A month ago I griped about Gov. Bobby Jindal’s preternatural luck. Louisiana’s “part time governor,” as I called him, had radically scaled down his dubious sand-berm idea without any negative political fallout. All summer Jindal had touted the berms as being key to winning the “war” against oil in the Gulf. Then he retreated, scaling down the plan, and neither the media nor the public turned on him.

Well, perhaps I griped to soon.

A surprising number of high-profile stories have appeared in recent weeks looking at the issue. On Oct. 6, The Times-Picayune ran a front-page story titled “Sandy oil barriers have work to do, state says. But plan to build all 101 miles of berms postponed.”

Construction of sand berms along 40 miles of Louisiana Gulf Coast barrier islands needs to continue because oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout continues to threaten interior wetlands… Louisiana officials told the Army Corps of Engineers on Monday.

However, the state also has put off plans to build the rest of the 101 miles of barriers for which it had been seeking a permanent permit from the corps.

Echoing Len Bahr at LA Coast Post blog, I’d been saying that Jindal’s abandonment of the original berm plan was a big story. So it was great to see the local paper follow up along those lines. However, I was caught off guard when the T-P claimed that 40 miles of berm were being constructed, rather than the 14 to 25 miles I estimated.

A few days after their news article, the T-P’s letters section reprinted the photo of heavy equipment being flooded on an eroded sand berm. The berm story was gathering momentum.

On Oct. 12 the Wall Street Journal reported that the Jindal administration was unhappy with its contractor.

State officials are criticizing contractor Shaw Group Inc. and its subcontractors for not moving fast enough on the 40-mile berm project. The about $360 million bill is being paid by BP PLC, the owner of the well that caused the Gulf oil spill.

Shaw and its contractors “haven’t delivered what they promised,” Garret Graves, chairman of Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said in an interview.
…
Louisiana officials say the berms have blocked at least several hundred barrels of oil and that they still are needed to protect the coast from oil that many scientists say remains under the Gulf’s surface. If the project had moved along faster, it “could have put us in a different posture than we’re in today,” said Mr. Graves.

This was the first time I’d seen the Jindal administration complain about the pace of berm construction. And I was intrigued to see them release an estimate of “several hundred barrels of oil” being blocked by the berms. That’s such an embarrassingly small total, given the high price of the project. If you’re scoring at home (or even if you’re alone) that comes to roughly $1 million per barrel of oil blocked.

Then, last Thursday The New York Times got into the act:

Since early June, a series of low-lying islands stretching about 10 miles have been constructed several miles from the coastline by hundreds of workers with sand dredged from gulf waters.

Gov. Bobby Jindal made the sand berms a signature element of his response to the oil spill last spring, exhorting federal officials to approve the project, and BP to foot the bill. So far the oil company has disbursed $240 million of a promised $360 million to the state.

Yet many scientists say the remaining oil from the spill, the largest in United States history, is far too dispersed to be blocked or captured by large sand structures.
…
So far, the berms have captured only 1,000 barrels of oil, according to official estimates, compared with the nearly five million barrels believed to have spewed from the BP well over all. By contrast, more than 800,000 barrels of oil were captured by BP at the wellhead, and roughly 270,000 barrels of oil were burned off by Coast Guard vessels offshore. Skimming operations, meanwhile, recovered at least 34 million gallons of oil-water mixture.

While the numerical comparisons in that last paragraph add useful perspective, I’m very skeptical of the 1,000 barrel figure. I just don’t buy that the constructed berms have soaked up that much oil. But even if they have, it’s still not a “major” amount according to Jindal, who dismissed the 17,000 barrels of oil and condensate spilled into the Gulf after Hurricane Katrina. Here are even more gems from the NYT article, along with a few comments:

Yet even as some foes deride the project as “Jindal’s folly,” state officials champion the effort, arguing that they must do everything in their power to keep residual oil at bay.

Actually I haven’t heard “Jindal’s folly” yet, but I am starting to hear “bermdoggle,” which is pretty clever.

Some political analysts in Louisiana suggest that abandoning the berm project far short of completion could mar the public’s largely positive perception of Mr. Jindal’s handling of the spill, which raised his profile both locally and nationally.

Heaven forfend we mar the public’s perception of our wonderboy governor! By all means, let’s keep spending hundreds of millions on dubious berms that barely collect any oil.

“I don’t see a downside to continuing to do this,” Mr. Graves said. “Maybe we’re being too protective of our coast. O.K., accuse me. I don’t have a problem with that.”

That’s pretty cute framing: If these environmentalists and scientists want to fault us for loving the coast too much, then we’ll just have to bear that burden. Hell, I wish this issue were about protecting the coast, because I’d be on Graves and Jindal’s side. They deserve credit for their commitment to coastal restoration. Unfortunately, though, these berms aren’t about protection. They’re mostly about the governor’s pride. Instead of throwing good money after bad like we’re doing now, we should channel the remaining millions into more effective coastal projects.

Some scientists and federal officials suggest that the remaining money allocated for the berms might be better spent on other coastal restoration projects, a move that BP says it would support. The money could be spent, they say, on barrier island restoration, for example, in which dredged sand is used to bolster existing islands, mimicking natural processes.

Let’s get started! Oh wait, we can’t divert the money because it might tarnish Jindal’s precious reputation.  Bummer.

The NYT article concludes:

As the project evolved, the state radically altered its original proposal, allowing for large gaps between the berm segments and easing concerns that the estuaries would be harmed. These alterations will also allow the project to come in close to its original $360 million budget, state officials say, but will mean that only 22 miles of berms will be built — not the 40 originally envisaged.

The numbers keep changing – downwards. In June the NYT reported Jindal’s original berm plan, which was “intentionally vague” at the outset, stretched 140 miles. The LA Times reported 128 miles. The state actually requested permits for over 100 miles of berms, and the Coast Guard approved 40 miles worth. Then, as the LSU Daily Reveille first reported, the state suddenly said it was going to “focus” on six berms totaling 14 miles, and wouldn’t seek permits beyond 40 miles. I stated that the project had been reduced to between “14 and 25 miles of protection,” and the T-P and WSJ confirmed the scope of the berm plans were now, at most, 40 miles of berm. Now the NYT says only 22 miles of berm will be built, which fits into my earlier estimate.

Interestingly, the berm story coincides with two other political stories about Jindal. The first involves his frequent out-of-state trips to stump for Republican candidates. The other involves Louisianans concerns about mid-year budget cuts to higher education and health care. In an inspired maneuver, LSU Student Government President J. Hudson creatively combined the two issues by sending a letter to Jindal telling him to focus on Louisiana’s budgetary problems… while Jindal was campaigning up in New Hampshire for other candidates. The gambit worked. A New Hampshire newspaper printed Hudson’s plea to Jindal to come back and focus on his home state. The story received considerable notice, and embarrassed the governor.

I think between Jindal’s absenteeism, his expensive bermdoggle, and ever-larger cuts to education and health care, we have the makings of a volatile political situation. If these elements were weaved into a political argument, I think someone could generate serious political traction.

Granted, Jindal has weathered some political firestorms. In 2008 he had to dodge actual recall campaigns because Louisianans were so angry about his (short-lived) refusal to veto the Legislature’s pay raise bill. Then in 2009 Jindal famously botched his Republican live rebuttal to President Obama on national TV. In his speech, he decried “wasteful spending,” and cited a $14 million program for volcano monitoring in Alaska to prove his point. (Whereas down in thrifty Louisiana, where we understand the value of a dollar, you can get almost a mile long temporary sand berm for $14 million!)

