Pearl River spill cleanup gives laborers chance to help, make money

By Ramon Antonio Vargas, The Times-Picayune
Armed with hard hats, life vests and rakes, more than 100 men and women braved baking temperatures and stomached nauseating odors on Thursday to start picking up thousands of fish killed in the Pearl River system late last week by a dumped chemical mixture that depleted much more oxygen in the water than usual.

 Most of the hired hands that boarded dozens of boats for the task came from Louisiana and Mississippi communities surrounding the waterway, and a few of them were motivated by a desire to aid both their neighbors and themselves.
“It’s an opportunity to get decent pay,” said Teresa Parker, 38, who made the short drive from her home in Slidell to a temporary cleanup employment tent erected at Crawford Landing on the West Pearl River. “I wanted to help (the area), too.”
Others, though, felt they were rescuing waters that fisheries, swamp tour operators and transportation depend on.
Commercial fisherman Paul Guchereau, of Picayune, Miss., said his family so loves the Pearl that his 8-year-old son already fishes it aboard his own miniature, motorized pontoon boat.
“It’s a way of life here,” he said.
Many who sought work arrived at Crawford Landing by daybreak. Representatives of Integrated Pro Services LLC of New Orleans, which was contracted to recruit the labor to clean up the substantial fish kill blamed on the Temple-Inland paper plant in Bogalusa, turned some applicants away because they did not show up with adequate footwear. Others were denied because they resided in places not near the Pearl River — St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis had previously negotiated to have the majority of cleanup jobs given to those living in areas affected by the paper mill’s dump.
New Orleans resident Ronald Thomas, 44, was among those who left empty-handed. Though at least some media outlets did report that the labor available would go to those who lived along the river, he complained that officials did not do enough to alert the public.
“It costs money to come up here,” Thomas said as he walked back to his car. “Don’t get us out here and then send us home.”
Grueling condition
Miserable conditions awaited those who Integrated Pro Services did sign up on behalf of the firm Arcadis, which was asked to oversee the cleanup. After receiving their equipment and brief safety training, workers sailed into mid-90s heat and the pungent, rotting smell emanating from perished fish and shellfish.
Numerous species died after Temple-Inland discharged into the river a mixture of pulp from the paper-manufacturing process and other chemicals at levels exceeding the plant’s environmental permits. Officials have blamed an equipment malfunction at the plant for the substance’s higher-than-normal levels. They suspect it drastically reduced oxygen levels in the Pearl and its tributaries, suffocating thousands of fish.
On Thursday, the workers used rakes, hooks and gloved hands to fish out the carcasses and store them in black trash bags.
Some of the bodies floated on the surface, and others had washed up on logs drifting in the waterway. One spot was so tightly packed with dead fish that it appeared as if the carcasses paved a roadway atop the river surface.
A breath of fresh air was impossible to find. Apparently none of the sweat-drenched laborers wore breathing masks of any kind — just their construction workers’ helmets, orange-colored life vests, T-shirts and jeans or shorts.
In all, about 50 boats carrying some 160 people had scattered along the river by the early afternoon, said Abby Cruz of Integrated Pro Services.
According to St. Tammany Parish spokeswoman Suzanne Parsons Stymiest, the crews were also equipped with clipboards and pens to document the types of fish they collected. Gov. Bobby Jindal has said that Temple-Inland — which has cautiously admitted responsibility in the situation — may be investigated for possible violations of the Endangered Species Act.
The Temple-Inland facility’s wastewater has already killed at least 10 Gulf sturgeon, a federally-protected species that lives much of its adult life offshore in the Gulf of Mexico and moves into rivers to spawn in the spring and summers.
Other endangered species that may have been in the black liquor’s path are the ringed map turtle, also known as the ringed sawback turtle, and the inflated heelsplitter mussel.
Davis said officials do not know how long it may take to remove the dead fish, which prevents decaying carcasses from continuing to deplete oxygen in the waterway.
Potential for more fish deaths reduced
Early into the cleanup, environmental scientist Jeff Dauzat of the Department of Environmental Quality expressed optimism about the river’s resilience to the fish kill.
The substance that sparked the crisis had been “diluted, dissipated and assimilated” by more than 70 miles of river it had flowed through, he said. There is still depleted oxygen in the black liquor plume, but “it is high enough to sustain aquatic life,” Dauzat added.
Therefore, the DEQ does not expect water quality in the Rigolets, Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne to suffer. The Rigolets connects the western, middle and eastern portions comprising the Pearl River to Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne.
Dauzat attributed any dead fish that have appeared or do appear in the Rigolets and the lakes as the situation resolves itself to tides and currents that pushed them there.
“The potential for fish deaths at this point have been greatly reduced,” he said.
Meanwhile, in other developments, Slidell-based lawyer Tom Thornhill filed a class action lawsuit Wednesday against Temple-Inland on behalf of people owning either land or businesses affected by the black liquor release.
Thornhill’s office asks those who may qualify for representation in the suit, which was filed in the 22nd Judicial District Court covering Washington and St. Tammany parishes, to call 985.641.5010.