Gulf Update #4 Pausing to Reflect by Jim Shepherd 3-31-2011
gengberg March 31st, 2011
Gulf Update#4/Pausing to Reflect The trouble with a whirlwind tour of an area is sensory and informational overload. Since arriving in Louisiana, I have tried to talk with as many people, see as many areas and gather all the information possible about the status of the people and the health of the Louisiana portions of the Gulf of Mexico that were the recipients of the most obvious damage from last year’s massive oil spill.
As we’re making another three-hour drive around the coast, it seemed like a good time to take a few minutes and reflect on the knowledge or experience gained by the accident. Experience was once explained to me as “what you get when you’re expecting to get something else.”
If that’s the case, this part of the Gulf of Mexico has one of the most unique “experiences” imaginable. While there are 3,000 drilling rigs of one form or another in the Gulf, no one dreamed Deepwater Horizon would happen. But it did, and the ways that were devised to help bring the Gulf back to pre-accident health - or better - seem to be working.
Granted, it’s still one season too-early to know how the shrimp are “really” doing, but the Sargassum mats appear to have survived, providing their protective cover to the myriad of fish and other Gulf sea life that need protection in their larval stages.
The vertical oyster bed offers a ready-made artificial home for oyster spat and a simultaneous deterrent to tidal erosion.
Other methods, like the vertical oyster beds also seem to be bringing the area back up to snuff. As we’ve written, those combination of manmade and organic materials seem to be attracting oysters - with the fresh layers growing on top of the pre-packaged shells dropped into the triangular holding baskets.
One proposed effort to stop the flow of oil inland at Grand Isle was a partial reduction in the actual width of the bay. The plan was initially approved by the Army Corps of Engineers, and hundreds of tons of rock moved in in preparation for building what would have become a seawall to help impede and control the directional flow of oil as it moved ashore and toward the marshes. Continue Reading »