Nonetheless Jindal shouldn’t ignore the political volcano rumbling beneath him. The berm/budget comparisons are just too easy: 22 miles of berms cost $360 million; higher education has been cut by over $300 million since 2008, and will be cut by another $300 million next year. Yes, BP’s money underwrote the berms, but that’s no excuse to waste it.

I think little more needs to happen for these various issues to combine in the public mind, and achieve critical mass. And if Jindal keeps adding hubris to the mix, all bets are off:

“We don’t need whining, we don’t need complaining. We need leaders to provide vision. We need leaders to provide specific plans on how we can do a better job delivering more services for our people right here in Louisiana,” said Jindal.

But one leader not coming up with a specific plan is Jindal himself, according to WWL political analyst Clancy Dubos.

“He’s not coming up with any real solutions. He’s just telling colleges come up with another plan,” said DuBos.

So let’s review:

• * after complaining all summer about how the feds impaired his berm idea, Jindal won’t listen to students complain about how budget cuts will impair their education.
• * Jindal rails against the wasteful spending of other politicians, and then doubles down on a wasteful “bermdoggle” out of political pride.
• * Instead of demanding the Shaw Group to “do more with less,” Jindal tells educators to do more with less.
• * And instead of providing visionary leadership and specific budget plans, Jindal flies in from New Hampshire to tell Louisiana’s whiners  that they must… wait for it… find visionary leaders with specific budget plans.

Governing magazine has a cover story titled “Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s Evolving Leadership.” (Apparently, for Jindal, evolution is a component of leadership more than a component of science.) The piece describes Jindal’s style as “hands-on in responding to disaster, hands-off in making policy.”

“I thought when we elected him that we were getting a policy wonk,” says [ULL Political Science Professor Pearson] Cross. “Completely not.” Instead, Cross says, Jindal has focused on articulating broad conservative principles. “No one ever sees him as failing,” he adds, “because he’s committed to principles,” not specific programs.
…
Meanwhile, Louisiana’s fiscal future looks grim. “We are probably looking at a $2 billion revenue shortfall next year,” says Edward Ashworth, director of the Louisiana Budget Project. “We’ve used the rainy-day fund; that’s gone. We’ve tapped into all these other dedicated funds. We are down to the lick log. What do you do now?”

Precisely. Jindal’s principled, “hands off” approach won’t work next year. As higher education gets chopped and expensive berms wash away, voters won’t tolerate Jindal promoting his new book about the conservative “principles” that will “rescue” the rest of the nation.

In short, I believe Jindal’s short-term political future is considerably more problematic than the conventional wisdom thinks. He’s in a sticky situation; far stickier than his sand berms will ever get.

While the resurgent berm issue might not be the spark that sets off the firestorm, it certainly adds kindling to the pile. One day soon this pile will combust. There is no way that Jindal can maintain his careerist absenteeism and his budgetary Pontius Pilate-ism next year – an election year. It just won’t wash. He’ll have to dirty his hands and own the spending cuts. He’ll have to lick the log.

I doubt these political dynamics have gone unnoticed by a pro such as political analyst James Carville. He understands timing, and sees political opportunities before they become conventional wisdom. While I’m sure his recent effort in defense of LSU is sincere, I’m also not ignoring the fact that it lays useful political groundwork. Since Carville has experience advising successful campaigns that seem to come out of nowhere and removing (once highly popular) governors and presidents, I’m wondering if he has ideas for next year. Perhaps he’s reconsidered his long-held resistance to being a candidate.

It’s not a pipe dream, if he believes Jindal’s high approval numbers are hollower than people think. Two and a half years ago, I scoffed at the idea that “bad boy” Sen. David Vitter might one day have the last laugh over wunderkind Jindal. Today, that thought strikes me as being more prescient than ludicrous.

===
Final note: A previous post criticized Jindal’s hasty “freshwater flow” decision, which resulted in killing oyster beds. This letter from two members of Louisiana Wildlife Federation Baton Rouges points out the positive effects of the freshwater release, which nourished coastal ecosystems.

Beyond compensating the people of the Gulf in the short term, it’s also clear we need a long-term plan to restore the unique beauty and bounty of this region. The oil spill represents just the latest blow to a place that’s already suffered multiple economic disasters and decades of environmental degradation that has led to disappearing wetlands and habitats. And the region still hasn’t recovered from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. That’s why we must make a commitment to the Gulf Coast that goes beyond responding to the crisis of the moment.

I make that commitment tonight. Earlier, I asked Ray Mabus, the Secretary of the Navy, who is also a former governor of Mississippi and a son of the Gulf Coast, to develop a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan as soon as possible. The plan will be designed by states, local communities, tribes, fishermen, businesses, conservationists and other Gulf residents.

Now, precisely what does Obama expect Mabus to accomplish? It’s unclear. He asked him to develop a coordinated plan, but the Obama administration already was  in the process of developing a coordinated, long-term vision for the coast with its Road Map for Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration. The idea, I hope, is for Mabus to accelerate the existing effort.

We can’t afford the time it would take him to start over.

Mabus

We don’t have years to wait for a redundant study that will yield another “decision matrix” to assess the goals we must agree upon before the scientists can do their research to compile the data that will support the coastal proposals that will require authorized funding before shovels can finally hit the mud. We know wetlands restoration is a complex issue that will take decades to achieve. But we already have an important framework in place, and many scientific studies are nearing completion.

There are other reasons for concern. Environmentalists fret that even if Mabus has the right mindset, he won’t be able to devote his full-time attention to the enormous task of coastal restoration. His time is finite: won’t he privilege naval issues over wetlands issues? Perhaps Mabus will need to unleash the no-holds-barred creativity he has displayed in the past to simultaneously handle his present responsibilities.

Taking the larger view, I think Louisianans are fortunate to have a president – who many regard as anti-Louisiana due to the drilling moratorium –  who is willing to take on the massively expensive issue of coastal restoration during an oil gusher disaster, two wars, a Great Recession, and a soaring deficit. This was an optional move for Obama. It would’ve been much easier to simply kick the coastal can down the road, like  his predecessors have done. Instead, he made a potentially historic commitment to restore Louisiana’s Coast.

True, it’s only a verbal commitment. Obama must act in concert with his rhetoric, and Mabus must treat coastal restoration as a crucially important mission. Otherwise, this will simply be a re-enactment of the cruel post-flood dance by President George W. Bush and “recovery czar” Donald Powell – who spent years avoiding any commitment to Category 5 flood protection for New Orleans.
Obama’s Road Map lists scientific studies scheduled for completion in the next 18 months that will help determine restoration goals. Obama and Mabus will not be able to run the clock out with studies as the Bush administration did regarding Category 5 flood protection after Katrina and the Federal Flood. They either can cop out by starting over, keep their promise, or break it.

Obama will have no way to positively spin things if he fails to make substantive moves toward coastal restoration during his first term.

Some of my blogging  colleagues are understandably skeptical about  Obama’s commitment to the coast. For example, Tim writes a post at his “Nameless” blog titled “Prove Me Wrong.” He admits that he is cynical about presidential rhetoric after Bush’s broken promises.  Tim challenges Obama to surprise him:

President Obama, prove me wrong. Show us that your words are not simply more campaign rhetoric. Make me take my words back and write a blog about how you turned out to be a man of your word. Because I’ll do it– I’ll gladly eat crow online for all the world to see.

The next move is yours, Mr. President.

