person commission, Obama said.

“We need to take a comprehensive look at how the oil and gas industry operates and how we regulate them,” Obama said during his weekly address. “The purpose of this commission is to consider both the root causes of the disaster and offer options on what safety and environmental precautions we need to take to prevent a similar disaster from happening again.”

As an estimated more than 200,000 gallons of oil a day continued to spew into the Gulf, BP said on Saturday that it wants to keep using a particular chemical dispersant to fight the oil spill, despite orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to use something less toxic.

The chemical, Corexit 9500, is “the best option for subsea application,” BP’s chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, said in a letter to the EPA, according to The Associated Press. Tests showed Corexit was among the most effective agents at dispersing the oil, Suttles said.

The EPA raised concerns about the chemical on Thursday, saying the long-term effects remain unknown. The agency ordered BP to identify an alternative and start using it within three days of its approval by regulators.

BP found five products that met the EPA’s criteria, and said that Corexit appears to have fewer long-term effects. There were also not enough of the other chemicals immediately available to fight the huge spill, Suttles said.

EPA officials did not immediately respond Saturday to questions about BP’s decision.

The oil spill started on April 20 after BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded off the Louisiana coast, killing 11 workers. A blowout preventer, which is supposed to shut off the oil in case of an accident, failed. An underwater pipe ruptured and more than 6 million gallons of oil have leaked into the Gulf, according to many scientists’ estimates.

“This catastrophe is unprecedented in its nature and it presents a host of new challenges we are working to address,” Obama said in establishing the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. “But the question is what lessons we can learn from this disaster to make sure it never happens again.” He added, “I want to know what worked and what didn’t work in our response to the disaster, and where oversight of the oil and gas industry broke down.”

By law, BP is required to clean up the spill. Though the company has made several attempts to stem the flow of oil, including plugging the blowout preventer with knotted rope and tires, none of them have worked. The company’s most recent solution is to cap the well using drilling mud, a process known as “top kill.” The company first said that it would start the process on Sunday. But on Saturday company spokesmen said that the earliest the process could start is Tuesday.

BP’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, remained cautious about the latest attempt, saying that this “would be another first for this technology at these water depths, and so we cannot take its success for granted.”

While initiatives continued to stop the oil flow and clean up the results, efforts were also under way to help people who have already been hurt. The Greater New Orleans Foundation said it would donate $50,000 to the Seedco Southeast Louisiana Fisheries Assistance Center, which provides assistance to commercial fishermen including private and public resources, business support services, job training, counselors and financial help.

Lesia Bates Moss, president of Seedco Financial, the umbrella group over the Fisheries Assistance Center, said the group intended to use the funds “to provide extended services to the fishermen as well as to their families; helping them to identify other resources that could help during this difficult time.” She added, “The small businesses we serve are important to the U.S. economy.”

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Federal officials said on Friday that they have found 60 birds and 186 sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico that they believe are victims of the oil spill crisis, according to The Associated Press. As an underwater well continues to spew thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf, the impact of the spill is becoming more visible.

The public beach at Grand Isle, La., was closed Friday as visible blobs of oil washed ashore. Another portion of the seas off the Louisiana coast were closed to recreational and commercial fishing at sunset Friday. These areas are off of lower Jefferson Parish, from the eastern shore of Barataria Pass to the western shore of Caminada Pass. These closures come as the result of a field survey and seafood testing of the area, according to Robert Barham, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

As the effects of the spill widen, it’s still a numbers game as to how much oil is being disgorged. Tim Crone, a research scientist at Columbia University, has estimated that 1.68 million gallons to 4.2 million gallons a day was flowing into the Gulf. Steve Wereley, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, said he will likely cut his estimate of 3.9 million gallons a day, after BP said about half of what is flowing out of the pipe is gas, not oil. His estimate, which has a 20 percent margin of error, includes about 1 million gallons coming from a leak at the blowout preventer, away from the main leak.

Ian McDonald, a Florida State University oceanographer and expert tracking the spill, said the spill’s surface slick is now more than 14,600 square miles, larger than the states of Maryland and Delaware combined.

The Unified Area Command for the Deepwater Horizon/BP Response said that as of Friday it had recovered more than 8.94 million gallons of oily water and set up 17 staging areas including those at Grand Isle, La., Biloxi, Miss., and Pensacola, Fla.

The command also announced it will not use human-hair booms in its response efforts, saying they were less effective than commercial products.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

The use of booms made of hair and fur in the efforts to clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was rejected on Friday by the Unified Area Command for the Deepwater Horizon/BP Response, which is in charge of all response efforts.

The plan was proposed by the San Francisco-based organization Matter of Trust, which calls for donations of hair and fur that are placed in nylon stockings. The organization reported on its *website* [MatterofTrust.org]that its calls for donations had been answered from around the nation and world. According to the website, the organization has opened 19 warehouses spread along Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida that are receiving hair from donors.

The command announced Friday that while this suggestion was submitted to BP as an alternative for containing the oil spill, it was not considered feasible.

The command cited a February 2010 side-by-side field test conducted during an oil spill in Texas, in which a boom with commercial absorbents picked up more oil and much less water than a hair boom, “making it the better operational choice.”

“Our priority when cleaning up an oil spill is to find the most efficient and expedient way to remove the oil from the affected area while causing no additional damage,” said Charlie Henry, NOAA’s Scientific Support Coordinator in Robert, La. “One problem with the hair boom is that it became waterlogged and sank within a short period of time.”
In New Orleans hair and fur was being collected at the Spa in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Canal Street by an employee, Daisye Dykes, who could not be reached for comment Friday night. News outlets around the nation have reported local hair collection efforts to aid in the Gulf oil spill.

But the command said on Friday that it was asking individuals and organizations to discontinue the collection of hair for the hair boom.

Attempts by e-mail and telephone on Friday night to reach Lisa Craig Gautier and her husband, Patrice Olivier Gautier, who are listed on the website as the founders of the organization, were unsuccessful.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

On Thursday, a Greenpeace boat with seven journalists aboard traveled along the Gulf Coast and stopped at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Then they saw it: The oil spill causing one of the worst environmental disasters in the country’s history.

The reporters told me they had gazed in shock as they watched the oil slowly creep onto land and saturate the sand.

Sadly, there was not enough space for me on the boat. Three colleagues and I had traveled that day to Venice, La., the state’s southernmost tip, in hopes of witnessing the oil spill for ourselves. It didn’t happen, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

Greenpeace, the largest environmental group with 4,000 staff members worldwide, has been offering free boat trips to media outlets to spread the word about the devastation. At the rate of at least 5,000 barrels a day seeping into the Gulf of Mexico, this spill could become the worst in history.

Greenpeace representatives said they send out several boats per day. We didn’t make it on any of them.

We tried to bum rides out onto the water with local shrimpers, or with just about anyone else with a craft that floats. Then we considered hiring a boat. Simple enough, I thought.

Wrong.

The cost of a taking a four-seater boat to the spill off Venice was $600, plus the cost of fuel. That’s how much, the boat owners said, that they would charge for a typical fishing run.

It was much more, however, than I was prepared to spend. I’m sure my reaction gave away that I was a rookie correspondent. My eyes bulged and my head cocked back as if the words had punched me in the face.
I tried to compose myself and said “Oh, cool — well, let me call my editor and see what he says,” even though I already knew the answer.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.