Oil spill update from the field: Orange globs of oil wash ashore on crown jewel Audubon sanctuary

Audubon's Paul Kemp points to oil that washed up yesterday on the beach of the Paul J. Rainey Wildlide Sanctuary. (Photo by Justin Nobel)
Intercoastal City, Louisiana, May 20
Glistening orange globs of oil washed ashore yesterday along the remote beaches of the National Audubon Society’s Paul J. Rainey Wildlife Sanctuary, more than 200 miles from the Deepwater spill site.

 

“No one thought it could get this far west,” said Paul Kemp, a coastal geologist with Audubon’s Louisiana Coastal Initiative who has spent months in a tin canoe paddling the back bayous and lush wetlands of the 26,000 acre sanctuary. “Our concern is that this is a harbinger of things to come.”

Rainey is Audubon’s oldest and largest sanctuary, often regarded as one of the society’s “crown jewels”. The sanctuary covers a vast stretch of southern Louisiana marshland, wintering grounds for white pelicans and more than a quarter of a million snow geese. Along the coast palmettos thrive beside gnarled and swooping live oaks and waves pound a beach rarely frequented by humans. On it are a blizzard of birds, including royal terns, clapper rail and snowy and Wilson’s plovers, Audubon Watchlist Species that are nesting right now in tiny divots scratched in the sand, darting back and forth to the water to feed.

 

“My concern is with each high tide we will have this continual layer of gooey stuff on the beach and the shore birds could be going in and out of it,” said Timmy Vincent, the sanctuary manager and a coastal Louisiana native. He lives in a small stilted home on a bank lined with live oaks, five miles from the nearest neighbor.

Vincent motored into town yesterday to bring an oil sample to parish officials. Today it will be analyzed to confirm it is indeed from the Deepwater Horizon spill. The Coast Guard will then send crews out to clean up. “I hope they’re careful,” said Kemp, worried that a massive cleanup operation on the sensitive beach could potentially do more damage than the oil.

 

After spending all day yesterday on the beach tracing oil globules Vincent looked as if he had been under the hood of car; his clothes and equipment were smeared with greasy orange oil stains. He worried what the coming days and weeks would spell for this wild stretch of land. “This is sacred ground,” said Vincent. “There is no other place like it.”

 
A glob of oil on the beach at Audubon's Paul J. Rainey Wildlife Sanctuary (Photo by JN)