Page 3 - Marsh Grass News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> reporter: in lands south of new orleans, water is life. >> this is jimmy on the fringe. >> reporter: on the surface, life might seem back to normal. no slick of crude oil, no skimmer boats or emergency crews in the delicate wetlands, the disaster could have happened yesterday. this is one of the sensitive marsh islands in an area known as bay jimmy. you can see there is an inch of oil over here. if you give it a scrape, ten months later it's become coming up almost liquid. the oil is killing the marsh grass. this is what holds the islands together. when it's gone, you get wave action from t...

Their young. >> certainly i think any impact is more impact than we h had' like to see, there has been some, but in my humble opinion we've seen impact, but i think it could have been worse and i think we'll see success from the birds nesting the a the islands. the coast guard is coordinating detection and clean yuf efforts including the construction of this two mile long pipe boon held in place by pilots. it's a natural collection point. and there are endless lines of white and orange absorb bant boom. 90 feet or so replaced every day or so, some caught in the marsh grass weeks ago now carrie...

Different forms in the gulf of mexico, but you crunch the numbers on that, and you're still looking at more than a million barrels of oil that's still unaccounted for, and many people around here still think that that creates a lot of work that still is left to be done. we saw that firsthand today. we're in an area known as passaloutra, louisiana, southernmost point here in the gulf of mexico, an area hit incredibly hard by the oil spill. crews are here in the marsh grass laying down these absorbant pad and flipping over, it collects the sheen on the top of the water and people around here are...

And the mayor of waveland saying this is just -- this is something that they feared the most. en that is why. this area is just so important. take a listen. >> once it gets into the marshes and it's in this fragile ecosystem, it's on the grasses, saw grass, marsh grass, duck wheat. it clings to it. these are the areas where our crabs and shrimp, you know, migrate to, lay their eggs and this is the beginning of this huge fishery that we have out here. our crabs and our shrimp and fish. >> reporter: the mayor saying that he had warned about this and that, you know, he just wish that's things wou...

Bay. >> the most productive estuary in north america. if the oily birds and sea turtles pulled out of here weeks ago are any indication, the odds of survival are grim. days before hurricane alex, scientists surveyed louisiana's coastal wetlands from the air and found severe damage mostly confined to the outer edges of the marsh grass. not anymore. >> what we're worried about is the long-term impact of the oil in this water. millions of gallons of oil are still in the water. we're worried about the subsea wall and chemicals and dispersants. >> we're about 60 miles from the mouth of the mississi...