Oil-Stopping Island Crumbles Into the Gulf: Big Pics
-
July 13, 2010 -- More photographic evidence surfaced today that an artificial island being built to stop the Gulf oil spill from reaching the Louisiana coast is nearly under water.
Over the weekend, coastal scientist Leonard Bahr published images from an anonymous source within the federal government showing what appeared to be a massive sand berm near the Chandeleur Islands being deeply eroded by wave action even as it was still under construction.
In an email to Discovery News this morning, Bahr passed on a new set of close-up photos of the construction site (above, and below). Taken on July 8, the images show sharp-edged sand cliffs running right down to water's edge, a clear indication that wave action from the gulf is eroding the man-made dunes. Even more striking, several pieces of earth-moving equipment and fuel tanks appear to be sinking into the waves.
Bahr, a staunch opponent of the berm project, has called it "a fool's errand." Not only will these short-lived sand piles not stop the oil, he argues, they are siphoning money and sand from parts of the Louisiana coast that desperately need restoration.
Images: Leonard Bahr, LACoastPost
-
our sites
-
video
-
shop
-
stay connected
-
corporate
comments ( )