New Orleans Times-Picayune
Mark Schleifstein,
June 16, 2010

“Louisiana’s efforts to attack oil approaching coastal wetlands have repeatedly been stymied by BP and federal officials, state officials on Wednesday told members of the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, which oversees coastal restoration and levee construction projects…

Garret Graves, authority chairman and coastal adviser to Gov. Bobby Jindal, said the latest obstacle was a Wednesday order from Coast Guard officials to recall several barges carrying vacuum trucks that officials were using to suck oil out of the Gulf near wetlands and barrier islands…

The innovative idea is one of several that Graves said were brainstormed ‘like we thought up turducken,’ a reference to the Cajun delicacy consisting of a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken.

The state’s attempts to rapidly deploy oil-catching strategies is being driven by increasing concern that the oil is beginning to have serious effects on wetlands. Some oiled wetland patches were clearly dead after only three days, he said…

The frustration also extends to the decision by National Incident Commander Adm. Thad Allen to approve construction of only six island berms the state hopes will capture oil before it reaches interior wetlands or natural barrier islands.

Allen’s reluctant decision to approve even that 40-mile batch of sand pits — four west of the Mississippi River’s bird foot delta and two on the east side, along the Chandeleur Islands — still leaves hundreds of miles of shoreline at risk, Graves said…

The sense of urgency caused by the threat of oil and the often-misunderstood relationship between coastal Louisiana residents and the oil industry seem to be difficult for both federal officials and environmental critics to understand, Graves said…

Because state officials knew the potential effects of a worst-case spill on the state’s wetlands, they were surprised when, three days after the spill, their original requests for 5 million feet of hard boom and 6 million feet of absorbent boom were ignored, as were repeated requests for a copy of the federal plan for dispensing boom during an emergency…”

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