GRAND ISLE, La. — This seven-mile squiggle of homey rentals and streets with names such as Redfish and Speckled Trout had wrung hope for weeks from a single belief: Oil would land somewhere else.
But Friday, oil the color and consistency of brownie mix began tarnishing the shore of Grand Isle — a tourist town of 1,500 that sees thousands of weekend visitors.
The ooze — the first direct oil hit from the massive gulf oil spill on a populated, popular shoreline — deepened anxiety among those in Louisiana as the slick looms offshore with no containment in sight.
Suddenly, in Grand Isle, the oil disaster shifted from “out there” to “here.”
“This could kill Grand Isle for years to come,” said Mayor pro tem Jay LaFont.
With more black waves churning offshore, the town was forced to close its beach. So far, 40 miles of coastal Louisiana have been contaminated, but a change in wind or tides could hasten more damage.
In Plaquemines Parish, the mood in the past couple of days has been “very discouraging, extremely discouraging,” said Charles Collins, 68, a veteran crew boat captain who works out of Venice, La.
After weeks of residents’ waiting and watching the oil offshore, the slick invaded patches of marshlands this week.
“Once it gets in the marsh, it’s impossible to get out,” Collins said. “All your shrimp are born in the marsh. All your plankton. The marsh is like the beginning of life in the sea. And it’s in the marshes. Bad.”
Locals also have begun to worry about hurricane season, which begins June 1. How far could a big storm surge push the oil inland? “I don’t think in the United States of America people understand the magnitude of what this could do,” Collins said.
BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said during a Friday flight with Alabama Gov. Bob Riley that he didn’t see any oil near the Alabama, Mississippi or Florida coastlines.
But the oil hits this week have increased public outcry. Local officials in Louisiana lambasted BP for failing to deploy enough booms before the oil sloshed ashore.
We knew it was a matter of time,” said LaFont, a former Exxon employee. “We had nothing but time, and BP did nothing but waste it.”
Al Lewis Maybe BP stands for “bumbling professor.”
“Costner solution” eyed
LOS ANGELES — The “Kevin Costner solution” to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico might actually work.
Costner has invested about $24 million in a novel way of sifting oil spills that he began working on while making “Waterworld,” released in 1995.
BP and the U.S. Coast Guard plan to test six of his massive, stainless steel centrifugal oil separators next week.
Costner’s business partner, John Houghtaling, said Costner bought the technology, which was developed with help from the Department of Energy after the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, and turned it over to experts for fine-tuning.
“The machines . . . suck up oily water and spin it around at high speed,” Houghtaling said. “On one side, it spits out pure oil, which can be recovered. The other side spits out 99 percent pure water.”
He said 10 large machines could potentially clean 2 million gallons of oil water a day.Los Angeles Times
Developments
Mudbogged: It will be at least Tuesday before engineers can shoot mud into a blown-out well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. BP spokesman Tom Mueller said the company must get equipment in place for the so-called top kill. Crews will shoot heavy mud into a crippled piece of equipment atop the well, and engineers will direct cement at the well to permanently stop the oil.
Panel leaders picked: The White House has tapped former Florida Sen. Bob Graham and ex-EPA Administrator William K. Reilly to lead a presidential commission investigating the spill. The commission’s inquiry will range from the causes of the spill to the safety of offshore oil drilling and the functioning of government agencies that oversee drilling.
Not as much help: BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said Friday that a mile-long tube inserted into the leaking pipe is sucking about 92,400 gallons of oil a day to the surface, a figure much lower than the 210,000 gallons the company said the tube was sucking up Thursday.
The Associated Press
