Salt Report–Gulf Coast August 2011

As I was driving back from paddling the Gulf of Mexico and the Sound at Johnson Beach this morning, I noticed I felt out of place off the water. This visit to the Gulf Coast has included many hours on the water. The 100 feet of land between me and Bon Secour Bay seems far too big as I sit and compose this report.

First, to those of you inquiring about specific areas and concerns. Fort Morgan beaches have small tar balls washing in with the surf. The sand on the Gulf side has built-up considerably this summer so I am not sure if the small tar balls covering the beach in April were picked up by clean-up workers or covered by the natural migration of the sand. The point at Ft. Morgan, where Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico come together, has eroded significantly. The old fuel tank that was far up on the big dune (deposited most likely by a hurricane or other wave-producing storm) is now almost to the water line. It appears ready to launch its rusty-self back into the saltwater.

I wish I had better news to report from Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge. The beaches there are littered with hundreds of dead blue crabs. They are in various stages of decay from newly dead to bleached white from sun exposure. There were small tar balls rolling in the surf and tractors doing a surface cleaning of the sand on the mid-beach. The sand is stained there from oil, far up on the beach. The huge oily shelf was not visible. It could have been removed or covered by sand. Summer season is the time sand builds up on the beaches. We’ll know more when winter arrives and the sand shifts or a hurricane or tropical storm attacks the beach with large waves.

From the beginning of the oil spill, when they sprayed dispersant to sink the oil, we knew that bottom dwellers were going to suffer the most. Crabs, sting rays and other marine life that made a home on the bottom, would tell the real story. Seeing one or two crabs is not unusual. Seeing hundreds of dead crabs washing in where the beaches were so heavily oiled and where a large mat of oil sank just offshore, causes grave concern for this microcosm in the Gulf. I saw more than one dead sting ray on this visit.

And even though carcasses of crabs were everywhere at the beach, Great Blue Herons were enjoying the opportunity to find easy food sources. Unfortunately, if the crabs died of toxins associated with the spill, the herons will eventually be negatively affected as well. And that’s part of the frustration when I read in the local newspaper that ‘sea life is thriving.’ Nobody fished, shrimped or oystered last summer due to the spill. There was far fewer taken than usual. The harvests are big this year. But it takes at least three years for a species to tell their story of exposure and recovery to toxins such as crude oil.

Before the Exxon Valdese oil spill in Alaska, Pacific Herring populations were increasing in record numbers. In the year of the spill, egg mortalities and larval deformities were documented but the population effects of the spill were not established. Four years after the spill a dramatic collapse in the Pacific Herring population occurred and it has never rebounded.

How can ANYBODY hazard a guess as to how marine life in the Gulf will respond to oil and dispersants? To say that ‘all is well’ is absolutely irresponsible. We really don’t know what the long-term effects will be and we won’t know for at least three more years.

All areas I visited did not show such troubling signs. Ft. Pickens and Johnson Beach, both part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore in Florida, look really good. Although there are still small tar balls washing up, there was not dead marine creatures washed up like at BSNWR.

My early-morning SUP trips on Bon Secour Bay and Weeks Bay showed seemingly abundant marine life: shrimp jumped in front of my board, mullet leapt toward waiting mouths of brown pelicans, sea gulls and terns flew behind shrimp boats, waiting to eat their fill of discarded fish that would be thrown back into the water. It was encouraging and wonderful to experience.

My visit to the grass beds at Johnson Beach was also encouraging. I saw large schools of small fish, blue crabs, sting rays and large fish hunting in these nursery beds of the Gulf. And even the paddle in the Gulf was encouraging. I saw six bottlenose dolphin, large schools of sting rays and other small fish. I did, however, also see what appeared to be patches of sunken oil just offshore (probably the source of the tar balls). So yes, it does look better and unfortunately, we have to look deeper than appearances to begin to understand the impact of such an event.

For me or anyone to form a conclusion that everything is okay would be naive. I understand BP wants the world to know that there are fish and shrimp and dolphins still here. The Gulf Shores area had the best tourist season EVER this summer (according to many sources down here) and I understand that merchants don’t want a ‘gloom and doom’ prognosis about the Gulf waters or marine life. I get all that. But to ‘wish away’ the snapper covered in curious lesions and ‘cancers,’ ignore the hundreds of dead crabs washing up, or forget that dolphins found dead this spring have now been linked to the crude oil from MC252…..

Here’s a fact I’ll bet you haven’t read in the papers or seen on the news: Dauphin Island Sea Lab tests have shown a higher level of dispersant chemical than oil chemical in recent tests of salt marsh near Dauphin Island (reported to me by a worker there). Go back and read that sentence again. I really want you to take that in. And now….the questions begin.

Who do you think needs to answer questions about the high levels of dispersant? What about the new oil surfacing on MC252 now? Who can we trust to find out the real truth? These are questions we need to answer….and soon. I’d like to hear from you.