Gulf oil spill gushes on; Jindal wants to build up barrier islands to stop slick
By Steven Mufson and Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 9, 2010 BP's effort to contain the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico ran into technical obstacles over the weekend that increased the likelihood of a prolonged battle to stop the leak. Faced with the prospect of a widening slick, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) proposed a more radical response: dredging the Mississippi River to create a string of barrier islands to protect the coastline.
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Faced with the slow but steady advance of the oil slick, Jindal proposed dredging soil from the Mississippi River to create a ring of islands to protect the state's shorelines. He said the plan would create some new barrier islands and connect existing ones, including some that are federal wildlife preserves. He said that 12 dredges had been identified to begin the work and that he had sent the plan to federal officials for "quick approval."
Speaking at the Cypress Cove Marina in Venice, La., Jindal added that he expected BP to pay for the project, which he estimated would cost "hundreds of millions of dollars."
Earlier, Jindal flew over the Chandeleur Islands, about 10 miles off the coast, and said "stranded oil" was ringing some of them. "It was almost like a ring around a bathtub," he said. He said that changing weather conditions will bring the oil onto islands repeatedly and that "we now expect oil to impact repeatedly."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/08/AR2010050800455.html?hpid=topnews
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