CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript

Statement

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BLITZER: There may be other options, as well. But the "top kill" option is seen as the best hope to finally stop the massive spill at its source and try to recover from this month-long catastrophe. Take a good look at some of this new video just coming into CNN of the oil in the Gulf. It drives home just how serious the situation is right now.

The Louisiana governor, Bobby Jindal, is just speaking to reporters.

Let's listen in.

GOV. BOBBY JINDAL (R), LOUISIANA: We were also joined today by James Carville and Mary Matalin.

I want to thank them for coming out to see for themselves some of the damage being done to our marshlands and to our wetlands.

You may remember it was just Sunday we gathered here with Billy and other parish leaders to take matters into our own hands, to fill the void in the response effort.

Today, we come back to Plaquemines Parish. We're going to continue to fight to protects our coast, our way of life, from the oil that continues to spill into the Gulf.

We've got some pictures here of some of the oil.

Now, if you'll come over here. This was taken by helicopter this morning. Those of you that went out with us, these were some of the areas that we couldn't -- we couldn't get close enough to on land, but we could see from -- from the boats. We're going to leave these pictures behind. You can see the oil out there. They're labeled at different points.

Over at South Pass, for example, we went right by there today. We also saw some of the marsh where the oil had been. We went to Pass-a-Loutre today and we're going to have some pictures for you of that -- what we saw there, as well. Pass-a-Loutre is an area where there was some heavy oil over a week ago. Some of you may remember the pictures from over a week ago when we first went there.

Since we've been there, there's hard boom that's been placed around it. There is absorbent boom that's been placed around it. The absorbent boom is saturated. It needs to be removed. It's not doing any good at this point. Oil may be come out of that absorbent boom.

And what's most distressing, you may remember I told you back then, the biologists predicted that within five to seven days, you'd see discoloration. Well, we're seeing it.

And we went into the -- we really into the cane, we went into marsh, you know, on airboats. And you could see the heavy, thick oil still there. This is an area that should have been teeming with life. It was literally still. You could see the discoloration of the cane.

This, again, is one of the most important nurseries for the Gulf. This is one of the most important nurseries for our entire Gulf Coast. This is where the young marine life comes from. This is how it goes out to repopulate the Gulf. So that heavy oil is still down there.

I'm going to Billy talk to you a little bit more about some of the things we saw.

We saw, also, when we came back to the wildlife and fisheries base, we saw oil birds they had rescued from that same marsh today that they're going to be sent to Fort Jackson to be cleaned and hopefully released.

You've got additional pictures on the right is one again. I'll let Billy talk to you a little bit about some of the images you see there about some of the oiled pelicans and their oiled eggs.

We have continued to -- we continue to say, look, we've been fighting this oil for over a month now, requesting resources. We too often find the response to be too little too late.

Out of frustration, we met with our coastal parish leaders again on Sunday, just like we did when we formed our own detailed parish protection plans, when it became clear there weren't plans coming from BP and the Coast Guard, that they didn't have their own detailed plans.

This past Sunday, we -- not only did we develop a strategy for state and parish officials to have better situational awareness of the oil's movement within our coast and our offshore areas. Wildlife and fisheries -- state wildlife fisheries has divided the coast into sections that will be patrolled. And they're that go patrol these sectors continuously so that containment and cleanup efforts can be operationalized quickly. Their efforts are going to be supported by the National Guard and parish officials.

We've already begun communicating our findings to BP and the Coast Guard on a daily basis to ensure our coast is continuously monitored and quickly cleaned. Today, these reports will begin to be also publicly reported so that BP can be held accountable for their cleanup efforts.

We don't have 24 or 48 hours to respond to this oil. We need to do everything we can to increase situational awareness. So by using our wildlife and fisheries resources, combined with local parish leaders and National Guard, we want to provide real time updates on the oil we're seeing out there and the damage we're seeing along our coast.

We've also asked the Coast Guard to refocus their effort so they've got greater command and control on the ground, where action needs to be taken quickly to save our coast. We asked the Coast Guard to forward deploy personnel with decision-making authority in every basin area of the coast so they can work closely with parish officials there, so they can see the impact of the oil firsthand, so they're better able to have eyes on the problem and respond quickly.

We don't need to see a repeat of some of the situations we've seen recently. Terrebonne last Friday, we -- we've literally flew the Coast Guard in our helicopters to show them the hard boom on the dock that had been sitting there for three days while the oil was coming into Timbalier Bay. You saw it Saturday in Grand Isle. The mayor literally had to commandeer resources that weren't being used.

Here in Plaquemines Parish, when Billy asked for a hard boom around Cat Island, no hard boom was available. He had to put out his own absorbent boom that quickly became saturated. And we saw the result of the oil on the pelicans. And even more recently, Billy is going to talk to you about his frustrations getting a quick response from BP on a cleanup plan for the Pass-a-Loutre area and some of these other areas.

