Saturday, July 26, 2008 - Tour of Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes by Wilma Subra, technical advisor to LEAN, to observe the oil spill impacts to the Mississippi River and its environment as a result of the ship and barge accident on Wednesday, July 23, 2008.

The broken damaged barge is still leaking fuel oil into the Mississippi River (3 days later) and the barge is propped against the New Orleans Crescent City Connection bridge.

Skimmer boats attempt to capture the newly leaked fuel oil.

Booms line the shorelines in many places to keep the oil from contaminating the shore. The booms are mostly holding the spilled oil against the banks.

While on the banks of the Mississippi River, at the site of the leaking barge, Mother River lifts her arms over the river as she oversees the leaking barge and the catastrophic disaster inflicted on her river.

The Mississippi River is still largely closed to ships, tugs, barges and other river traffic. Four vessels were allowed through the contaminated area on Friday (July 25, 2008) and five on Saturday (July 26 2008).

More than 200 ships and barge tows are waiting to navigate the river to deliver raw materials and products or load materials for transportation to foreign ports. The Port of New Orleans estimates the economic impact of the river shutdown on the port to be 101 million dollars per day. The port has also estimated the economic impact of the entire area affected by the spill to be 275 million dollars per day.

The paddle wheeler Natchez, surrounded by the oily waste and booms, stays tied to the dock.

This weekend the Natchez had expected to have a large number of passengers that would take a tour of the Mississippi River. The National Conference of State Legislators were meeting in New Orleans and consisted of Legislators from across the Unites States. Many of the legislators were planning on taking a trip on board the Natchez to tour the Mississippi River. Due to the oil spill, the Natchez remained at the dock and loss an anticipated passenger load of 1,000 people and ticket sales of $30,000.

Ferries that transport workers between the east and west banks of the Mississippi River through out the urban area were shut down.

Tourist are starting to come back to the French Quarter of New Orleans. However only a few tourist are visiting the walkways along the oily Mississippi River.

Carnival Cruse Lines ship the Carnival Fantasy was scheduled to dock in New Orleans on Saturday (7/26/08). The ship had to be diverted to the port of Mobile and the 2,056 passengers had to be bused from Mobile to New Orleans.

The smell of petroleum permeates the air along both shores of the Mississippi River. The oily waste can be found on both sides of the booms.

Oil waste has contaminated and built up on the rocks along the shore of the Mississippi River.

Oil covers vegetation along the batture of the Mississippi River.

Woody debris carried down the Mississippi River have been contaminated with the oily waste.

In many areas the batture just inside the Mississippi River levee has been entirely coated with the oily waste.

In the lower 9th Ward of Orleans Parish, oily debris lines the river bank. The oily waste coats fallen trees, vegetation, and soils and sediments along the batture and contaminates wildlife.

The Industrial Canal Locks which locks vessels between the Mississippi River and the Industrial Canal contains two sets of booms.

One near the lock system and one at the entrance to the canal system from the Mississippi River. Skimmer boats are removing the oily waste between the booms.

A boat is stranded at the entrance to the locks until the threat of oil migrating through the locks has been abated.

At Jackson Barracks on the boarder of Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, the shore line is filled with a very large quantity of oily waste. This area was critical to the protection of New Orleans during the battle of New Orleans.

In the community of Oakville in Plaquemines Parish on the west bank of the Mississippi River, oily waste coats the banks of the river.

The oily waste clings to an egret along the banks of the Mississippi River near the community of Oakville.

In the area of Jesuit Bend on the west bank of the Mississippi River, the banks of the river contain large quantities of oily waste. This area received the attention of clean up crews two days earlier.

The oily waste in the Jesuit Bend area has contaminated the environment and coated birds in the area.

Louisiana Environmental Action Network and Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper make the following recommendations:

State and federal agencies must:

• Make sure that the environment is completely restored.
• Assess the extent of contamination of the environment and the associated economic impacts, both in the short and long term.
• Carefully examine drinking water taken from the Mississippi River downstream from the spill area to determine definitively whether they have been affected or not.
• Long term monitoring to track the environmental damage.
• Evaluate the long term effects to our valuable wetland ecosystems.
• Assess what implications this will have on the Gulf of Mexico including the Dead Zone.