"The state of Louisiana has refused to sign off on a Coast Guard-BP plan to transition from a cleanup program to a long-term recovery in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, charging that the plan leaves coastal beaches and wetlands vulnerable to continued oil contamination with no guarantee that BP will be required to pay for future cleanups."
"The state is particularly concerned that the plan includes no long-term monitoring for additional oil, contains provisions that are likely to disrupt a multibillion-dollar federal-state coastal restoration program, and excludes parish leaders from decision-making. Those are the highlights of a Nov. 2 letter sent to Coast Guard Capt. Julia Hein, federal on-scene coordinator for the spill, by state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Chairman Garret Graves.
'We said we have 23 miles of shoreline where there's still oil being found and millions of barrels of BP oil in the Gulf that's unaccounted for,' Graves said Wednesday. 'We still have sporadic re-oilings, and you can't tell us where the oil is.'
The plan has gone into effect despite the state's objections. The federal on-scene coordinator does not need state agreement to determine whether cleanup of a particular area is complete."
Mark Schleifstein reports for the New Orleans Times-Picayune November 9, 2011.
