Oil spill

A young Brown Pelican balances on boom still strung around the island where it was hatched and grew up. Melanie Driscoll/Audubon

As thousands of young Brown Pelicans and other birds leave their nests and seek a new place in the world, they face an uncertain future. Over 650 miles of coastline are still oiled, and oil is likely to remain in some places for years, if past spills are any indication.

I head to a forgotten stretch of Grand Isle beach, where thick black oil still oozes out from beneath the sand. The issue highlights a concern many conservationists have had with the spill response; that it was heavy-handed and near-sighted, environmental guidelines were scrapped and environmentalists themselves were chided as being too soft and too slow.

A young pelican flies after being released. Melanie Driscoll/Audubon

Last Friday, I watched the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries release 45 rehabilitated young Brown Pelicans onto an island in southwest Louisiana. Yes, Louisiana. Now that the gushing well has been stopped, and oil has still not hit Cameron Parish, they felt that was a safe enough release site. It is right that the birds are free. It is good that they have been captured, cleaned, and rehabilitated. But they face such an uncertain future.

I visit the Deepwater Horizon oil spill’s Houston Command Center, BP’s war room, where for the last four months a team of more than 500 engineers and technicians has been working around the clock to cap the spill and drill relief wells. Failed ideas like the top hat and the junk shot were born here, as was the containment dome which ultimately capped the well. Until recently access has been all but impossible.

Crewmembers aboard the 210-foot Coast Guard Cutter Decisive observe the lights from the drilling rigs and support ships near the sight of the Deepwater Horizon well about two miles away. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Nearly four months after the Deepwater Horizon offshore drill rig exploded and three weeks after BP effectively capped the gusher, officials are reporting that they’re close to permanently plugging the Macondo well, yet the effects of the spill, and the larger problems associated with oil leaking into the environment, are still surfacing.

I board a Coast Guard speedboat meant for chasing down drug runners and head for the Deepwater Horizon spill site. The place is packed with ships; some Coast Guard officers call it The City. As the sun sets, lights on the vessels begin to go on and soon the entire horizon is twinkling. Ground zero for the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history is eerily beautiful.

Louisiana wetlands are disappearing and the oil spill has heightened the problem by soiling additional habitat. One solution in an effort to create new habitat and draw birds away from the oiled coast is for rice farmers to flood their fallow fields. I tour fields with a Ducks Unlimited biologist, but he explains that there is another problem. Rice is also disappearing. 

Jacob Watson, Jr., volunteers with Audubon in Louisiana as a wildlife transport facilitator and beach steward. David J. Ringer/Audubon

"My reason for being here is just to give help in any way that I possibly can," Jacob Watson said. "It's a good feeling to know that you're helping a cause for the animals that suffered so great with this manmade catastrophe."

Brown Pelicans rest near the edge of a breeding colony in Louisiana. Some chicks are lightly oiled. Melanie Driscoll/Audubon

As Tropical Storm Bonnie approaches, and fledgling pelicans and wading birds move out from the inner parts of colonies onto the oiled habitats at island edges in preparation of fledging, I am filled with dread. In her path are birds with thousands of young growing, wading, swimming, exercising their tender wings, and moving at their natural pace toward independence and the relative safety of flight.

I board a Coast Guard HC-144 aircraft bound for the spill site, passing a coastline that has now been marred with oil for two and a half months. But with the wellhead capped, things are actually looking up, until a nameless low pressure system transforms into Tropical Storm Bonnie and heads straight for the Louisiana Coast.