Today, Governor Bobby Jindal and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser viewed heavy oil impact off the Plaquemines Parish coast in Pass a Loutre and Red Fish Bay. As a result of winds from Hurricane Alex, containment boom was scattered across the marshes along with heavy oil -- and Governor Jindal cited the damage as another reason for the need to quickly implement more effective containment efforts, including sand-berms as well as the rocks and barges plan in Grand Isle.
After viewing the oil impact, Governor Jindal held a press conference in Venice -- where he repeated his call for more urgency from the federal government, and he announced that the Louisiana National Guard is beginning a mission today to support Coast Guard efforts to more quickly and more effectively deploy skimmers in order to fight the oil off the coast before it further impacts the coastline. Citing two examples from this week alone, the Governor said the Coast Guard's skimming operations have been hit or miss, and the National Guard will help provide real-time information and hold the Coast Guard accountable.
Governor Jindal said, "The Louisiana National Guard has been working with the Coast Guard to provide better real-time information about skimming operations and oil collections across the coast. Today, we're announcing that LA National Guard Branch Operations Teams will be in place today to assist Coast Guard Branch Directors to help provide reporting of skimmer operations and on the amount of oil being collected. They will be located in Terrebonne, Jefferson, Lafourche, St. Bernard, Plaquemines and St. Tammany Parishes.
"Our National Guard will help provide more situational awareness of containment and clean-up efforts on the coast. This is similar to the National Guard's work with the Coast Guard to monitor booming operations.
"The National Guard's efforts will enable us to more quickly and more effectively deploy skimmers -- and hold the Coast Guard accountable. Currently, it's a hit or miss operation and twice just this week we've been out to view oil impact and have not seen a single skimmer. On Monday we flew over a reportedly 12-mile slick, but not one skimmer was out there collecting oil. That's absurd.
"The LA National Guard will be our eyes and ears on the ground so we know how many skimmers are being operated, how much oil is being collected so that we have real-time information in this war to protect our coast."
Additionally, the Governor announced that the Louisiana National Guard is placing four teams today to support Coast Guard Search and Response (SARES) land response efforts in St. Bernard, Lafourche, Jefferson, and Terrebonne parishes. Teams will also be located in Orleans and St. Tammany, Plaquemines and St. Mary and Iberia parishes.
DREDGING -- SAND BERM UPDATE
Governor Jindal said, "Our cutterhead dredge, the CALIFORNIA, is back dredging today on the North Chandeleur Islands. To date, the CALIFORNIA has dredged over 600,000 cubic yards of material for our berm on the northern Chandeleur Islands. On the west side of the river, 375,000 cubic yards of material has been moved to date.
"The CALIFORNIA was shut down for about a week because the Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made us move the dredge. The Corps of Engineers refuses to beneficially use the millions of cubic yards of material they dredge annually from our rivers and navigation channels -- and this was one of the federal agencies that shut us down.
"Had the feds not shut this dredge down, we could have built thousands of feet of additional sand berm to help block more oil from getting into our marshes. Shutting down our dredge is just another example of why we need more urgency from the federal response. We need them to put the red tape aside. We need them to treat this oil spill like a war. You don't wait weeks and weeks for studies and federal permits in the middle of a war. You do what you need to do as quickly as possible to protect your land and your people.
"That is what we are doing on the front lines here every day in Louisiana and we need the federal government to join us. We absolutely will not be held back by this. We will not let our people and our land suffer while we wait on the federal government to realize that we need more resources and effort put into this response."