By David A. Fahrenthold & Juliet Eilperin Washington Post
The cord-grass marshes of south Louisiana are nurseries for baby shrimp stalking grounds for blue crabs and barriers that slow down waves before they bite off more of the mainland. On Friday they were becoming defenseless sponges for sticky dark oil.
The locals said the foul-smelling mass had the goopy look of chocolate mousse. The scientists said the enormous slick had the potential to bring environmental ruin to this treasured coastline.
The oil is spilling out of the seafloor at 5000 barrels a day -- the equivalent of 210000 gallons -- maybe much more from a well about 50 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico and it could soon eclipse the volume of the infamous Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. That disaster spilled oil onto rocky Alaskan beaches but it is at least possible to wash oil off a rock. In the Gulf the oil is floating into wetlands that could hold on to its toxins for years.
And scientists said the spills damage could be magnified by its awful timing.
Among the animals that live along the Gulf Coast this is the time for hatching and rearing: Species as diverse as pelicans shrimp and alligators are all reproducing or preparing to. That could bring sensitive young animals in contact with toxic oil or cause their parents to plunge into oily waters looking for food.
Already rescuers from Delaware were using Dawn blue dish soap to clean the first bird found to be oiled in the disaster the Associated Press reported. The bird a young northern gannet had been turned from white to black.
I cant imagine were not going to have some mass casualties among these birds said Michael Parr of the American Bird Conservancy. Its got to be about the worst time right now for an oil spill to hit.
One environmentalist said the scenario created a potential mega-disaster. Along the Gulf they were waiting for it with a dread usually devoted to hurricanes.
The magnitude and the potential for ecological damage is probably more great than anything weve ever seen in the Gulf of Mexico said Nancy Rabalais a scientist who heads the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium a research center in Cocodrie La. Once it hits the shoreline itll get into everything.
The oil has been flowing since April 22 when a drilling rig called the Deepwater Horizon blew up and sank 50 miles out in the Gulf.
By late Friday federal officials estimated that the slick had reached land in Louisianas isolated southeast corner and was being pushed ashore by strong winds.
It had already surrounded some of the Chandeleur Islands off Louisiana where thousands of brown pelicans are roosting. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service which oversees the islands has protected them with a ring of floating booms.
That barrier so far has stopped the oil despite heavy seas.
We hope it holds said Tom MacKenzie an agency spokesman.
In south Louisianas Plaquemines Parish fishermen were already seeing the oil as a thick brown sludge washing toward the town of Venice. Its the chocolate mousse thats the term theyve been using said Albert Rusty Gaud a state extension agent who works with fishermen there. He said it had left many fearful that crabs oysters and shrimp -- part of a Louisiana industry that produces 10 percent of the countrys seafood -- could be devastated.
Theres only two things that are happening in Venice and thats seafood and oil Gaud said. Could be catastrophic for both of them.
In the rest of the region the oil was still unseen -- scientists and fishermen were left to wait and worry.
Theres a lot at risk here said Jane Lubchenco who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She noted that 40 percent of the coastal wetlands in the continental United States are in Louisiana. Ninety-seven percent of commercial fish and shellfish in the Gulf depend on estuaries and wetlands during their life cycle she said.
In the Gulf some scientists worried about the marsh itself: In south Louisiana the oil was hitting wetlands dominated by Spartina grass with huge clumps of dead grass underwater. Thomas Shirley a professor at Texas A&M Universitys Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies said that posed a problem that Exxon Valdez did not.
Theres no way to wash the oil out of a Spartina marsh Shirley said. Instead he said it could take years to leach out with the tides. Its just a big sponge.
That could mean trouble for the marsh itself and for the land behind it. If marshes die that could remove a key natural barrier that takes the punch out of waves before they hit Louisianas fast-eroding coast.
At Louisiana State University Professor Ed Overton said his worries grew after a university laboratory analyzed a sample of the oil. Its not terribly toxic but it does appear to be terribly sticky he said which meant it could coat blades of grass and kill them.
Oil is damaging for birds because it coats their feathers destroying the natural chemistry that keeps them buoyant warm and able to fly. When birds preen and try to remove the oil they can swallow it and be poisoned.
So it is terrible timing that at this time of year huge numbers of birds converge on the marshes and empty barrier islands on this stretch of the Gulf Coast. Some are just stopping to recharge after a long flight over the Gulf from South America. But others have come to stay preparing to raise their young in nests in the marsh and along sandy beaches.
Among other wildlife scientists said some fish would swim away from the oil -- provided they can flee to an oil-free place. The situation is worse for dolphins which must surface twice a minute to breathe: They would inhale fumes from the oil.
The natural rhythms of many other species make them also particularly vulnerable. Tiny shrimp just hatched and only a few millimeters across will be swimming at the oily surface. Alligators nearing their nesting season might ingest the oil as they feed. Sea turtles will be coming ashore to lay their eggs on beaches.
Scientists said that huge die-offs are not assured: The wind could shift and blow the slick offshore or the spilling oil might finally be capped mitigating the damage.
But as of Friday night neither of those fervently hoped-for things had come to pass.
Im going to be honest with you its got a lot of people very fearful said Avery Bates of the Organized Seafood Association of Alabama in Bayou la Batre. He said the slick was expected to hit their stretch of coastline Sunday.
Petroleum and seafood Bates said do not go together.
