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Massive tar mat dug up off Louisiana coast, 3 years after Gulf spill

Three years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, workers have dug up a massive chunk of weathered crude from the shallows off a Louisiana beach.

The tar mat, a slab of oil residue mixed with wet sand, was about 165 feet long by 65 feet wide, said Lt. Cmdr. Natalie Murphy, a Coast Guard spokeswoman. It weighed more than 40,000 pounds.

The mat was found under the surf off Isle Grand Terre, Louisiana, about 90 miles south of New Orleans. Crews using an excavator dug the largely submerged tar mat out of the beach in chunks over the last few weeks, Murphy said.

The Coast Guard and BP, the owner of the ruptured well at the heart of the disaster, declared the cleanup over in Alabama, Florida and Mississippi earlier this month, but more than 80 miles of the Louisiana coast are still being patrolled.

Most of the oil is believed to have evaporated or been consumed by microbes deep under water. But a still-undetermined portion settled to the floor of the Gulf, and some of it was stirred up and washed back ashore after Hurricane Isaac in 2012. More at http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/25/us/louisiana-oil-spill/index.html?hpt=hp
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About two-thirds of U.S. oysters come from the Gulf Coast, the source of about 40% of America's seafood catch. But in the three years since the drilling rig Deepwater Horizon blew up and sank about 80 miles south of here, fishermen say many of the oyster reefs are still barren, and some other commercial species are harder to find.

"My fellow fishermen who fish crab and who fish fish, they're feeling the same thing," Barisich said. "You get a spike in production every now and then, but overall, it's off. Everybody's down. Everywhere there was dispersed oil and heavily oiled, the production is down."

Tar balls are still turning up on the beaches, and a 2012 hurricane blew seemingly fresh oil ashore in Louisiana.

Well owner BP, which is responsible for the cleanup, says it's still monitoring 165 miles of shore. The company points to record tourism revenues across the region and strong post-spill seafood catches as evidence the Gulf is rebounding from the spill.

But in the fishing communities of southeastern Louisiana, people say that greasy tide is still eating away at their livelihoods.

"Things's changing, and we don't know what's happening yet," said oysterman Byron Encalade.

Before the spill, Encalade and his neighbors in the overwhelmingly African-American community of Pointe a la Hache -- about 25 miles south of Yscloskey -- earned their living from the state-managed oyster grounds off the East Bank of the Mississippi.

Back then, a boat could head out at dawn and be back at the docks by noon with dozens of 105-pound sacks of oysters.

Now? "Nothing," says Encalade, president of the Louisiana Oystermen Association.

Louisiana conservation officials have dumped fresh limestone, ground-up shell and crushed concrete on many of the reefs in a bid to foster new growth.

It takes three to five years for a viable reef to develop, so that means Pointe a la Hache could be looking at 2018 -- eight years after the spill -- before its lifeblood starts pumping again.

"This economy is totally gone in my community," said Encalade, 59. "There is no economy. The two construction jobs that are going on -- the prison and the school -- if it weren't for those, the grocery store would be closing."

The hardest-hit communities like Pointe a la Hache, Yscloskey and the inlets in Barataria Bay, west of the Mississippi, have not recovered.

Scientists are still trying to understand what the oil has done to the marshlands of southeastern Louisiana.

Figures from Louisiana's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries tell a similar story.

The statewide oyster catch since 2010 is down 27% from the average haul between 2002 and 2009, according to catch statistics from the agency. In the Pontchartrain Basin, where Encalade and Barisich both work, the post-spill average fell to about a third of the pre-spill catch.

Barisich says oysters are barely worth the effort anymore.

"On the state ground -- on a perfect weather day, keep that in mind -- it's 20 sacks a day," he said. "Twenty sacks a day at $30 a sack is $600. $300 worth of fuel. $100 worth of other expenses and I pay the deckhand, I got $150 a day on a perfect day. It don't pay to go out."

And no boats going out means no fuel being sold at Frank Campo Jr.'s marina, down the bayou from Barisich's dock.

"If you don't burn it, I can't sell it to you," Campo says. "They're not doing very well with the crabs, and there's not a lot of oyster boats going out."

Demand for the oysters is off, too.

"You used to never ask the dealer if he wanted oysters," said Campo, whose grandfather started the marina. "You just showed up with them. Now, he'll call you and tell you if he needs 'em."

Across the Mississippi from Pointe a la Hache, beyond the West Bank levees, lie some of the waterways that saw the heaviest oiling: Barataria Bay and its smaller inlets, Bay Jimmy and Bay Batiste.

Louisiana State University entomologist Linda Hooper-Bui tracks the numbers of ants, wasps, spiders and other bugs at 40 sites in the surrounding marshes, 18 of which had seen some degree of oiling.

She is part of a small army of researchers who have been trying to figure out what effect the spill will have on the environment of the Gulf Coast. Since 2010, she's recorded a sharp decline in several species of insects -- particularly spiders, ants, wasps and grasshoppers, which sit roughly in the middle of the food web.

They're top predators among insects but food for birds and fish.

Hooper-Bui said she expected their numbers to bounce back the following year: "Instead, what we saw was worse."