In light of recent history, cynicism in South Louisiana is justified. It’s certainly the safe play for our fragile psyches. If we sit back and expect nothing, there’s no chance of high hopes getting dashed.

But, is this really the best time to adopt such a darkened, unhelpful posture? The national attention from the oil gusher allowed Obama an opportunity to fast-track coastal restoration before it becomes cost prohibitive –  and he seems to be taking it! In short, the Obama administration –  with its Road Map, its Oval Office promises, and its appointment of Mabus –  offers Louisiana perhaps its last, best chance to begin the process of coastal restoration. So is now the moment to sit back with a cranky “prove me wrong, I’ll believe it when I see it” posture?

I think not. Given the dire long-term circumstances, the risk of being fooled (again) pales in comparison to the benefits of assisting the effort to save the coast.  Sure, it requires a leap. There are no guarantees, and recent history offers us no reason for euphoric cheerleading or giddy chicken-counting. Certainly nothing beyond vigilant optimism is advisable. Much can go wrong. But, how many alternatives do we have at this point? If we all become merely passive cynics and are proven “right”– guess what, South Louisiana is still doomed! How comforting will that be? Healthy skepticism is fine, but we cautiously can assume the president is sincere  while pressuring him to keep his promise to save the coast that nourishes our culture and way of life. This isn’t a ridiculous, far-flung pipe dream. Things seem to be coming together more than they ever have before. The president is verbally committed, a preliminary plan is in place, and Mabus is tasked with getting it done quickly. Will we assist this initial effort with sharp eyes, ready hands and a hopeful heart, or will we sit back and leave the onus on everyone else?

Our coastal situation is desperate, and this looks like our best chance to do something. And truly, how satisfying will it be to whip out the “I told you so” card in a few decades, when we’re dining on foreign shrimp at an Applebee’s in Baton Rouge?

Based on past experience, the smart money is on the “under” side of the over-under bet when it comes to the president keeping his commitments to post-disaster Louisiana. While President Bush’s famous 2005 speech in Jackson Square included several rhetorical flourishes and grandiose-sounding promises, the follow-through was, shall we say, sub-optimal. Remember Project Pelican? The Baker Bill?  The far-flung hope for Category 5 flood protection and wetlands restoration? Much less the “bold action” promised to confront the “persistent poverty” of the region? All those proposals to rebuild the region died on the vine, some quicker than others.

In the end, New Orleans had to fight for weak Category 3 levees, a dreadfully slow housing bailout, insufficient long-term recovery investment money, and oil royalties to pay to rebuild Louisiana’s vanishing coast that don’t really begin flowing until 2017. Thus, despite hearing presidents repeatedly use the term “unprecedented” to describe recent Gulf Coast disasters, we’ve been in this situation before.

The White House gave the media a list of five points that Obama will cover tonight. They are:

1. Reorganization at the Department of Interior in what was once MMS and mission of the Oil Commission to ensure a regulatory structure for safe energy exploration.

2. Discuss containment strategy for capturing as much of or all the oil leaking in the Gulf

3. The BP claims process and what’s being done to make it fast, efficient and transparent and to ensure its independence from BP.

4. The beginning of a process to restore the Gulf to a place better than it was before the Deepwater Horizon exploded.

5. Talk about what we must do to decrease our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels.

6. Appoint Hooters hostess Mandy J. to be the new “Boom Boom” Czar.

Since No. 5 entails the outlines of a new national energy vision, it will capture most of the national headlines and cable TV discussions. Meanwhile, The Times-Picayune editors are transfixed by what Obama will say about the six-month oil-drilling moratorium, hoping he’ll shorten it and provide restitution for the affected.

What I’m interested is point four, as it echoes the unkept promises Bush made to address problems that festered in the region prior to the disaster. Standing in front of a church in a mostly drowned city, Bush decided that he would not only commit to restoring New Orleans, but would tackle poverty, as well. (That didn’t last long.) Now, despite a fiscal straitjacket, Obama is somehow daring to say he will begin the process of making the Gulf “better” than it was before the toxic Macondo gusher began to spew? It seems like another laughable overpromise in the making. The effects of this disaster may last for generations, and it’s no exaggeration to say that an entire “way of life” is threatened. Oil will continue to flow well into August. How can Obama tell Louisianans living along the fastest disappearing land-mass in the world that someday things will be “better” than they were “before” this toxic calamity?

The only plausible way Obama can seriously make this “better” claim is if he has a plan for accelerated wetlands restoration. Nothing else makes sense, in my view. Prioritizing coastal restoration would be sufficiently “bold” enough for me, and would address the long-term crisis that will haunt Louisiana even after this oil spill is cleaned.  Jeffrey at Library Chronicles isn’t holding his breath, but he points to a tantalizing CNN interview with former Tulane professor Douglas Brinkley, who baldly asserts that this speech marks an historical “turning point” because Obama will announce a Gulf Coast Recovery Act that will restore the wetlands the oil industry (among others) have “abused” over the years.

Bold, indeed. Tonight, the President might make one of the most important speeches in Louisiana history. Might, I said. It’s a long shot based on little more than Brinkley’s statement and on the wording of the White House’s media bullet points. Sadly, the smart money is on more of the same tonight: fancy promises to a stricken region that will ultimately go largely unkept.

One of my sources said that Obama will order BP to drill perhaps two more relief wells in addition to the two that are already going, in order to lessen the chance of prolonged failure to stop the gusher. Relief wells are a complicated business, and things can still go wrong. They are drilling far into the ground, trying to hit an area the size of a basketball. Assuming the integrity of the well hole is intact, gulp, there’s a high probability of success, 95 percent or better.  But it doesn’t hurt to increase redundancies in order to plug the damn thing as soon as possible.

Speaking of basketball, though, the president’s speech will not interrupt coverage of Game 6 of the NBA finals, which might boast as many viewers as the USA-England futbol match. While I’m partial to the Celtics, if Obama makes an iron-clad commitment to restore the wetlands tonight, I’ll forget to care whether or not they beat the hated Lakers. In other words, I’m betting on the long shot, and should probably prepare myself for eventual disappointment.

Landrieu

The Lens contacted Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office recently to discuss her role in the oil spill response. In an interview with Tom Michaels, the senator’s legislative director, and Aaron Saunders, her communications director, we discussed campaign contributions from BP and from the maker of the dispersants and whether drilling for oil continues to be a worthy domestic prospect for the future.

The Lens: What role has Sen. Landrieu played in the decision of what kind of dispersant to use on the oil?m

Tom Michaels: None. That decision is up to the EPA and the on-scene coordinator.
The Lens: In 2008, dispersant-maker Nalco contributed $3,000 to Sen. Landrieu’s campaign. Given that investment in a Louisiana Congress member, does that compromise the decision to prefer it over other brands.

Aaron Saunders: We don’t do anything with campaigns or contributions out of this office.

Michaels: I’ll just say this — the same as with BP — campaign contributions have absolutely zero effects on the policy agenda of the senator as it relates to the spill or generally. A lot of crap comes up about this issue and it gets under my skin. Sen. Landrieu has been a supporter of the oil and gas industries not because she is in love with oil or because she’s getting campaign contributions but because it employs 13.4 percent of people in Louisiana. . If you want to look at campaign contributions I think you have to look at the whole story. Some of the people who gave money to Sen. Landrieu are trial lawyers who will be suing the pants off many of these companies involved in the spill.

The Lens: Does Sen. Landrieu support offshort drilling as a permanent part of the nation’s energy policy future, or as a temporary bridge to renewable, carbon-neutral sources?

