The sunken and broken barge that sits in the Mississippi River, just below the Crescent City Connection(CCC) that links New Orleans with its westbank, "burped" 60 barrels of fuel oil early this morning, oil that has once again, polluted the river, drinking water, and threatened wildlife.
To complicate matters further, oil has been discovered in mud dredged at the mouth of the river.
Photos by freelance photographer Julie Dermansky, who has been following this spill from day one, exactly one week ago. These are photos of the lower coast of the Mississippi River, on its westbank, across from New Orleans, areas that cleanup crews haven't touched.
60 barrels of fuel oil is equal to 2,520 gallons, and, the barge continues to leak. There is now a containment boom around the barge, but unbelievably, there wasn't one there this morning when the barge began to leak anew. Therefore, hundreds of gallons re-polluted the shoreline of the river in New Orleans, to the Governor Nicholls Street Wharf, about 1/2 mile downriver.
When asked as to why there wasn't a containment boom around the barge, an American Lines Company rep, company that owns the barge, answered nearly unintelligibly. I honestly could not decipher his response.
Freelance photographer Julie Dermansky has been tracking this story from day one, about one week ago, and has documented the spill on her blog. She called me after the press conference.
"You should have come down to the lower coast on the river," she said. The lower coast is the westbank side of the Mississippi River, south of the CCC. "There are many more areas on the river not being cleaned, than being cleaned," she said.
The Coast Guard today bragged that there are now 2000 workers dealing with the spill, but this number includes support personnel for the workers that are actually doing the cleaning. There were only 500 workers the first few days, despite the enormity of the spill, nearly half a millions gallons of heavy fuel oil. By Monday there were 1200 workers, now today, 2000.
"We have the capacity, we have the capability, to deal with this spill," according to Captain Stroh with the Coast Guard at today 3pm press conference.
With this additional spill, river traffic stopped for six hours, but is now making its way very slowly to the port. Intake valves for drinking water were temporarily closed, but have now reopened. A Homeland Security representative at the press conference was more than vague as to the safety of the drinking water.
When asked by a reporter if the water was safe to drink, Tim Thomasson with Homeland Security said, "That really isn't my place to answer that. Each parish has its own plan, and I can't speak to the specifics of those plans. But we notified the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans of the additional spill, and offered arial and video footage of the spill so the risk assessment could be made."
According to the Coast Guard, here are the major companies doing cleanup work, although these companies have contracted out to many more smaller companies: E.S. and H., Clean Gulf, American Commercial Lines, Oil Mop (OMI), and U.S. Environmental Services. I haven't had a chance to do any research on these companies, but if anyone has info on them, please contact me.
From Julie Dermansky's blog:
Monday the number of clean up crews is 1200; Tuesday it will be up to 2000. 2000 workers to cover 100 miles of coast that each day gets new deposits of oil, some of which is being spread by the boats that are once again moving on the river- some from the tanker which may or may not still be leaking, that can be described as massive. Yet from day two of the spill the media was describing a massive clean up when a couple hundred workers were on the scene. A clear exaggeration. The amount of money changing hands post oil spill? Now that is massive. Deciding who gets the contracts and then the clean up companies getting set up, that has in fact taken a week.
There is a high probability of another oil spill when the barge is actually salvaged in a few days, according to Brian Lincoln with the Coast Guard salvage operation. Lincoln reported there was about 10,000 barrels of fuel oil (42 gallons per barrel) contained in the barge when it was split in two, and about one third of that, they believe, is still contained in the 3rd compartment that now rests on the bottom of the Mississippi River.
So the river continues to be at risk of an additional spill that could be the size of over 126,000 gallons of fuel oil. Paul Burk with American Commercial Lines said they have recovered 105,000 gallons of oil and water mixture, but would not give an estimate as to what percentage of that mixture is actually oil. "You know, you've been giving those numbers for a few days now," Julie said in response to his statement, "and you still can't estimate how much of that is actually oil?"
Down by the river at Cafe Dumond, on the Moon Walk, few tourists ventured near the water; the fumes were overwhelming. The tourists that did come quickly snapped pictures and left. One inebriated woman shouted at work crews in their boats who were dragging the big mops through the oil. "It still smells bad out here," she said, stating the obvious.
I saw a fish jump up out of the water, in the middle of the oil slick, and my heart broke again. Felt like I did when I saw video footage of egrets wading through the slick, looking for fish. As stewards of the planet and its ecosystems, we are failing miserably.
Yes, it is the unlicensed and irresponsible tug boat pilots, and the lack of regulations, and unenforced regulations. And it is also our unquenchable thirst for fossil fuels, and our failure to demand clean replacements yesterday, instead of a decade from now.
Our ecosystems are paying the price.