La. ecological harm called unprecedented Spill cleanup could…

       La. ecological harm called
unprecedented
Spill cleanup could take years
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff | September 30, 2005

NEW ORLEANS -- The environmental damage from hurricanes Katrina and Rita is
unparalleled in its scope and variety, scientists say, with massive oil spills blanketing
marshes, sediment smothering vast fishing grounds, and millions of gallons of raw
sewage scattered in New Orleans and along the 400-mile Louisiana coast.

The catastrophe extends from the heart of the Big Easy, where streets, sidewalks, and
floors are coated with a thick mud mixed with human waste, to the fringe of protective
marshland, sugarcane fields, and citrus groves along the Gulf Coast that are beginning to
die from the sea's salty surge. Thousands of acres seem to have been swallowed forever
by the ocean.

''This is an unprecedented event in terms of devastation and scale," said Harry Roberts,
director of the Louisiana State University's Coastal Studies Institute. He says it will take
time to fully evaluate the storms' impact. ''It's not like a spill on a river or a beach; you
have small channels, canals, towns, levees. Everything here is complicated . . . and it's
not a simple environment to assess damage in."

The scope of the cleanup ahead is most evident when seen from a plane. In a three-hour
flight, a Globe reporter documented scores of examples of environmental damage from
New Orleans 60 miles south: A shrimp boat, one of more than 100 observed tossed on
roads and earthen levees, leaking a thin rainbow film of oil into the marsh. Two large
white oil-storage tanks, one partially crumpled like a soda can, leaning precariously over
the Mississippi River with remnants of its black goo smeared on a nearby beach.
Boxcars, barges, and car ferries -- their contents oozing -- piled in canals and along the
riverbank. Acres of marsh grass, beaten down by 100-mile-per-hour-plus winds and
poisoned by salt water, turning brown.

Nature is resilient, and most scientists agree that the Louisiana coast will recover, as it
has after past hurricanes. Oil will evaporate, toxic compounds will be diluted, and fish
will return. But it could take several years or longer, and by then fishermen, hunters, and
farmers could be ruined, as duck hunting falls off because of the loss of wetlands,
crawfish farms fail because of saltwater in ponds, and high salinity in the soil turns rice
and cane fields barren. Finding new uses for the land could take years.

''It will always come back to some stable system; we'll have shrimp and oysters again . . .
but the shock effect of the change and recovery time could be great," said Paul Coreil,
vice chancellor for the Louisiana State University Agriculture Center.

The most immediate concern is more than 8 million gallons of spilled oil in Louisiana --
a total that could grow significantly in coming days as Coast Guard officials continue to
survey the spills. Just one Murphy Oil Corp. tank spilled 1.5 million gallons that mixed
with sea water and washed into marshes, canals, sewers, and swimming pools over a
square mile of the community of Chalmette, southeast of New Orleans. The Exxon
Valdez -- until now considered the nation's worst environmental disaster -- poured 11
million gallons of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989.

Despite the bigger volume, the Valdez spill was easier to deal with, cleanup and
environmental officials say, because it came from a single source and largely stayed in
one place. In Louisiana, oil has been found seeping from pipes, tanks, and other
containers at more than 48 locations. Floodwaters allowed some of it to mix with the
contents of underground gas storage tanks and the hazardous contents of thousands of
homes and schools, including asbestos, paint thinner, and bleach, complicating the
cleanup.

Near the oil spill in Chalmette, a thick sludge coats a cul-de-sac and the tread marks of
cars that tried to escape its clutches are visible from 1,500 feet in the air. Katrina's storm
surge picked up the Murphy Oil tank and pushed it 30 feet, buckling it and opening a
leak. The neighborhood resembles a war zone from Katrina, with roofs blown off and
sheds resting on their sides. Through it all, the sheen of oil snakes into canals and a
marsh. Federal officials have classified the neighborhood as a ''hot zone" -- making it
off-limits as they try to scrub oil from sewage pipes and mailboxes, and decide whether
the neighborhood is salvageable.

So far, cleanup workers have siphoned or removed more than 2.5 million gallons of oil
from marshes, canals, and land that spilled in the biggest leaks. Most of the oil, however,
has evaporated or was carried out to the Gulf on Katrina's and Rita's retreating storm
surge where it was broken up and diluted, and will eventually biodegrade. Given the
circumstances, cleanup officials say, it was far better for the oil to go to sea than to get
caught in sensitive marshland.

''It could have been much worse," said Charlie Henry, lead scientific adviser for the
Katrina and Rita response for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Office of Response and Restoration. Fewer than 100 birds have been recovered with oil
on them, according to a US Fish and Wildlife official, but assessments are not complete.

One-hundred forty oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were damaged by Katrina
-- 43 severely, including some that floated away or sank. While oily sheens were
reported in the Gulf after Katrina, the amount of oil from platforms and pipelines
appears to be negligible, federal officials say. While rigs and pipelines have been
reported damaged during Rita -- and some small amounts of oil spills -- no final numbers
exist yet.

Many Louisiana fisheries, which produce 15 percent of US seafood and 50 percent of the
nation's oysters, are believed to be devastated. Katrina dumped a thick layer of sediment
east of the Mississippi Delta that probably smothered oyster beds, and Rita did the same
in the western part of the state. Brown and white shrimp that spawn offshore and move
inland to live in marshes have had much of their habitat destroyed. Officials say they
believe the worst is yet to come: Decaying organic matter that is being stirred up or
washed into lakes and the Gulf will probably cause oxygen levels in the water to drop,
killing off fish.

In New Orleans, the mess could take years to scrub clean. Federal and state teams are
fanning out across the city, looking to identify and plug up thousands of ''orphan" 55-
gallon drums and barrels that floated out of industrial facilities. The barrels, many with
labels peeled off by wind and weather, litter banks of canals and warehouse sites.
Worries about breathing in particles released from the muck on the streets eased with
Rita's dousing, but as a dry-out occurs, federal officials are sampling air again while
residents complain of coughing. More than 22 million tons of debris will have to be
disposed of and workers are combing through streets trying to separate hazardous waste
from regular debris.

''I'm a glass-is-half-full kind of person, and there is significant environmental impact,"
said Coast Guard Captain Frank Paskewich, the commander of the New Orleans District
who is overseeing the oil spill cleanup. But he said many of the polluted areas have been
contained, making them easier to scrub clean. ''I am optimistic we are going to mitigate
it."

Beth Daley can be reached by e-mail at bdaley@globe.com

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