Michaels: She absolutely believes that it’s a bridge to future renewable energy sources. These groups that are calling for us to stop drilling, though, they are immoral and they are doing more at abandoning the environment than the oil companies. Stopping domestic oil production doesn’t do anything to reduce our consumption of oil. This entire country and world consumes oil. If we don’t get it here we will get it from somewhere else. And those other places will have more lax regulatory standards, and will lack the will and resources to deal with their ecosystems.

Saunders: A lot of offshore drilling is for exploration of natural gas and a huge swath of people believe that this can be a bridge to take us away from fossil fuels. The Lens: Do you believe that environmental groups are framing it as a black-and-white issue, where oil is evil and renewable is perfect?

Michaels: Yes, I couldn’t agree with that more, and I think the senator would agree as well. The way she came to be involved with the oil and gas industries, she saw it as a revenue source to fund the revitalization of the coast and wetlands. Throughout that time she has come to learn more about the industry. She respects them as people providing a commodity that people need, but I don’t think she thinks they are heroes, or better or worse than any other company.

Saunders: We are working with the conservation groups. In fact, in the last two weeks we’ve introduced the revenue sharing bill so that a fair share of revenue from the oil and gas industries is diverted back to Louisiana. A whole sweep of conservation groups  endorsed this plan and the sharing of revenue so we are working with these groups, and so it’s not a black and white issue, and those who call it a black and white issue are on the fringe here.

The Lens: Have you considered the irony that for the state’s coastal restoration, you are asking for revenue from the very industries that are right now destroying the coast?

Michaels: I think that is why it should come from them. I I think again you would still have tankers coming up to the LOOP (Louisiana Offshore Oil Port) and to New Orleans and that would also place the wetlands at risk, just as much as offshore drilling would. So the middle ground is that we will continue drilling and also keep tightening the knot on regulation, but accidents will happen again I’m sure. In the meantime, you will pay to invest in the communities that bear the risk and will be most heavily impacted.

Saunders: That is precisely the argument that Senator Landrieu is making. This has definitely been exacerbated by the oil spill, but this is not the result of the oil spill.

Michaels: You take from nature, you have to give back to nature. But this has been a century of mismanagement, of the oil and gas pipelines and everything else. This is an ecological disaster that has been unfolding for a hundred years. This is just the latest squirt of lemon juice into the wound.

Landrieu

The Lens contacted Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office recently to discuss her role in the oil spill response. In an interview with Tom Michaels, the senator’s legislative director, and Aaron Saunders, her communications director, we discussed campaign contributions from BP and from the maker of the dispersants and whether drilling for oil continues to be a worthy domestic prospect for the future.

The Lens: What role has Sen. Landrieu played in the decision of what kind of dispersant to use on the oil?m

Tom Michaels: None. That decision is up to the EPA and the on-scene coordinator.
The Lens: In 2008, dispersant-maker Nalco contributed $3,000 to Sen. Landrieu’s campaign. Given that investment in a Louisiana Congress member, does that compromise the decision to prefer it over other brands.

Aaron Saunders: We don’t do anything with campaigns or contributions out of this office.

Michaels: I’ll just say this — the same as with BP — campaign contributions have absolutely zero effects on the policy agenda of the senator as it relates to the spill or generally. A lot of crap comes up about this issue and it gets under my skin. Sen. Landrieu has been a supporter of the oil and gas industries not because she is in love with oil or because she’s getting campaign contributions but because it employs 13.4 percent of people in Louisiana. . If you want to look at campaign contributions I think you have to look at the whole story. Some of the people who gave money to Sen. Landrieu are trial lawyers who will be suing the pants off many of these companies involved in the spill.

The Lens: Does Sen. Landrieu support offshort drilling as a permanent part of the nation’s energy policy future, or as a temporary bridge to renewable, carbon-neutral sources?

Michaels: She absolutely believes that it’s a bridge to future renewable energy sources. These groups that are calling for us to stop drilling, though, they are immoral and they are doing more at abandoning the environment than the oil companies. Stopping domestic oil production doesn’t do anything to reduce our consumption of oil. This entire country and world consumes oil. If we don’t get it here we will get it from somewhere else. And those other places will have more lax regulatory standards, and will lack the will and resources to deal with their ecosystems.

Saunders: A lot of offshore drilling is for exploration of natural gas and a huge swath of people believe that this can be a bridge to take us away from fossil fuels. The Lens: Do you believe that environmental groups are framing it as a black-and-white issue, where oil is evil and renewable is perfect?

Michaels: Yes, I couldn’t agree with that more, and I think the senator would agree as well. The way she came to be involved with the oil and gas industries, she saw it as a revenue source to fund the revitalization of the coast and wetlands. Throughout that time she has come to learn more about the industry. She respects them as people providing a commodity that people need, but I don’t think she thinks they are heroes, or better or worse than any other company.

Saunders: We are working with the conservation groups. In fact, in the last two weeks we’ve introduced the revenue sharing bill so that a fair share of revenue from the oil and gas industries is diverted back to Louisiana. A whole sweep of conservation groups  endorsed this plan and the sharing of revenue so we are working with these groups, and so it’s not a black and white issue, and those who call it a black and white issue are on the fringe here.

The Lens: Have you considered the irony that for the state’s coastal restoration, you are asking for revenue from the very industries that are right now destroying the coast?

Michaels: I think that is why it should come from them. I I think again you would still have tankers coming up to the LOOP (Louisiana Offshore Oil Port) and to New Orleans and that would also place the wetlands at risk, just as much as offshore drilling would. So the middle ground is that we will continue drilling and also keep tightening the knot on regulation, but accidents will happen again I’m sure. In the meantime, you will pay to invest in the communities that bear the risk and will be most heavily impacted.

Saunders: That is precisely the argument that Senator Landrieu is making. This has definitely been exacerbated by the oil spill, but this is not the result of the oil spill.

Michaels: You take from nature, you have to give back to nature. But this has been a century of mismanagement, of the oil and gas pipelines and everything else. This is an ecological disaster that has been unfolding for a hundred years. This is just the latest squirt of lemon juice into the wound.

After a while, Morris would sometimes complain about the popularity of his FYYFF rant. He noted that during his career he had made presentations to NATO, worked for NASA, and advocated for New Orleans in national media, yet he would always be known for a coarse, spur-of-the-moment rant on his personal blog.

Anyone who met Morris quickly learned that he wasn’t merely a simmering volcano of FYYFF frustration waiting to blow. He was a polymath with a sense of humor. He loved New Orleans: the music, the parades, the food, the football team… But even after his untimely passing in 2008, Morris’s FYYFF rant continued to inspire. FYYFF T-shirts were printed celebrating Morris’s life. At the end of the Rising Tide IV blogger conference, attendees stood up and yelled “F-ck you, you f-cking f-cks” in unison.  In episode 4 of HBO’s “Treme” series, professor Creighton Bernette’s character (who is partially based on Morris) made an FYYFF-inspired Youtube rant, which is shown as a rallying cry for the city.

Now, as frustrations about the oil gusher have boiled over, many local bloggers have adopted the celebrated FYYFF template to express their frustrations about the disaster. For example:

On May 19, M. Styborski at the Humid City blog penned FYYFF, the oily version. Styborski apologized to “to Ashley Morris, the Morris family and the blogging community for hijacking FYYFF” but explained that “it seems like it’s the only appropriate response to the morons who are destroying our coast, our people and our state.”

