PLAQUEMINES, La. -- After touring Barataria Bay, National Incident Commander Thad Allen met with Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser at Myrtle Grove Marina.
Both say the situation, in terms of oil contamination, continues improving.
"There's still marshes that are impacted. There's still work to be done, but we're actually to the point right now where we can start looking at bringing some of the boom back in, starting to decontaminate some of the equipment that's out there, start recovering from the recovery, if you will," Allen said.
After many weeks of directing harsh words toward Allen and others at incident command, Nungesser said the lines of communication are finally open.
"Today we are on the same team,” he said.“We are getting the job done."
But on the eve of the Sept. 1st deadline -- set by incident command as a target date for more scaling back -- Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts said local officials continue pushing BP to keep fishermen on the cleanup effort.
"They have started to lay off a lot of outside contractors. We asked that the last people to be laid off would be the locals,” Roberts said. “We're very concerned about our fishermen. Right now, their only real source of income is working the BP spill."
Roberts said Jefferson Parish officials agreed to let BP remove barges that have been used to block several passes if BP would replace the barriers with more crews of local fishermen.
"BP is in the process right now of vetting a list to hire 30 additional boats that would be responsible for picking up any oil up that may be coming through those passes," he said.
Nungesser wants to see a speed up in seafood testing and the claims process to help fishermen who may be in limbo.
"Hopefully the compensation package that Ken Feinberg is working on will bridge that gap of people coming off the Vessels of Opportunity and they will get that compensation in a timely manner, so it will make them whole,” Nungesser said.
The biggest focus for incident command, meanwhile, remains to make sure the blown out well is no longer a threat.
The next steps, Allen said, are to remove the blowout preventer and to continue plugging the well. He said the blowout preventer’s removal is being delayed – possibly until Friday – because of rough weather.
However, finishing the job, Allen said, is a top priority.
"Finishing this well with the bottom kill truly means the end of the threat. We've had the well shut in since the 15th of July. There's been no oil escaping into the gulf. That's a very, very good thing. But we need to make sure every precaution is taken to kill this well," he said.
