Southeast Region Spill Response Strike Team responds
to Louisiana oil spill
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Southeast Region Spill Response Strike Team and Delta National Wildlife Refuge leaders responded to an oil spill in New Orleans, La. providing wildlife rescue, contaminants expertise, and damage control to federal, state, and private organizations and companies to help mitigate the damage to fish and wildlife. For a month following the spill, members of the strike team continued to support the cleanup efforts.
On July 23, 2008, as much as 9,000 barrels of Number 6 fuel oil were released in the Mississippi River following an accident involving a ship and barge. Ships and generators use Number 6 fuel oil -- also known as bunker C fuel -- to run their engines. This oil type is notorious for its poor behavior at previous spills by spontaneously sinking and re-floating, as well as covering wildlife in a thick black sticky mess.
The spill stopped commercial shipping and recreational boating on about 80 miles of river for about a week. The closure extended from River Mile 98 in New Orleans south to the Southwest Pass Sea Buoy at the mouth of the Mississippi. The oil in the river, on shorelines, and in adjacent wetlands in the area was a significant threat to fish, wildlife, and habitat quality.
Responders and the public reported 879 oiled birds and other wildlife, but most were still mobile and escaped capture. At least 55 birds, mammals, and alligators were captured for rehabilitation, with about 32 being successfully cleaned and released. A few un-oiled but dangerous alligators near cleanup crews were captured and relocated by the Wildlife Group.
“The challenge with this spill was the complex nature of the terrain, combined with the length of riverbank we had to search – in excess of 200 miles of riverbank from the impact zone in New Orleans downstream to Venice, La.” said Buddy Goatcher, contaminants specialist with the Lafayette Ecological Service Office, and operations team chief for this incident. “We responded to public and other responder’s sightings, and we also searched from our helicopters, airboats, and other vehicles. We located and captured oiled wildlife and transported them to the rehabilitation team in Venice.”
The quick-response Strike Team included 15 environmental contaminants specialists, logistics, and External Affairs staff from the Service who responded on a rotational basis, in four to 20 day tours.
“Our high visibility, and constant presence at the Command Post made us a player in the spill response,” said Felix Lopez, environmental contaminants specialist from the Caribbean Field Office. “We participated in strategy meetings, press conferences, and worked with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Scientific Support Coordinator and the Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Team.”
Lopez described the Shoreline Cleanup Assessment Team as an interagency team headed by NOAA that assesses oiled shorelines and recommends or evaluates cleanup options.
The Strike Team used several small outboard powered boats, surface drive mud boats, airboats, helicopters, and a floatplane to assess the impacts, make suggestions to reduce and mitigate the spill’s damage to wildlife and their habitat, and rescue oiled wildlife for rehabilitation and release.
At least four personnel from Southeast Louisiana Refuges Complex and Delta NWR, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, also sprang into action to battle the onslaught of the mixture of light sheen and black tar that formed after the oil reacted to the water temperature and evaporation.
“We did our best to stop this oil from hitting the marsh here at Delta National Wildlife Refuge,” said Jack Bohannan, refuge manager at Delta NWR. The refuge staff worked to protect the refuge by placing booms at key locations to try to deflect the oil from entering the refuge.
Trained experts from U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal Plant Health Inspection Service Wildlife Service also supported the Wildlife Group’s response team by using their wildlife knowledge and professional skills to capture oiled birds, mammals, and reptiles. They also used live traps and cannon-fired nets to remove animals from the oiled marshes in between the river and the levee.
An additional six boats also supported the Delta NWR booming efforts from Clean Harbors Environmental Services, a specialized cleanup company well-versed in recovery and response. Delta NWR reported only a light sheen in the area, but had to suspend use of dredging materials to create wetlands as the dredging materials had been contaminated.
Apparently, some of the oil that sunk and headed downstream was pulled up by dredging operations near the mouth of the Mississippi. Delta National Wildlife Refuge uses dredged material to create wildlife habitat and reconstruct the disappearing wetlands. The wetlands there have been disappearing partially due to the lack of sediment renourishment when the mighty Mississippi River was channeled for navigation, sending the rich sediments deep into the Gulf of Mexico, instead of creating marsh habitats with natural sediment deposits from the river.
“Most of the birds that died from the spill were ducks, often covered in oil,” said Bill Starkel, Southeast Regional Spill Coordinator, based in Atlanta. “Wading birds tended to be oiled in the front -- from their beaks to their legs -- from feeding in the oiled water.”
The Strike Team assessed the impact of the oil spill and provided advice and support to the Incident Command led by the United States Coast Guard. They also conducted hazing to protect wildlife by using 100 propane cannons (loud automatically fired noisemakers), an airboat, bird-scare balloons, Mylar tape and hand-held noisemakers similar to bottle rockets launched from flare and starter pistols. The hazing intent was to deter the birds from being contaminated by the oil pooled along the banks through the nearly 100-mile stretch of the Mississippi, from New Orleans to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico. More photos in Photo Album.
Submitted by Tom MacKenzie, External Affairs, Atlanta, Georgia
