2 years on, oiled rookeries off La. coast look much different

Before the BP oil spill, the shrubby Cat Island along the Louisiana coast was a lush, green rookery where noisy brown pelicans and other birds clamored. Two years later, the island is smaller and ragged, full of dead black mangrove stumps and muddy patches. Cat Island was one of the first places to be hit by thick mats of oil coming from 50 miles away in the Gulf of Mexico. Crews hired by BP raced to try to protect the island with boom, skims and dispersant, but a lot of the effort was futile. Some of the iconic images from the spill—confused, struggling pelicans covered in oil—were photographed near these parts. There are fewer pelicans now on the island, which is washing away, a process perhaps exacerbated by the oil spill. “It’s eroding like sugar in hot coffee,” says P.J. Hahn, coastal zone manager for Plaquemines Parish, while looking out at Cat Island from a boat recently. As he studies the island, Hahn just shakes his head. He estimates in the past two years the rookery has shrunk from four acres to less than one acre. Cat Island is one of several remote mangrove rookeries at the edge of Barataria Bay and the Gulf of Mexico where a variety of birds nest in safety, far away from predators like raccoons and coyotes that can’t swim in from larger nearby islands and marshlands. Beyond these isles, low-lying coastal Louisiana is experiencing some of the fastest rates of land loss and erosion in the world. There are plans to try to rebuild Cat Island and four nearby islands, and Hahn says the parish has about $1.3 million to spend. The Associated Press has the full story here.