Thu April 15, 2021 - Southeast Edition #8
Lori Tobias â CEG Correspondent
Aerial image, captured in 2014, of the future Upper Barataria Large Scale Marsh Creation project area location where more than 1,100 acres of marsh will be restored.
(NOAA Fisheries/Gulf Coast Air and Weeks Marine Inc. photo)
Nearly 11 years after the
Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is preparing to bid out the marsh restoration project on Barataria Bay, La. According to NOAA, the lead federal agency on the Barataria Bay project, the explosion killed 11 people, injured 17 others and emptied 134 million gal. of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It caused the deaths of 105,400 sea birds; 7,600 adult and 160,000 juvenile sea turtles; and up to a 51-percent decrease in dolphins in Louisiana s Barataria Bay.