Some napthalenes -- crude oil components most commonly known for their use in mothballs -- appear to have increased since the spill, she said.

"They're volatile, and they're toxic," Hooper-Bui said. "And they're not just toxic to insects. They're toxic to fish. They're toxic to birds. They cause eggshell thinning in birds. We think this is evidence of an emerging problem."

By August 2011, the number of grasshoppers had fallen by 70% to 80% in areas that got oiled.

"By 2012, we were unable to find any colonies of ants in the oiled areas," she said.

Then on August 29, 2012, Hurricane Isaac hit southeastern Louisiana. The slow-moving storm sat over Barataria Bay for more than 60 hours as it crawled onto land.

When Hooper-Bui went back to the marshes after the storm, she had a surprise waiting for her.

"We discovered in Bay Batiste large amounts of what looked like somebody had poured motor oil all over the marsh there," she said. "About three-quarters of the perimeter of northern Bay Batiste was covered in this oil."

The chemical fingerprint of the oil matched the oil from the ruptured BP well, Hooper-Bui said. Much, much more at http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/27/us/gulf-disaster-fishing-industry

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- On his Fox News program, Sean Hannity claimed the pipeline would help "limit our dependency on foreign oil," ignoring that the pipeline would transport Canadian tar sands oil. [Fox News, Hannity, 8/2/12, via Nexis]\

- Fox Business' Gerri Willis claimed the pipeline "would help us as a nation become more energy independent." [Fox Business, The Willis Report, 1/23/13, via Nexis]

- The Institute for Energy Research's Tom Pyle claimed in a Washington Times op-ed that the pipeline would "lead the country toward energy security." [Washington Times, 2/6/13]

- Charles Drevna, president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, wrote in a Washington Times op-ed: "At a time when unrest in the Middle East disrupted global oil supply, the president declined a pipeline that would have prevented the United States from spending $70 million per day to purchase oil from this volatile region." [Washington Times, 1/3/13]

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FACT: Pipeline Would Not Shield Americans From Middle East Volatility

Keystone XL Would Not Provide Energy Security, Reducing Oil Consumption Would. As even the pro-Keystone XL Washington Post editorial board acknowledged, the pipeline "would not endow the United States with 'energy security' in the sense that most Americans understand the phrase," which can best be achieved by reducing oil consumption:

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[The Keystone XL pipeline] would not endow the United States with "energy security" in the sense that most Americans understand the phrase and that many pipeline advocates wield it. It would not significantly lower oil prices. In fact, when it comes to oil, America will be affected by global events for decades, and that's assuming the right policies are in place.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) underscored that point in a report it released last week. "The extensive network of pipelines, shipping and other options for transporting oil around the world means that a single world oil price prevails," the CBO pointed out. "Disruptions related to oil production that occur anywhere in the world raise the price of oil for every consumer of oil, regardless of the amount of oil imported or exported by that consumer's country."

If the United States imported every barrel it burned from Canada -- or even unearthed it from American soil -- a revolution in Libya, production quotas in Saudi Arabia or riots in Nigeria would still affect American consumers. Unless, as Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations and The Post's Brad Plumer pointed out, America were to take the extraordinary step of removing itself from the world oil market entirely, which could lead to its own price spikes and ignite a trade war.

With enhanced domestic and Canadian production, the country would achieve a certain energy independence: If the world oil market were to collapse because of a global war or another catastrophe, America would maintain access to its energy resources, though they could be much more expensive. But producing more oil here or north of the border would never mean, as Newt Gingrich put it in February, that the United States could "no longer worry about the Persian Gulf."

In fact, the best way to insulate Americans from oil-price volatility and other drawbacks of oil use would be to use less oil. The price would still move around, but it would matter less. Such an approach would also help achieve the most important energy priority: slowing climate change. [Washington Post, 5/13/12]

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Much Of The Tar Sands Oil Is Expected To Be Exported. A New York Times editorial noted that much of the Canadian crude that would transported by the Keystone XL pipeline could be exported overseas:

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What pipeline advocates -- including big-oil lobbyists and House Republicans who have tried to force an early, favorable decision -- fail to mention is that much of the tar sands oil that would be refined on the Gulf Coast is destined for export. Six companies have already contracted for three-quarters of the oil. Five are foreign, and the business model of the one American company -- Valero -- is geared toward export. [New York Times, 10/3/11]

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Indeed, Valero has indicated to its investors that it plans to export diesel and jet fuel from its Gulf Coast refineries, while importing gasoline from its Pembroke refinery in the U.K. The following chart is from a September 2011 presentation:


Analysis: U.S. Imports Are "Insensitive" To "Whether Or Not KXL Is Built." The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service noted that even if the oil from Keystone XL is exported, "it may still displace foreign imports from elsewhere." However, a 2010 report prepared for the Department of Energy concluded that "U.S. crude oil imports" from the Middle East, Africa, Canada and other countries are "insensitive" to "whether or not KXL is built." The following chart shows "only minimal differences between the KXL and No KXL cases" for each scenario:

[Congressional Research Service, 4/4/12] [U.S. Department of State, 12/23/10]

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