With the outcome of BP's oil spill off the Louisiana coast looking bleaker everyday it's somewhat comforting to local communities that it is unlikely for the oil to enter Louisiana's southeast lakes.
Southeastern University professor Robert Moreau, "told members of the Hammond Chamber of Commerce Tuesday morning the oil at this point is not likely to enter the lakes," according to the Office of Public Information's June 10 press release.
Less comforting is what Moreau, who serves as director of the university's Turtle Cove Environmental Research Station in Pass Manchac, stated with regards to hurricane season.
"If we do have a storm of any significance, it could bring the oil into our area."
If that happens, the Louisiana fishing industry and regional wildlife in the western Lake Pontchartrain Basin would be harmed worse than areas are being affected along the Gulf Coast.
"It will be much more difficult to clean up and remediate in a marsh environment," said Moreau. "We've never had to clean oil out of a marsh before. We may end up doing more damage to the marshes if you tried to clean them out."
Moreau stated he and others would start out this week with simple tests in the Rigolets, Chef's Pass and other areas to collect water samples. These, he stated, would serve as "baseline data before any oil gets into the area."
A recent trip to Grand Isle was made by Moreau to shoot video for an upcoming episode of "Backyard Wonders," which he hosts for the Southeastern Channel.
"It's a devastating site, virtually deserted," stated Moreau. "The roads are empty, no one is in the water and restaurants are making less than 10 percent of what they normally take in. It's a very discouraging situation, especially economically. As bad as the spill is, I think we'll recover more quickly environmentally than we will economically."
Moreau added that first we have to stop the spill.Soon after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20, killing 11 men, the amount of oil leaking from the open reservoir was reportedly 210,000 gallons per day. That amount has grown.
According to many experts, most of the reason for the growth in the amount of oil spewing upwards is that the damaged pipe was severed in order to properly place a cap over the leak.
Dr. Roldan Valverde, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Southeastern, is also an expert on sea turtles. The oil spill in the Gulf holds a potential threat, particularly to the endangered Kemp's Ridley Turtle, according to Valverde.
In addition to Moreau and Valverde, Dr. Philip Vogel, Dr. Bonnie Lewis, Dr. Molly McGraw, Dr. Deborah Dardis and other faculty have begun applying for grants towards research funding around the oil spill.
"It shows that our Southeastern staff are going to be very involved in responding to this oil spill," said Moreau.