But as Louisiana officials and the Coast Guard conduct tests to determine the source, an all-too-familiar scene is developing over a 30-mile stretch of coast: Oil and oil byproducts such as tarballs have come rolling in. And teams of workers are rolling out a containment boomthe fencelike structures designed to keep oil from washing ashoreas oil-skimming vessels try to intercept the oil on the water's surface. And where the oil has landed, cleanup crews are scouring up the petroleum mess.
"We have 10,000 feet of hard boom and 9,000 feet of five-inch sorbent boom ordered into the area. We have 5,000 feet of each boom already delivered and staged in Grand Isle," Coast Guard Capt. Jonathan Burton said in a statement.
Meanwhile, residents of the Louisiana Gulf community of Grand Isle, who thought they'd finally turned the page on the nightmare of last year's BP spill, have noticed crude invading once again.
"I was out there from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. yesterday and the stuff came in in waves onto the island and through Caminada Pass," Grand Isle resident Betty Doud told the Times- Picayune. "There were these orange, nasty waves and black oil mixed with it. The oil was in the rocks along the pass."