Catastrophe in the Gulf: How Bad Could It Get?

The ongoing oil spill is an environmental calamity like none the U.S. has ever faced. And it's not just residents of the vulnerable Gulf who will get hit by it. This time we're all going to feel the pain

  • Peter van Agtmael / Magnum for TIME

    (3 of 4)

    In some quarters, the tough-guy approach had the public relations impact the White House evidently hoped it would. "Hey, BP, Meet FBI," read the June 2 headline of the New York Daily News . Obama himself, of course, took a more measured approach. "We have an obligation to investigate what went wrong and to determine what reforms are needed so that we never have the experience of a crisis like this again," he said.

    Oil in the Wetland
    Whatever investigations are conducted and reforms enacted after the fact, the oil is going to continue to spill, damaging the Gulf and its coastline in ways scientists can't yet predict. Angelina Freeman knows just how precious the Louisiana wetlands are. A coastal scientist with the EDF now based in Washington, she did her graduate work at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge — she was actually supposed to be back in the state in May for graduation — and she had been involved in a program to help rebuild the region's wetlands, which have long been under threat from erosion and storms. But since the oil spill, Freeman has been cruising the bayous, taking water samples to send back to her professors. And she's been finding oil.

    On a recent trip to Pass a Loutre, an eroding patch of Louisiana wetlands just half an hour southeast of Venice, Freeman saw the stain of oil wrapping around the Roseau cane that grows on every patch of land in the marshes. The roots of the grasses looked as if they had been dipped in chocolate, and the shore boom around the islands — part of the nearly 380 miles (600 km) of containment boom that have been laid so far to protect the Gulf shoreline — seemed to be holding the oil in as much as keeping it out. "You can see how far the oil has come," Freeman says, filling a small sample bottle. "These marshes are incredibly important to Louisiana, and if the Roseau cane dies back, you're losing the base of the wetlands."

    By the end of May, those wetlands were under attack, though subtly at first. This wasn't the black tide seen after the Exxon Valdez spill, when crude coated the rocky beaches of Alaska's Prince William Sound. Rather, oil carried by the shifting ocean currents and winds would suddenly materialize in one section of marshland, only to vanish the next day, leaving responders, scientists and photographers alike chasing around the vast and intricate coastline, following up reports of oil strikes. But once oil penetrates the wetlands — a nursery and feeding ground for birds and marine species alike — it doesn't take much to have a serious impact. Imagine a sponge soaked in oil. Now imagine trying to get it out. The oil is "like coagulated Hershey's chocolate syrup," says Kraig Shook, a Florida native visiting Louisiana to peddle an oil-absorbent powder. "They can't let that stuff come in here."

    Especially not now. Late spring is the reproductive season for scores of species in and around the wetlands, and young animals are especially vulnerable to the toxic effects of oil. The marshes are vital to the life cycles of commercially viable species like shrimp. The plentiful birds of the wetlands — from natives like the brown pelicans seen skimming over the cane to migratory species like the sanderlings that use the wetlands as a vital rest and feeding stop — can encounter oil as they dive into the water for food. Even if a light sheen doesn't kill an adult, slicked birds can take oil back to the nest, destroying eggs or suffocating the young. The International Bird Rescue Research Center, a California-based outfit hired by BP to clean affected fowl, is already treating one to four pelicans a day, and it expects that number to rise considerably as the oil keeps flowing. Oiled birds that are found will most likely represent only a fraction of the number actually claimed by the crude. Most will die at sea or on the inaccessible reaches of the coastline. "Many of our worst fears are coming true," says Ken Rosenberg, director of conservation science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "No bird that depends on oil-impacted wetlands or water is going to be completely safe."

    BP, which has bungled so much since the crisis began, seems to understand how precious the marshes are — or at least how important it is to look as if it understands — and along with the Coast Guard, it has ramped up its efforts to protect and clean the coastline in recent days. While Freeman took samples near Pass a Loutre, nearly a dozen boats could be seen at work laying more boom and skimming oil from the water's surface. By the beginning of June, BP was bringing in "flotels" — essentially freight containers on large rafts converted to hold bunk beds — to serve as residences for the hundreds of cleanup workers it was hiring. But for some locals, that wasn't nearly enough. Led by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, they are calling for large-scale dredging operations that will create artificial barriers called sand berms, which could physically block the oil in the countless open channels off the Mississippi Delta. "The booms alone can't do the job in these really wide gaps," says P.J. Hahn, the coastal zone management director of Plaquemines Parish, which includes Venice. Berms, he says, "are the only way to capture the volume of oil that's coming this way effectively enough."

    But many scientists and members of the federal response team are skeptical that the $350 million berm plan will really work. They worry that rushing sand-berm construction without a full environmental assessment could do more harm than good. Decades of oil and gas exploration and digging new canals for navigation had steadily worn down the wetlands well before the Deepwater Horizon accident occurred. Even temporary berms could interfere with the natural tide flows of the delta — potentially wreaking havoc on wildlife that depend on a reliable tidal pattern — and possibly damage the integrity of natural barrier islands. Jindal sent the federal government a permit request to begin building more than 100 miles (160 km) of berms shortly after the spill began, but Washington hesitated to rubber-stamp his plan. "We're not averse to attempting this as a prototype," said Allen on May 27. But "there are a lot of doubts about whether this is a valid oil-spill-response plan."

    1. 1
    2. 2
    3. 3
    4. 4