Global Green News
Agency Orders Use of a Less Toxic Chemical in Gulf
THE NEW YORK TIMES. MAY 20, 2010. By Campbell Robertson & Elisabeth Rosenthal
GRAND ISLE, La. — Local and state officials here voiced desperation on Thursday as their fears became far more tangible, with oil from the BP spill showing up on shore as tar balls, sheens and gooey slicks.
In Washington, the Environmental Protection Agency said it had told the oil company to immediately select a less toxic dispersant than the one it is now using to break up crude oil gushing from a ruined well in the Gulf of Mexico. Once the agency has signed off on a different product, it said, the company would then have 72 hours to start using it.
In a letter to BP’s chief executive, Tony Hayward, the agency’s administrator, Lisa Jackson, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also warned the company that it had “fallen short” in keeping the public informed. It demanded that BP release and post all data related to the month-old spill and monitoring efforts on a public Web site.
But here in Grand Isle, the focus was on the grim spectacle of what one official referred to as creeping “brownie mix.” At a news conference attended by visibly furious officials who had just taken a helicopter tour of the coast, Gov. Bobby Jindal said he was particularly worried that the heavy patches of oil appeared to have moved to shore under the surface of the gulf.
“This oil has traveled 110 miles to land on our coast, and we’re concerned that this is just the beginning,” Mr. Jindal said. “You didn’t see oil that close to our coast a day or two ago.”
Mr. Jindal said officials from the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration continue to tell him that heavy oil is not traveling underwater before it shows up on the coast, which he said would not explain its presence.
According to NOAA’s estimates, Mr. Jindal said, the spill has already affected nearly 50 miles of Louisiana’s coastline, which is full of breaks and inlets into fragile marshlands that are far more difficult to protect than sandy beaches. “No shoreline has been fully cleaned,” he said.
On Elmer’s Island, one of the few sandy beaches in Louisiana that is accessible by road, a thick brown frosting of oil was smeared on the shore. But inland marshes have so far been spared by a four-day project by the Louisiana National Guard that filled a 785-foot gap in the shore with sand. The guard is working to fill other such gaps along parts of the state’s coastline.
Near the mouth of the Mississippi, reddish-brown emulsified oil was pooled three inches deep in some places on Thursday and had killed off cane for at least a mile along the shore. The thick black oil seen there Wednesday appeared to have been washed out by the tide, but the air was heavy with scent of petroleum.
Several officials at the news conference in Grand Isle called on President Obama to order the federal government to take over where BP has failed. “We need some action, and we need it now,” said Michel Claudet, the president of Terrebonne Parish.