The bottom line, we still need the Coast Guard to make sure they've got decision-making authority -- Coast Guard officials with decision-making authority, at least in the critical basin areas. And the Brighton Sound (ph) area and the Timbalier-Terrebonne Bay area and the Barataria Bay area and ideally also poised, ready to be deployed in the Chappala Bay and the Wrigley's area, as well.

We need folks in each basin that can make decisions, that can mobilize resources quickly to prevent the oil from coming here, to contain it when it arrives. We cannot afford to wait 24 or 48 hours.

Now, let me stress this again. We know by the law, BP is the responsible party. But we need the federal government to make sure they are, indeed, held accountable and that they are, indeed, responsible.

Our way of life here in coastal Louisiana depends on it. Taking matters into our own hands this week, we've already moved forward on a number of initiatives in Plaquemines, Jefferson, Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes. We're working with local officials to establish a marsh fringe barrier. That's a combination of plugs and berms to keep surface oil from penetrating our interior marshes. We're looking at ways remnant ridges can be bolstered to create a seal and prevent oil from entering the interior waters. And while Booth and Terrebonne Parishes were identifying, for example, east to west canals that can be fortified with boom to serve as a seal to prevent surface oil from further intruding into the marshes there.

I'm going to talk to you a little bit more about what we want to do to keep the oil out of the marshes at all. And we still continue to await word on our dredging plan. But in addition to that, now that the oil is coming into these areas and we still don't have approval, we're moving ahead on our own on this -- on this marsh fringe barrier plan, to prevent additional damage from happening to the interior of these wetlands.

Let me tell you about some of the other updates, what we're doing our -- ourselves to try to keep this oil out of our coast.

The National Guard conducted an aerial reconnaissance mission with CRPA folks along Timberland islands (ph) and Trinity Bayou yesterday. Actions plans for (INAUDIBLE) operations.

Based on this mission, today they're beginning to fill a 115 foot gap near Trinity Bayou. We're not waiting on federal approval from the Army Corps of Engineers to continue to fight to protect our coast. We cannot let bureaucracy and red tape delay our actions while oil hits our wetlands week after week. We've already redirected a dredge that was conducting restoration work on East Grand Terra and you've got some pictures here from East Grand Terra. We've already redirected a dredge conducting restoration work on East Grand Terra, which is east of Grand Isle, to immediately begin constructing a sand boom that is called for in our dredging sand boom plan. Dredging was already underway there to restore the barrier island as a coastal restoration project. We rerouted this project in support of our sand boom plan to help us keep more oil out of our marshes, off our coast.

We're also looking at our existing permit for work on Whiskey Island, to see if we can also use that permit to begin that sand boom work there, even as we're waiting for this Corps -- even as we're waiting for the Corps to respond to our plan.

And so oil continues to hit our coast week after week. We're identifying second and third lines of defense. That is why we need more boom, more skimmers, more jack up barges, as we originally requested under our worst case scenario plan for five million feet of hard boom, three million feet of soft boom, 30 jacket barges, back here on May 2nd. Nearly a month later, we've received 813,800 feet of hard boom. We've deployed 680,435 feet of hard boom. That leaves us with only 133,364 feet of hard boom on hand.

In the last 24 hours, we received 28,000 feet of hard boom and they deployed 30,000 feet. And, again, it shows how important it's going to be to continue to get more resources as we stand up additional lines of defense against these waves of oil that continue to hit our coast.

To give you an idea of the damage being done to our coast to date -- and this number, I'm sure, has already grown since we got it this morning. To date, more than 100 miles of our shoreline has been impacted by this oil spill. That is more than the entire sea coastline of Mississippi and Alabama combined. A hundred miles of coastline already impacted by the oil. We don't have time to wait. We need this dredge plan to be approved.

Let me give you some quick updates on some of the other things we've done. Heskill baskets (ph) -- the National Guard has deployed two and -- deployed 2.5 miles of Heskill (ph) baskets in the Fuschon area (ph). In terms of land bridges, the National Guard continues to conduct maintenance on the land bridges at Elmer's Island and Thunder Bayou, where they have actively been holding oil back from entering our interior wetlands.

And yesterday they have built -- as of yesterday, they have built five gaps in the vicinity of Thunder Bayou and Fort Buchon. Tiger Dance (ph) -- National Guard engineers are working to secure 7.1 miles of Tiger dams in Southwest Pass. Five miles of Tiger dams have been staged on Grand Isle, where they're preparing -- they're going to install those today, working local officials.

Over two and three quarters miles of the Tiger Dam in Southwest Pass is completed. Another two miles of single air Tiger dam has also been erected.

In terms of sand fill operations, CPRA and the Guard -- the National Guard -- have leaned forward. They identified 40 locations where gaps in our barrier islands can be built with sandbags or dump trucks of sand. This would compliment our...

BLITZER: All right. The governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, who's going through a lot of specifics. The bottom line -- this is a disaster. He says 100 miles of the shore of the State of Louisiana now have been seriously affected by these oil spills, that are coming closer and closer.

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