The Sierra Club Delta Chapter Water Sentinals and Acadian Group conducted another of our series of coastal monitoring trips on June 12, 2010. We had a contingent of 13 volunteers combined from our groups and troop 503 of the Boy Scouts under Harold Schoeffler. We put Harold’s 21 ft. boat in at Intercoastal City and motored south through southwest pass and then east to coastal beaches on Marsh Island. A group of four volunteers disembarked to patrol the beaches there while the remaining volunteers went on to disembark and patrol beaches near Chenier au Tigre.
Our sightings and loggings included normal background numbers of dead fish, no dead turtles or dead birds. It appears that significant damage from oil has not occurred in areas around Atchafalaya Bay but we have observed that light oiling has occurred on Marsh Island and west of Freshwater Bayou. Light oiling consisted of fresh oil on reeds in isolated locations and some small fresh tar balls. We have not confirmed that these originated with the BP site though we have taken samples which may give us that information.
Our trip concluded with an informative presentation by Erin Wilsoni of the Beehive Collective about several of their murals depicting earth environmental and health effects of fossil fuel consumption. We plan to continue our southwestern coastal monitoring and we continue to look for volunteers and friends of Sierra Club who would be interested in participating. If you are interested in volunteering please send your email address to chair@louisiana.sierraclub.org and to Devin Martin at devin.martin.sc@gmail.com. For more information about the Beehive Collective you can go to http://www.beehivecollective.org/
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