Dambala at American Zombie suggested that Mayor Mitch Landrieu use the phrase as a terse response to Chris Myers’ disparaging comments towards New Orleans.

Slimbolala even interrupted his “family blog” to do a curse-filled FYYFF-style rant.

On May 21, the conservative blog The Hayride even got into the act. While discussing the tone of a letter sent to the president by Louisiana’s junior senator, macaoidh wrote that “Vitter isn’t quite Ashley Morris yet, but he’s getting there. So are we on this blog.”

Since The Hayride has extolled and chronicled BP’s response efforts to the extent that they had to defend themselves from charges of being “shills” for Big Oil, and since The Hayride has previously downplayed the “oversold disastrous effects” and environmental “alarmism” about the spill, and since they recently wondered whether the spill wouldn’t be “good” for the state’s economy… I’m tempted to respond to their invocation of Morris with a retort worthy of Lloyd Bentsen.

Instead, I’ll simply note that today Think Progress linked to an intriguing post at the progressive Daily Kingfish blog, which happens to give a big FYYFF to Vitter and BP in the title. I expect to explore the connection the Daily Kingfish makes between Vitter and Anadarko oil in a future post, and I’d say chances are good that I’ll make use of the  FYYFF phrase.

It’s sort of the thing to do right now.

But what happens after that?

After? Hmm. I suppose unless circumstances change, the Pelicans run out of blood to share and they all die.

Oh.
—

In a recent speech, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu posed the following questions to the nation:

How many times are you going to ask the people of Louisiana to be the tip of the spear? How many times are you going to send them into battle without the right armor or without the right equipment and expect them to continue to show up?… The deal ought to be: If you want to drill, protect us. If you don’t want to drill, stop driving.

Perhaps the “battle” Landrieu refers to is the risks inherent in energy production, and the “armor” he refers to is our protective wetlands. During the past century, Louisiana has played a major role in satisfying America’s ever-growing demand for more energy. We extract oil and gas, refine it, and send it to market via ports, pipes, and rivers.

And during the past century, while we did this, Louisiana suffered 2,000 square miles of coastal loss. This is not just a coincidence. Simply put, energy development in South Louisiana contributes to wetlands loss. Everyone knows this, yet Big Oil and its  favored politicians like to ignore the connection. They say: “No time to play the blame game. Let’s move forward together as partners.” Then little gets done.

For some reason, Louisianans have accepted this empty lip service and inactivity. But what exactly has this “partnership” accomplished? A $10 billion  coastal problem has grown into a $100 billion dollar coastal crisis (now with oil on top). Very soon, coastal restoration will be an impossible pipe dream –  and that will be the death knell for South Louisiana as we know it.

Laissez les bon temps roulez!

To be sure, wetland loss is complicated, and has several causes. For example, the levees that tamed the Mississippi River have also starved the coast of replenishing silt. Also, invasive species have entered habitats and disrupted ecological balances. But no one can dispute that the arrow-straight canals dredged to facilitate oil and gas production have harmfully altered the natural hydrology of the region. And this alteration hastens plant death, and contributes to the disappearance of our precious, productive wetlands.

A recent Times-Picayune article about the state’s lack of stringency regarding wetlands work permits for Big Oil concluded with a summary of the industry’s effect on our coast:

By some estimates, the state loses as much as 35 square miles of wetlands each year, the blame for which usually goes to the levee system, which blocks the natural land-building action of the sediment-rich Mississippi River. But wetland loss also results from the continuous exploitation of Louisiana’s wetlands by the oil and gas industry, which received roughly 70 percent of state coastal use permits during the period reviewed by The Times-Picayune…
…
The network of historical oilfield canals — still used to reach active wells and drilling sites — caused as much as 59 percent of the wetland loss in coastal Louisiana from 1955 to 1978, according to a 1988 study commissioned by the MMS. A plane ride over the coast makes their effect on the wetlands instantly plain: Uninterrupted expanses of green marshland suddenly change into a latticework of narrow waterways that resemble a city street grid.
…
[Oliver Houck, an environmental lawyer with Tulane University] sees the state’s reluctance to ask oil companies to pay for past damage as evidence that politicians are afraid to confront an industry so central to Louisiana’s economy.

“It would require the state to admit that these canals were part of the problem,” Houck said. “It would require the finger to begin to point at the oil and gas industry, and the state won’t touch it.”

So: to what extent is Louisiana responsible for its own devastating shrinkage? It’s true that the state selflessly sacrifices itself on behalf of an oil-addicted nation. But doesn’t it also selfishly sacrifice its future on behalf of the oil and gas industry? To what degree is Louisiana a fearless energy warrior for the nation, and two what degree is it merely a masochistic supplicant for Big Oil?

Times-Picayune columnist James Gill recently framed the issue concisely:

[I]t would be a shame to invite ridicule by harping on the country’s indifference to the loss of wetlands that sustain our fisheries and protect us from hurricanes. Louisiana was hardly a helpless victim as the oil and gas companies sliced up and contaminated the landscape to keep an ungrateful nation moving. We took the money and turned a blind eye.
…
Louisiana accepted the dirty role pretty much from the moment the first oil well was sunk here in 1901. The result is a coastal region criss-crossed with canals that provide a conduit for salt water to accelerate the land loss. Chemicals have been leached into the waters for a century, while oil companies never could remember their promises to backfill when they were done raping the landscape.

Gill says we allowed Big Oil to rape our coast for decades. Let that thought sink down into your heart of hearts, and see if it doesn’t find agreement.

Recently, I’ve needled former Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Brown because his views on the risks of oil drilling have, um, evolved since the Macondo oil gusher began spewing. However, in a recent post Brown actually wondered whether the oil industry was, on balance, a net benefit to the state. Talk about an eyebrow-raising claim! While Brown doesn’t explicitly answer his own question, he does helpfully remind Louisianans about its “original sin” in regards to oil royalties.

The state as a whole just might want to take a look in the mirror. Louisiana was seduced by an outside industry full of vast economic promises. The money came in easily and… many new jobs were created. But when you put the financial tally to paper, has it been worth it?

A number of Louisiana politicians, including Gov. Huey Long in the 1930s and Plaquemines Parish dictator Leander Perez in the 1950s, made off like bandits by creating family controlled corporations and awarding themselves public oil leases that made them hundreds of millions of dollars. Oil company campaign cash has flowed into state and local political campaigns for decades.

Perez was particularly aloof from the public interest when he used his political clout to blackmail thenGovernor Earl Long back in the late 1940s to reject a federal-state split of off shore oil. President Truman forged a compromise on the federal-state land dispute by offering Louisiana two thirds of all off shore oil out to a three mile boundary, then one third of all production from that point on out into the Gulf. Perez opposed the deal as his “vested interest” made him greedy, and Louisiana ended up receiving not one penny after a protracted battle all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. The failure to take this settlement has cost Louisiana, by several studies, more than $500 billion (that’s billon with a “b”) in lost revenue.

Maybe if Perez hadn’t been so greedy, an enriched Louisiana could’ve directed some of those oil royalties into a fund to restore the coast, when wetlands loss first became an issue back in the 1970′s. Maybe. (Of course, even without the windfall we could’ve found the money for coastal restoration if we really thought it was that important. But we didn’t.) Louisiana is scheduled to get a significant increase in oil royalties beginning in 2017. Which is exactly 10 years after coastal experts declared that we have a decade at most to start repairing the coast before it’s too late. Isn’t that cutting it a bit close?

