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Thursday, December 30, 2010

Unvanished

Gulf of Mexico oil spill continues to foul 168 miles of Louisiana coastline

Gary Hayward, the Newfields Environmental Planning and Compliance contractor who oversees the SCAT program, said that large area will be placed into a new "monitor and maintenance" category, once Louisiana state and local officials agree to the procedures to be used for that category.

"With rare exceptions, most of the marshes still have a bathtub ring that we have all collectively decided we aren't going to clean any more than we already have because we'd be doing more harm to the marshes than the oil is going to be doing to them," Hayward said.

The cleanup protocols for each state have been approved by state and local governments, federal agencies and BP, he said.

Louisiana's senior coastal official says the state is monitoring the cleanup, and remains concerned with end-of-year conclusions that the cleanup is almost complete.


That last line I've excerpted from Mark Schleifstein's article references an AP story which also ran on NOLA.com this afternoon carrying this headline.

Cleanup of oil-tainted Gulf Coast nears end

This isn't the first time since the oil disaster began that we've seen a sort of "good news" looking headline slapped up for simultaneous release with a disappointing story. Maybe it's a coincidence but some of us tend to get a bit suspicious about that sort of thing.

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