Louisiana in Photos Week 13, Gulf Oil Spill

The night crew takes a break from digging holes to locate the submerged layers of oil under the sand and determine the extent of the mass of oil. 
 The holes quickly fill with oil and water.
In spots the oil is very thick.  These layers are between 10 and 18 inches deep, and exist because BP didn't focus enough man power on cleaning the oil when it washed in, and let the tides cover it up. 
State Park Employee Leanne Sarco rescues Hermit Crabs from the contaminated water on BP's forgotten beach on Grand Isle, Louisiana.
Holt Webb from Vanishing America probes below the sand for submerged oil. 
Jackpot! Nasty black crude just under the surface.  A Willet and a Semi-palmated Plover were foraging around this pool just before this was taken.
This stuff is very thick, and nasty.  A BP shovel didn't touch this beach for over two months while this oil sat there.
A Willet on the front beach in the scummy water.
A young white phase Reddish Egret on the front beach in Grand Isle.  Good to know someone fledged successfully into the toxic Gulf.
Sunset over Barataria Bay.  

Comments

[justmeint]

No one is so powerful that they can stop the march of time...
And so it is happening – that which was predicated, foretold by those with commonsense - those who were living through the horror known as the Deep Water Horizon Disaster. The oil was spewing forth and the government and BP were trying to hide the amount by dispersing it with COREXIT.

You cannot pour on, spray onto or disperse the oil without creating an even bigger ecological disaster.


http://just-me-in-t.blogspot.com/2010/08/time-and-tide-waits-for-no-man.html

[Angela]

Here's what I want to know. What can I do?? How can I help spread the word. I'm posting links on my blog. I'm sending the links to news agencies but I doubt much is getting through.

Great work,Drew. Heartbreaking, but someone has to do it.

[Nicole Edmison]

Those shorebirds probing down into the sand for food are coming back with beak fulls of oily muck I'm sure...

[Darlene Eschete]

Great work Drew! Thanks so much for being on the front lines there on Grand Isle... That oil will NEVER go away!