Before the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the T-P’s Bob Marshall took up the coastal cause, on March 4:

Since the 1970s, efforts to lessen the damage inflicted on our wetlands by industry have been fought by a can’t-lose partnership: industry and state officials. Attempts to restrict the dredging of canals, or the cutting of cypress forests, or the dumping of poisons into wetlands were always met by the same cries from the offending businesses: Too expensive! It’ll cost you jobs! And, besides, the researchers are wrong, the science is bogus, they’re all a bunch of left-wing environmentalists out to steal your jobs! And the trump card: We’ll move!

The correct response from Louisiana’s body politic should have been: Move? Where? The oil, gas, pipelines and refineries are here. If you think you can drill for that oil in Minnesota, go ahead. If you think you can re-route those pipelines through Florida or Texas beaches, have at it.

Bob Marshall said the “correct response” in this situation is unblinking brinksmanship. Call Big Oil’s bluff – see what they’ll do. Two weeks after he wrote that, BP’s oil rig exploded.

Here’s a few lesser-known details about the rig, from an editorial in The Louisiana Weekly:

The [Transocean] drilling rig was flagged in the Marshall Islands, whose corporate profits mainly flowed to the United Kingdom, using oil from a well owned by a Swedish company, and whose few tax royalties, a mere 12.5 percent of the sum, flowed only to the U.S. federal government. Not a dime in tax monies remained in Louisiana, and our coasts have paid the price.

Then after the scope of the Macondo disaster became apparent, Congress responded by setting aside new funds for future cleanups.

Responding to the massive BP oil spill, Congress is getting ready to quadruple — to 32 cents a barrel — a tax on oil used to help finance cleanups. The increase would raise nearly $11 billion over the next decade.

The tax is levied on oil produced in the U.S. or imported from foreign countries. The revenue goes to a fund managed by the Coast Guard to help pay to clean up spills in waterways, such as the Gulf of Mexico.

So, if you think like Bob Marshall, did Congress “correctly respond” to the cleanup issue by taxing Big Oil and Foreign Oil, and making them pay for the damage they caused, or will cause?

No state suffers more oil spills than Louisiana. And today, our coast is getting hammered by an underwater oil gusher. You’d think the crisis would create momentum to not only hold Big Oil responsible for the immediate cleanup, but also for its direct role in slicing up Louisiana’s coast. Where are the dynamic voices taking this case to the public?

In other words, where y’at Foster Campbell? This is your time!

Many know the Public Service Commission member as the ultimate hedgehog. He has one idea, which is to replace the state income tax with an oil processing fee, and spend the remaining funds on restoring Louisiana’s wetlands and aged infrastructure. His plan is based on proposals made decades ago by Gov. Dave Treen, which never gained political traction. But when Campbell campaigned for governor in 2007, he was undeterred, and doggedly presented his idée fixe as a cure-all. The electorate mostly ignored him. What struck me at the time, though, was that none of Campbell’s three main opponents (all from South Louisiana) talked about coastal restoration with the conviction of the man from Bossier Parish. The usual suspects rolled their eyes at Campbell’s campaign and dismissed his idea (again), but many of these critics are the same ones who downplayed the environmental risks of oil drilling. They’re the ones who make the pro-industry arguments Bob Marshall mocked in the earlier quote. So, isn’t it a good time to revisit plans and have a vigorous conversation about Big Oil’s culpability for our stricken coast?

I can’t believe that during an oilpacolypse, a firebrand like Campbell is “unsure” about whether he’ll run for lieutenant governor (especially since there’s not a single Democrat in the race). If there were ever a time to argue for a tax on Big Oil to preserve the coast, it’s now. But instead of launching a full-throated crusade and leveraging national media attention during a crisis, Foster still is undecided about running for higher office, preferring to issue strongly worded letters, instead. In a recent one, he stated:

[L]et’s finally modernize Louisiana’s 90-year-old system for taxing oil and natural gas to recognize that 90 percent of the oil and natural gas processed in our state comes from foreign or offshore sources and is not taxed — despite the heavy environmental cost it inflicts on us — and all the tax burden falls on in-state producers.

As they say in the country, these oil and natural gas revenue issues are “where the mule jumps the fence.” Railing against BP or the federal government for their response to the spill is empty words if you don’t back it up with a real plan to restore coastal Louisiana.

The first paragraph may be controversial, but the second paragraph is undeniable. A slow moving disaster currently threatens our coast with oil, but our disappearing coast was already in the midst of an existential crisis. Why doesn’t Campbell want to strike while the iron’s hot and make his case on the campaign trail, and on national media outlets?

My Bossier has a video featuring a recent exchange between Foster Campbell and conservative talk radio host Moon Griffon. Surprisingly, Griffon pledges his support to Foster if he runs and makes the runoff against Jay Dardenne, because Griffon said  ”Republican hypocrites” like Dardenne are his bête noire. Also, Griffon sees an additional side benefit to Foster becoming lieutenant governor, as it will tether Jindal closer to Louisiana, and keep his attention on Louisiana rather than marketing his book in influential swing states. Campbell has so many good angles right now, beyond his obvious appeal to enraged environmentalists and populists. For instance, couldn’t he make some inroads into the “Taxed Enough Already” Partiers with his income tax elimination idea? And wouldn’t Big Oil apologists be slower to criticize his plan as a “job killer,” when fishermen are on TV cleaning oil out of their fouled fisheries? There’s no guarantee Campbell would win, of course, but isn’t now the time for him to see what he can do?

While Campbell mulls his options, coastal restoration advocates should try to recruit other public figures to bolster their case. They need to find officeholders who will be their advocates on national news outlets because this oil story isn’t going away any time soon. Further, restoration advocates shouldn’t forget that the Obama administration presented a coastal Restoration Road Map on March 4 –  which in itself demonstrated more of a presidential commitment to Louisiana’s coast than any previous administration. So there is an emerging framework to formalize our state’s coastal goals with the feds. Pieces are coming together, but time is of the essence. Implementation of the “Road Map” needs to be fast tracked, and long term funding secured. This whole process requires momentum, which the furor over the oil spill should be providing.

The state will need voices that will push the rest of the country to make a national effort to fund the coastal restoration process. And the oil and gas industries should recognize their moral responsibility to pay for the coast they helped to kill. If these industries don’t feel the need to make a voluntary contribution, then coastal advocates should explain to Louisianans why Big Oil should be taxed in order to fund the Road Map/coastal restoration plan.

In short: coastal restoration, not drilling, is the larger issue that needs to emerge from this oil gusher crisis. Drilling off our coasts will continue –  let’s hope  in a safer, more regulated capacity, with better spill response mechanisms in place. A new national movement towards conservation and alternative energy would be welcome, too. But the central question for Louisiana is this: Will we save the coast while we can, before the window of opportunity shuts? And then: Shouldn’t Big Oil and Gas pay to restore the wetlands they helped destroy?

Southern Louisiana is the fastest disappearing land mass on earth, yet it supplies huge portions of America’s energy, seafood and culture. Louisiana has bent over backwards to power the rest of the country, and has bent over frontwards to serve Big Oil. We fuel the nation at the expense of our wetlands, and our wetlands fuel our cultural identity. We’ve become outraged by the oil catastrophe because it suddenly threatens our way of life, yet we can’t forget that our way of life still will be threatened by coastal loss. Why bother moving heaven and earth to save coastal estuaries that, at the current pace, won’t exist in a couple decades? After we finish cleaning oil from our wetlands, their existence will be in no less long-term danger. But can we sustain the current urgency and outrage, after the oil spill is gone? And will we have leaders who can channel it productively? In short will we save our wetlands from oil today only to let them die from salt water tomorrow?

