Oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster remains in marshes off the coast of Louisiana, where officials renewed complaints today about the cleanup effort by BP and the federal government. State and parish officials took media on a boat tour of Barataria Bay, pointing out areas where oil is collecting in marshes and protective boom is either absent or overwhelmed by the oil.
“This is the biggest cover-up in the history of America,” says Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who was accompanied by Robert Barham, the secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Nungesser has been a frequent and outspoken critic of the cleanup effort ever since oil from the April 20 accident began infiltrating the environmentally delicate Louisiana coast.
A Coast Guard official who tagged along on the tour says a plan was being developed to clean up the rapidly eroding marsh. However, he had no details and couldn’t explain why there is no mechanism in place to keep the situation from getting worse eight and a half months after the disaster and almost six months after the flow of oil was stopped. “Clearly there is oil here in the marsh, but we are working as a team to find a best way to clean it up,” says Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Dan Lauer.
