http://www.nytimes.com
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
BAY JIMMY, La. — Eight months since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill began, the cleanup of the Gulf of Mexico goes on, with over 5,000 people and more than 300 boats still at work. Tar balls are still washing up on beaches. Visible sheen is still showing up in certain places in the wake of motorboats. Oil is being washed out of some areas, where it was buried, only to show up someplace else.
Billy Nungesser, left, president of Plaquemines Parish, expressing frustration Friday
to Cmdr. Dan Lauer of the Coast Guard over the oil spill cleanup.
Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
And so the debates among the responders go on as well, though perhaps not as publicly and fiercely as they once did.
On Friday, state and local officials ferried a group of reporters to this stretch of marshland, one of the hardest-hit areas on the Gulf Coast, and criticized BP and federal agencies for not mounting a sufficiently aggressive response operation.
It was the first such news conference in some time, though the parameters of the debate were not particularly new. Federal officials spoke of the need for testing, assessment and proper procedures to forestall unnecessary environmental damage in the cleanup, while state officials denounced what they saw as indifference and inaction in the face of the environmental damage that was already taking place.
“It has never been acceptable to leave oil this thick in the marsh,” said Todd Baker, a biologist program manager for the state’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, pointing to thick, glistening mats mixed with oil and vegetation slumping upward to the healthy marsh grasses. The longer this oil remains, Mr. Baker said, the more likely the healthy grasses will die and the underlying root system will suffocate, permanently damaging the marsh. Furthermore, he said, the exposed oil is a danger to birds — dozens of white pelicans were crowded onto a nearby island.
But Scott Zengel, a shoreline cleanup and assessment team coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that tests were still being done to devise cleanup methods that would not do more harm than good.
“It’s not that nothing has been done here,” he said, pointing out that everyone had agreed in October that the original cleanup method — vacuums — was no longer working. “Things have been tried, but you have to keep in mind that in marshes there are no easy answers.”
Some scientists, he said, thought the best course of action was to sit back and allow for natural recovery, as any aggressive treatment would lead to more erosion. But others disagreed, Mr. Zengel said, adding that he expected they would start attacking the oil here one way or another before springtime.
According to NOAA, there are few remaining areas like Bay Jimmy. Out of roughly 3,000 miles that have been scouted, there are 323 miles of Louisiana coastline where oil was seen as of the most recent survey. Of those, some 260 miles are in one of the various stages of the treatment process, though state officials say they are unhappy with the pace and rigorousness of that work in some areas.
In some places, oil may have been seen, but further treatment is deemed unnecessary at this time. (Follow-up surveys will be conducted of all of the oiled areas this spring.)
That leaves a little less than 10 miles like Bay Jimmy, a heavily oiled area that remains in limbo as possible cleanup methods are discussed — and whether to clean up at all is debated. But the visibly poor state of Bay Jimmy has made it a focal point of frustration for state and local officials.
This latest outcry was prompted by a suggestion several weeks ago that BP no longer manage the network of hazing cannons, noisemakers that scare birds and wildlife from oiled areas. The plan was to have state wildlife and fisheries officials take over.
While state officials have been fiercely critical of BP’s management of the cannons, they interpreted this new proposal as a sign that BP was shirking its responsibility, especially since seven dead pelicans were found with oil stains at Bay Jimmy last month.
Billy Nungesser, the pugnacious president of Plaquemine Parish who was an ever-present gadfly on CNN during the early months of the Gulf Coast oil spill, was particularly unhappy.
Mr. Nungesser has been relatively quiet recently; he had been staying off of the television as a gesture of good faith, he said to a Coast Guard commander who was along for the trip. But he was getting tired of being quiet.
And so, with a crowd of reporters watching, he told the commander to do something that cannot be printed here.
