The beach at Louisiana’s Grand Isle State Park was closed because of oil, according to a listing yesterday on the state Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism’s website. The state Department of Wildlife & Fisheries also announced additional recreational and commercial fishing closings yesterday.
Pictured: Paper Plate Covered in Oil on Beach, From AudubonMagazine.org
Read full article about Grand Isle Beach Closings.
"Billy Nungesser, president of Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish, toured the oil-polluted marshes of Plaquemines Parish on Wednesday and said:"Had you fallen off that boat yesterday and come up breathing that stuff, you probably wouldn't be here today.
Oil started washing ashore in Louisiana this week, approximately 50 miles northwest from where the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank. In a part of Plaquemines Parish in an estuary called Pass a Loutre, reeds in the marshlands that were normally green with life, are now brown and dead, saturated with oil. P.J. Hahn, the director of the Parish Coastal Zone Management Department, reflecting on the environmental disaster:"It's so sad when you look around here and you just think of what was here, what's happening to it now and what's eventually gonna happen to it. Unless we stop that oil out there, it's just going to continue to keep coming in here and wipe out everything we have. ... I think we're just starting to see the first wave of what's really coming and what's really coming I think is going to be devastating."
Environmentalists are especially concerned about Louisiana's Breton National Wildlife Refuge. Established in 1904 by President Theodore Roosevelt, it's the second-oldest refuge in the country. Located north of the parish, the refuge is part of the Chandeleur Islands which are situated in the Gulf of Mexico. A nesting ground for tens of thousands of birds, including the brown pelican, the marshland has for time immemorial provided a sanctuary for the wildlife of this region. '
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