BP tarballs expected to surface through next year

Last Wednesday marked the six-month anniversary of the day the Deepwater Horizon rig under lease by BP exploded approximately 41 miles off the Louisiana coastline. Eleven workers tragically lost their lives and more than 200 million gallons of crude oil leaked into the Gulf of Mexico.

In lieu of the disaster, the Louisiana coastline was under attack through the arrival of oil. BP announced it would lead the clean-up process, and 190 days later, its efforts continue without a definite endpoint in sight.

“It’s really based on conditions, not on a calendar, and that will depend on local stake holders concurring and collaborating that any further clean up activity would cause environmental harm and not benefit,” said Rear Admiral Paul Zukunft, the federal on scene coordinator for the Deepwater Horizon response unified area command, during a media teleconference.

As of two weeks ago, more than 1,056 tons of recyclable waste stemming from the spill, including oily liquid and oily solid waste, had been processed according to a press release from the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center.

Most of the protective boom has been removed from Louisiana water. On Sept. 9, 179,381 feet of boom served as a barrier to the coastline, but only 20,000 feet – 11 percent – of boom remain in state territory, Terrebonne Parish President Michel Claudet said at an Oct. 13 town hall meeting.

Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolph also said the remaining boom in her parish has is minimal. The reason for the leftover boom in both parishes is that it is in sensitive areas and they don’t want to risk further damage to the marshes by removing it.

Earl Eues, director of the Terrebonne Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said that approximately 350 personnel are still cleaning up in the parish. He estimated that at the peak, the number was 1,600.

Public Information Officer Brennan Matherne said the official count as of Wednesday was 449 people in Lafourche Parish. At the height of the efforts, he estimated the number was 1,200.

Both parish presidents were reluctant to call any effort a success until the job is complete.

“They’ve given me a sheet with a bunch of red dots on it that shows sightings,” Claudet said. “I have not yet gotten clearance on those red dots. Until such time as I get clearances on all the sightings that indicate they have observed them and it has been remediated, I’m not going to be satisfied, and we’re not going to let [BP] leave until we get that.”

“I’m as satisfied as I can be,” Randolph said. “I think as long as it’s consistent and constant, then I’m OK.”

Randolph said she is waiting for BP to update her on the Vessels of Opportunity program and the Snare Sentinel Program, which is a monitoring system designed to keep subsurface oil from reaching the coastline.

The SSP deployed underwater netting to absorb subsurface oil. Eues said the program is “going great.”

“We haven’t had any hits of oil on the snare, which indicates there is no oil under the surface that can adhere to the absorbent material,” he said. “Since they put the sentinels out, we haven’t got any detections of oil.”

While there is still some oil in the Louisiana marshes, stakeholders are concerned about causing more harm than good by cleaning it up.

“There are no pools of oil or any oil that is out in the marsh that is able to be recovered,” Eues said. “The oily spots in the marsh that may have some slight oiling, I think the recommended treatment for that shoreline was to leave it in place because if we get people that start tramping in the marsh, then we are going to damage the marsh more than trying to get the oil out.”

Zukunft echoed the idea that clean up must be done in a way as to not harm the marshes, which he called the most challenging problem moving forward.

“We’re really not at the point where a lot of marsh grass comes into a new growth season,” Zukunft said. “So there’s still some unknowns but we’re still seeing heavy oil marsh grass in some of those wetlands in Barataria Bay and just the logistics of getting to those locations.”

Zukunft said crews – approximately 600 people – must retreat to a floating barge at the end of the day and use it as a base of operations.

“So it’s logistically and environmentally challenging and certainly we do not want to be overly aggressive in that clean up because if we do, we may actually cause further erosion…clearly that’s the last thing we want to do,” he said.

Clean-up crews are still finding and disposing of tarballs on Fourchon Beach and the barrier islands, where they are using Augers to determine the depth and dispose of the oil in the sand.

“We’ll probably have tarballs for at least maybe another year or so after this event that will ultimately wash ashore,” Claudet said. “But for the most part, we’re not seeing anything subsurface. And we haven’t had any surface oil for five weeks that we’ve observed.”

John Ringstad, who is with BP community outreach in Larose, said at the Oct. 18 BP Oil Spill Committee meeting at the Mathews Government Complex that the oil company is in the process of transitioning from emergency response to long-term recovery, which they will use to develop a 4-5 year plan for restoring the Gulf Coast.

Ringstad said the community outreach centers will be shut down Oct. 31 and a centralized staff with permanent personnel will be installed for the state of Louisiana.

Across the state, approximately 203 miles of shoreline are experiencing light to trace oil impacts and 88 miles are experiencing moderate to heavy oil impacts, according to the Joint Information Center release.

For the entire Gulf Coast, light oil impacts are taking place across 458 miles of shoreline, and the shorelines are experiencing moderate to heavy oil impacts across 98 miles.

Across the Gulf Coast, approximately 16,292 personnel are responding to protect the shoreline, wildlife and cleanup stemming from the BP oil spill, the release says.

Crews remove tarballs from Fourchon Beach. Despite great progress made in cleaning the Louisiana coastline following the BP oil spill, the task is not done and officials expect tarballs to wash ashore for at least another year. COURTESY PHOTO