The answer appears to be “yes”. Unless circumstances are changed.

At a town hall meeting this week Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who is to be anointed by Sawyer during a Friday night appearance on the ABC newscaster’s show, implored residents in attendance to be “hospitable.”

“The eyes of the world are on us,” he said, referring to all those who have suddenly noticed that his threatened sliver of coastal Louisiana is feeling the first effects of oil on land.

Meanwhile, his own tone only grows more desperate with each passing moment.

The embattled former oil industry entrepreneur greeted residents and reporters entering Wednesday’s meeting. His sunburned face wore the exasperation of days outside watching oil seep into the marshland that defines his parish.

The head of the coast guard, Admiral Thad Allen, is a “cartoon character,” he told one gaggle of foreign journalists.

“I don’t blame the president, I blame BP and the Coast Guard,” Nungesser announced to the rest of the audience. The auditorium in which he spoke had been erected by FEMA after the region’s last catastrophe, Hurricane Katrina.

Admiral Allen “cannot come to work here,” he postured.

But while Nungesser’s anger is directed at the people who are charged with stopping the oil spill, one Coast Guard captain seemed to be focusing his ire on the people affected by it.

Addressing the attentive crowd, Coast Guard Captain Ed Stanton presented other oil spill scenarios from which the region had recovered. He mentioned a 1970 Chevron spill that spewed 2 million gallons into the Gulf of Mexico. “We cleaned up and we recovered,” Stanton said.  He made no mention of the obvious differences to this ongoing leak in the Gulf, which by some conservative estimates has already spilled more than 18 million gallons.

One listener, Matt Levetich, an oysterman with beds stretching from Mississippi to Grand Isle, voiced concerns about what he characterized as the “piecemeal” response to an “epic large” event.

To that, Stanton shot back, “epic large, where did you hear that?”

The most heated exchange of the evening came when audience member Lance Gremillion brought up World War II battle of Dunkirk, when allied forces reacted deftly to a threat before being eventually defeated. The event has alternately gone down in history as a dynamic fight and humiliation.

“I would have expected a Dunkirk-like response,” Gremillion said, wrapping up comments about inadequate boom placement.  The mention of the battle elicited a fiery response from Stanton.   “ Dunkirk, “ he said,  “you mean the battle famous for its retreat?”

Courtesy Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

As the oil from BP’s Deepwater Horizon accident seeps into Louisiana’s 48,000 acres of wetlands, it’s officially beginning to endanger the habitat and nesting areas of many species of fish, invertebrates and birds. If the problem worsens, it will create insufferable burdens for area fishers and the markets and restaurants they serve. Not to mention, the oil infiltration threatens to decimate New Orleans’ natural first line of defense from devastating tropical storms – and the wetlands already were being recaptured by the sea before the oil rig disaster.

In the most severe scenario, the damage to wetlands isn’t temporary. But hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are already being spent on costal resoration efforts, and BP may be pressured into coughing up much more.

Though government and oil-company officials have said BP will pay for damages, putting a price on ruined wetlands isn’t like assessing property damage from hurricanes or faulty levees.

“This is a little different,” said P.J. Hahn, director of coastal zone management for Plaquemines Parish. “You can rebuild houses and highways, but it’s a lot more difficult to rebuild an estuary. That’s a much greater challenge.”

“We could see 50 years of wetlands erosion occurring in a fraction of that time if we don’t act now to re-build these critical natural barriers,” said Paul Harrison of the Enviromental Defense Fund. That could happen because of a combination of factors. First, certain toxic chemicals in the oil can weather away the marsh soils making it more vulnerable to erosion. Second, the oil ruins or seriously compromises the habitat of the myriad small creatures that live in and under the marsh, and which contribute to the stoutness of the land.

For instance, the oil is likely to drive away fiddler crabs, which till the  marshland, allowing needed oxygen to reach grass roots. The grass, of course, holds together the fragile land.

It could take years, if not decades, to assess wetlands damage because of the oil’s tendency to slowly degrade in some marsh areas. To get an understanding of what oil can do to marsh, look back to the big spill of 1969 — but not the accident in Santa Barbara, Calif., that made oil-slicked birds poster-children for environmental degradation. In another disaster that year, a barge crash off the coast of Massachusetts spilled 189,000 gallons of oil off the coast of Cape Cod.

Four decades later, traces of oil can still be found in the  Cape Cod marshes,  even though the amount that spilled is less than the estimated 210,000 gallons being spilled each day since the April 20 explosion.

“You can stick a shovel in the ground today and still smell fuel,” said Christopher Reddy, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who studies oil spill impacts on coastal environments. “The thought back then was the oil would last for a short amount of time, but instead it took at least seven years before any grass started to grow back.”

Traces of hazardous chemicals in the soil  still keep fiddler crabs from burrowing  to hide from predators, he said. One of Reddy’s graduate students found that in some oily hotspots, the crabs move slowly, “as if they were literally intoxicated from exposure to the residual oil,” wrote Reddy in his institution’s organ Oceanus

This doesn’t necessarily mean the same fate will come to Louisiana. The oil leaking today is not the same as what leaked in the ’69 spill, and every kind has its own chemical composition and personality. Other studies of oil spills near marshes have shown a quick rebound –  one near Portland, Maine, saw its grass grow back in less than a year.

But then there’s the 1974 spill near Buzzards Bay, Mass., which eroded marsh to the point that much of the grass still hasn’t grown back. Once oil gets into the muddy grass, it’s almost impossible to clean it out. Additionally, when the oil settles into the mud, the oily particles can later trickle down to form toxic sediment at the floor below the surface, causing more environmental problems if dredging later occurs.

To track the long-term effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association is working with Applied Science Associates of Rhode Island, which is taking samples from a series of locations to set a baseline for future comparison.

“I don’t think there has ever been a large oil spill this close to a very large wetlands area,” says Maurice Spalding, chairman of Applied Science Associates.. “The good news is that much of the toxic compounds will evaporate relatively quickly making the oil [reaching the wetlands] less toxic.”

The cost of damages from geographic and animal loss alone could be way out of reach for BP or the federal government.

The government already is paying a steep tab for coastal erosion – some 2,300 square miles of wetlands gone over the last 75 years. More than a half billion dollars in federal money already had been set aside for coastal restoration, before the spill, in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 budget years.

The state of Louisiana hasn’t been completely successful in its own restoration plans. The federal-state shared Coastal Wetlands, Planning, Protection and Restoration Act, otherwise known as the Breaux Act, is a $60-million-a-year program headed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and involving multiple state departments.

The task force overseeing that spending this year voted to end the biggest coastal project to get underway, the West Bay River Diversion, though it will take until 2011 to abandon the effort. It cost $22 million to create, but there is not enough money to maintain it. Among other things, the project prevents saltwater intrusion into the wetlands by providing a constant outflow of fresh water from the Mississippi River in lower Plaquemines Parish. As the BP leak continues to flow west, the hope is that the diversion will prevent oil intrusion as well. Once closed, it will be yet another spot of vulnerability.

One source of funding that could help these restoration efforts is the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, a federal account filled with money from taxes collected on imported cargo on ships. But Congress holds the purse strings on it, and has been appropriating just half to two-thirds of the funds a year, while diverting the rest to its general fund. Legislation was introduced last month with co-sponsorship from Louisiana Sens.  David Vitter, a Republican, and Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, to ensure that in the future all money goes to its intended purposes.

