By John Platt | Takepart.com April 9, 2014

A bale of critically endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles is swimming through the Gulf of Mexico to nesting sites in Texas, unaware of the danger it may find when it reaches its destination. The turtles are expected to land-and hopefully lay eggs-on Matagorda Island off the coast of Texas in the next two to three weeks. Thing is, Matagorda is currently a disaster site.

Crews there have been working around the clock to remove hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil that washed up on the island after a March 22 oil spill in Galveston Bay. That spill, caused when a barge carrying nearly a million gallons of oil struck another ship, released an estimated 170,000 gallons of crude into the bay and surrounding waters.

As of Tuesday, April 8, workmen on Matagorda Island had already removed 10 tons of oil-contaminated soil and debris, according to a report from Houston-based KHOU. In some places on the 24-mile beach, the oil was measured to be nearly a foot thick. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service told the Victoria Advocate that more than 110 dead, oiled animals have already been found on and around the island, including 11 dolphins and 19 other sea turtle species.

Although Matagorda Island is not the primary nesting site for Kemp’s ridley turtles-that would be Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, where almost all of the turtles lay their eggs-it is still an important site for the species. Cleaning the island up is especially critical because Kemp’s ridley turtles nearly became extinct in the 1970s due to the animals being caught in shrimp trawling nets. Conservationists don’t know for sure the present-day total wild population of Kemp’s ridleys, but there are estimated 7,000 to 9,000 breeding females.

“Part of the long-term recovery program for Kemp’s ridley sea turtles involves promoting and trying to foster the establishment of other nesting sites for the species, particularly in Texas,” says David Godfrey, executive director of the Sea Turtle Conservancy. “Over the years, as the nesting population has gradually begun to recover in Mexico, you’ve begun to see a number of turtles start to nest on other beaches. This gives the species a chance take root at other nesting beaches so they’re not vulnerable to having, literally, all of their eggs in one basket.”
Oil could pose a big threat to the sea turtles, either by entrapping the reptiles, poisoning them, or coating their soft underbodies and affecting their ability to swim and breed. Even if most of the oil is cleaned up in the next few weeks, additional threats could linger, Godfrey says. The sea turtles forage year-round on the coast, where their diet of shrimp, crabs, and other crustaceans could carry toxins from the oil. “The toxicity bio-accumulates within species that are higher up the food chain, such as sea turtles,” he says.

Tar balls also tend to persist in floating mats of sargassum, which hatchling turtles use as safe habitats. “Researchers studying hatchlings and year-old turtles in that kind of habitat where there have been spills find lots of tar within their mouths,” Godfrey says. “They’re likely eating the stuff, maybe even far away from where the spill occurred. That’s true of all the little spills that are constantly happening all along the coast.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news/Oil-spill-clean-up-Ten-tons-removed-from-Matagorda-Island-254301561.html

by Doug Miller / KHOU 11 News
khou.com
Posted on April 8, 2014 at 12:11 AM
Updated Tuesday, Apr 8 at 11:26 AM

MATAGORDA ISLAND — Amid one of the most important wildlife sanctuaries in America, a place where birds almost always outnumber the few humans venturing to a remote island, workmen are now hauling away tons of beach sand contaminated by oil.

Men wearing protective suits scratch at the sand on Matagorda Island, using shovels to unearth the layer of oil lingering beneath a thin film of freshly deposited sand.

“Right,” says George Degener, a U.S. Coast Guard petty officer. “We want to remove as much contaminated debris as we can, but still leave as much clean sand in the area as we possibly can.”

More than two weeks have passed since a barge carrying oil collided with another vessel at the mouth of the Houston Ship Channel, triggering a spill that shut down traffic flowing into the Port of Houston and coated an unknown number of birds in oil during their migratory season. But the consequences of that accident are still evident along the Texas coastline, on distant shores like Matagorda Island.

Oil washed ashore along 24 miles of the island’s beaches, leaving black stains not only in the sand but also on debris like logs. Coast Guard spokesmen say all but about four miles have since been cleaned by workers who’ve removed more than 10 tons of contaminated soil and contaminated debris.

Most of the oil has dried out, in some places developing into patches looking like asphalt on the beach. But some of it still glistens in pools.

“As the oil settled and tide brought in layers of sand over it, it’s dried out,” Degener says. “And it’s become almost asphalt-like. As it lays in, the toxins will evaporate and the oil will actually harden. So that’s what they’re trying to remove right now.”

