Crews cleaning oil residue from Louisiana wetlands
“At some point, we will let Mother Nature do the work,” Zukunft said, adding the USCG and other federal officials are working with state officials to mutually determine when “there is no net environmental benefit” to continuing to clean marsh areas.
During a Sept. 29 teleconference, Zukunft said 588 miles of shoreline remained oiled and are being cleaned. This includes both marshes and beaches.
In Louisiana, one particular marsh cleanup crew involves 600 people, he said. Nine marsh areas continue to be cleaned, and they are all in Louisiana. Zukunft described a heavy, black “sticky residue in marsh grass.”
An Apr. 20 blowout of the deepwater Macondo well resulted in a fire and explosion on Transocean Ltd.’s Deepwater Horizon semisubmersible, killing 11 workers and resulting in a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. No oil has spilled since the installation of a capping stack on July 15. BP operated the well.
Labels: deepwater, Louisiana, Macondo well, marsh, offshore drilling, oil spill, US Coast Guard, wetlands