“If there had been more money appropriated, one beneficial use we could have done was marsh restoration,” said Sean Duffy, president of the Gulf States Maritime Association. “This is most important to Louisiana than anywhere else. We can dredge material for the coastline and marshes to help restore the [delta] bird’s foot and look at other areas to divert mud to as well, but until we get more money we can’t change the system.”

Right now, Duffy is keeping busy making sure navigating ships headed into the Southwest Pass aren’t lined with oil. There are workers in place, hired by BP and the Coast Guard to monitor ships and clean them if necessary.

As of today, over 290 vessels are in the seas responding to the spill. BP has also been recruiting local fishers to take their own boats to help skim and lay boom, but the fishers have complained that they are not being offered adequate supplies and equipment to do this.

The major focus now is to keep as much oil as possible out of the marsh. Staging areas have been set up in in thirteen areas between Louisiana and Florida. Over 372,000 gallons of the controversial dispersant solution has been applied to the Gulf and 1.1 million feet of absorbent boom has been deployed. The Deepwater Horizon Unified Command reported May 10 that 3.6 million gallons of oily water had been recovered since the initial leak on April 20. But determining how much has gotten into the marsh will be far more difficult.

Courtesy Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

As the oil from BP’s Deepwater Horizon accident seeps into Louisiana’s 48,000 acres of wetlands, it’s officially beginning to endanger the habitat and nesting areas of many species of fish, invertebrates and birds. If the problem worsens, it will create insufferable burdens for area fishers and the markets and restaurants they serve. Not to mention, the oil infiltration threatens to decimate New Orleans’ natural first line of defense from devastating tropical storms – and the wetlands already were being recaptured by the sea before the oil rig disaster.

In the most severe scenario, the damage to wetlands isn’t temporary. But hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are already being spent on costal resoration efforts, and BP may be pressured into coughing up much more.

Though government and oil-company officials have said BP will pay for damages, putting a price on ruined wetlands isn’t like assessing property damage from hurricanes or faulty levees.

“This is a little different,” said P.J. Hahn, director of coastal zone management for Plaquemines Parish. “You can rebuild houses and highways, but it’s a lot more difficult to rebuild an estuary. That’s a much greater challenge.”

“We could see 50 years of wetlands erosion occurring in a fraction of that time if we don’t act now to re-build these critical natural barriers,” said Paul Harrison of the Enviromental Defense Fund. That could happen because of a combination of factors. First, certain toxic chemicals in the oil can weather away the marsh soils making it more vulnerable to erosion. Second, the oil ruins or seriously compromises the habitat of the myriad small creatures that live in and under the marsh, and which contribute to the stoutness of the land.

For instance, the oil is likely to drive away fiddler crabs, which till the  marshland, allowing needed oxygen to reach grass roots. The grass, of course, holds together the fragile land.

It could take years, if not decades, to assess wetlands damage because of the oil’s tendency to slowly degrade in some marsh areas. To get an understanding of what oil can do to marsh, look back to the big spill of 1969 — but not the accident in Santa Barbara, Calif., that made oil-slicked birds poster-children for environmental degradation. In another disaster that year, a barge crash off the coast of Massachusetts spilled 189,000 gallons of oil off the coast of Cape Cod.

Four decades later, traces of oil can still be found in the  Cape Cod marshes,  even though the amount that spilled is less than the estimated 210,000 gallons being spilled each day since the April 20 explosion.

“You can stick a shovel in the ground today and still smell fuel,” said Christopher Reddy, a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who studies oil spill impacts on coastal environments. “The thought back then was the oil would last for a short amount of time, but instead it took at least seven years before any grass started to grow back.”

Traces of hazardous chemicals in the soil  still keep fiddler crabs from burrowing  to hide from predators, he said. One of Reddy’s graduate students found that in some oily hotspots, the crabs move slowly, “as if they were literally intoxicated from exposure to the residual oil,” wrote Reddy in his institution’s organ Oceanus

This doesn’t necessarily mean the same fate will come to Louisiana. The oil leaking today is not the same as what leaked in the ’69 spill, and every kind has its own chemical composition and personality. Other studies of oil spills near marshes have shown a quick rebound –  one near Portland, Maine, saw its grass grow back in less than a year.

But then there’s the 1974 spill near Buzzards Bay, Mass., which eroded marsh to the point that much of the grass still hasn’t grown back. Once oil gets into the muddy grass, it’s almost impossible to clean it out. Additionally, when the oil settles into the mud, the oily particles can later trickle down to form toxic sediment at the floor below the surface, causing more environmental problems if dredging later occurs.

To track the long-term effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association is working with Applied Science Associates of Rhode Island, which is taking samples from a series of locations to set a baseline for future comparison.

“I don’t think there has ever been a large oil spill this close to a very large wetlands area,” says Maurice Spalding, chairman of Applied Science Associates.. “The good news is that much of the toxic compounds will evaporate relatively quickly making the oil [reaching the wetlands] less toxic.”

The cost of damages from geographic and animal loss alone could be way out of reach for BP or the federal government.

The government already is paying a steep tab for coastal erosion – some 2,300 square miles of wetlands gone over the last 75 years. More than a half billion dollars in federal money already had been set aside for coastal restoration, before the spill, in the 2009, 2010 and 2011 budget years.

The state of Louisiana hasn’t been completely successful in its own restoration plans. The federal-state shared Coastal Wetlands, Planning, Protection and Restoration Act, otherwise known as the Breaux Act, is a $60-million-a-year program headed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and involving multiple state departments.

The task force overseeing that spending this year voted to end the biggest coastal project to get underway, the West Bay River Diversion, though it will take until 2011 to abandon the effort. It cost $22 million to create, but there is not enough money to maintain it. Among other things, the project prevents saltwater intrusion into the wetlands by providing a constant outflow of fresh water from the Mississippi River in lower Plaquemines Parish. As the BP leak continues to flow west, the hope is that the diversion will prevent oil intrusion as well. Once closed, it will be yet another spot of vulnerability.

One source of funding that could help these restoration efforts is the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, a federal account filled with money from taxes collected on imported cargo on ships. But Congress holds the purse strings on it, and has been appropriating just half to two-thirds of the funds a year, while diverting the rest to its general fund. Legislation was introduced last month with co-sponsorship from Louisiana Sens.  David Vitter, a Republican, and Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, to ensure that in the future all money goes to its intended purposes.

“If there had been more money appropriated, one beneficial use we could have done was marsh restoration,” said Sean Duffy, president of the Gulf States Maritime Association. “This is most important to Louisiana than anywhere else. We can dredge material for the coastline and marshes to help restore the [delta] bird’s foot and look at other areas to divert mud to as well, but until we get more money we can’t change the system.”

Right now, Duffy is keeping busy making sure navigating ships headed into the Southwest Pass aren’t lined with oil. There are workers in place, hired by BP and the Coast Guard to monitor ships and clean them if necessary.

As of today, over 290 vessels are in the seas responding to the spill. BP has also been recruiting local fishers to take their own boats to help skim and lay boom, but the fishers have complained that they are not being offered adequate supplies and equipment to do this.

The major focus now is to keep as much oil as possible out of the marsh. Staging areas have been set up in in thirteen areas between Louisiana and Florida. Over 372,000 gallons of the controversial dispersant solution has been applied to the Gulf and 1.1 million feet of absorbent boom has been deployed. The Deepwater Horizon Unified Command reported May 10 that 3.6 million gallons of oily water had been recovered since the initial leak on April 20. But determining how much has gotten into the marsh will be far more difficult.