Oil seeps deep into marshes

Five miles into the Louisiana marshes, a team of scientists from Tulane University motors along on a flat-bottomed aluminum jon boat.

Here, deep into the marshes and well past the oil-soaking booms where few independent scientists have ventured, the team has made a disheartening discovery: oil.

Dr. Michael Blum, a coastal marsh ecologist, said he had received reports from fishermen that oil had penetrated up to 17 miles into the marshes.

His team hoped to travel that full distance and would have but for an engine failure on the second jon boat with more scientists. (Jon boats are usually used for shallow water fishing, not searching for oil).

It was only after towing the second boat back to the dock that the team was able to make its way past the barrier islands into the marshlands.

Blum noted that oil in the Gulf is not unusual. “Oil leaks naturally in the Gulf every year. Tens of thousands of gallons and the marshes can handle that.”

And studies done at Nicholls State University reveal the marshes can survive small oil spills.

“I want to give people hope that the marshes can recover,” said Dr. Kerry St. Pé, a professor who has conducted those studies.

But both St. Pé and Blum noted this situation is different. “We’re talking about millions of gallons of oil,” Blum said.

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