Things are looking better along the oily Gulf of Mexico coast. A new cap, replacing the leaky one, is being put on the well-head and hopefully will contain almost all of the escaping oil until the new wells can be completed to permanently intercept the original well and shut it down.
Also, the sand berms that Gov. Bobby Jindal and Plaquemines Parish President Bobby Nungesser had pumped ashore to help build up barrier islands that was criticized by federal and some environmental authorities apparently are working to help keep the escaping oil out of the wetlands.
The situation is still serious but, the way things are going, it now seems the oil will be less invasive as feared at first.
Meanwhile, hundreds of boats are now skimming the waters to collect the spilled oil. And some of them are quite large and have a big capacity for retrieving oil.
Finally, one of our environmental experts in Louisiana has said that the oil spilled along the Louisiana coast is not the heavy, black, tarry stuff from ship bunkers that smothers everything such as that in the Exxon-Valdez oil spill disaster in Alaska. Ivor van Heerdon, a former scientist with LSU, says the oil that came from the Gulf well is light, almost like diesel, and breaks up very easily. It’s not the extra toxic type that could kill a lot of the commercial fish. This was confirmed by James Friloux who was with the U. S. Department of Agriculture before his retirement.
Hopefully that is the case and, coupled with the shutdown of the oil flow, we will survive this possible ultra-disaster that could have killed the environment and economic viability of coastal Louisiana.
It is still grim but things are looking better.
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