Unlike the heavily developed beaches in Galveston where the oil spill originated, Matagorda Island is almost entirely vacant land where birds are more common than people. As part of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, it is the winter home to the world’s largest flock of endangered whooping cranes.

This spill has washed ashore not only at a bad place, but also at a bad team. Ridley sea turtles are expected to begin crawling out of the Gulf of Mexico, crossing the beaches and laying their eggs in the grassy dunes.

“One of the challenges for wildlife in this situation is that we have a lot of migrating birds,” said Nancy Brown, a spokesperson for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “And this includes whooping cranes. Whooping cranes are about to begin their migration. And migration is an incredibly dangerous time for a bird.”

So far, none of the oil has turned up on the bay side of the island around the whooping crane habitat. But wildlife experts are still worried that all the activity surrounding the cleanup will somehow affect the migration of the rare birds, which are accustomed to spending their winters on a virtually deserted island.

“There are more people on this island right now than there are whooping cranes in existence in the world,” Brown said. “So we’re very concerned about that. And we’re working as part of this effort to try minimize the impact to that highly endangered bird.”

The Coast Guard says Kirby Inland Marine, which owns the barge from which the oil spilled, is paying for the cleanup. Nobody knows how much it will cost, a company spokesman says, because nobody knows how long the cleanup will take.

Special thanks to Richard Charter.

http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/opinion/8843262-171/guest-commentary-why-is-lawsuit
Associated Press photo by Dave Martin — Water washes around the tombs of those buried in a Leeville cemetery, where much of the ground has subsided to barely sea level.

by Oliver Houck
April 08, 2014

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Louisiana legislators, still searching for a reason to quash the New Orleans levee board’s you-broke-it-you-fix it lawsuit against major oil companies, have turned up instead a canard. They have apparently learned that South Louisiana is sliding into the Gulf of Mexico (who knew?), and, therefore, the 10,000 oil and gas canals that have torn up the coastal zone could not have caused the zone’s sudden demise. After all, they reason, you can’t kill a dying man.

They have it wrong five different ways. First of all, you can kill a dying man, and I prosecuted folks who did just that for several years. We are all mortal, yet we go to great lengths to perpetuate our lives and those around us. I do not think we are ready to write off the 5 million acres of wetlands that used to buffer us from the Gulf of Mexico and have provided so much bounty.

More to the point, this subsidence has been known since at least the 1970s, when I first started studying the coast. The first thing one learns is that it has been going on for millennia, over the very time that the coast was created. The rate of growth outpaced the rate of subsidence, which is not hard to understand, but upon understanding it one is left to look for other reasons that America’s largest land-gainer turned into its largest land-loser, virtually overnight.

Which brings us to the third error. Two new phenomena came along at the start of the last century and changed everything: the big levee systems, and a stunning network of oil and gas pipelines and access canals. A map tracing them is simply a mass of lines. Both the levees and the canals have had the same effects, cutting off sediments, nutrients and fresh water on which this landscape survives. At this point in time, no one could not know this.

And now for the fourth error. Blame-it-all-on-subsidence conflates the time scales involved, millennia as compared to the past 80 years, and also leads to a conclusion, were it correct, that our legislators would hardly endorse. If we are sliding into the Gulf so inexorably and rapidly, then there is no room for coastal restoration. It’s time to throw in the towel, turn out the lights, sayonara. Fortunately, the pace is not so rapid; there remains time.

Not much time, though, because of the beast whose name our legislators have trouble mentioning as well: sea level rise. Every time it is measured, the rates go up. Right now relative rise at Grand Isle is projected at four feet, and this does not include sudden melting at both poles. At some point, nature may throw in the towel for us, but the best science today says we can save parts of the zone, at least, if we act strategically and concentrate our resources. Which means having the resources we need.
Which brings us to the fifth and final error, and it is colossal. Louisiana will require major funding to hold whatever line it can. It projects $50 billion for a first stab, and upwards of $100 billion to actually restore. State taxpayers will pay part of this, and the nation’s taxpayers part more, but one big player is missing: the one that created much of our predicament (most conservative estimates start at one-third of coastal loss), made large sums of money so doing and has so far avoided paying any part of the bill: The oil and gas industry.

That is all the levee board suit is asking: not that this industry be heaped in blame, not that it pay for all harm, just that it pay its share. If our legislators wanted to get real about this, instead of killing the messenger they would arrange a settlement in which all contribute commensurate with the damage they’ve caused. Please remind me: Why is that such a bad idea?

Oliver Houck is a professor of law at Tulane University.

Special thanks to Richard Charter