After a harrowing boat ride, where BP managing director Bob Dudley, in the company of Gov. Bobby Jindal, saw the toll the oil spill is exacting on Louisiana's wildlife, the oil executive immediately pledged $60 million to construct sand berms. After a harrowing boat ride, where BP managing director Bob Dudley, in the company of Gov. Bobby Jindal, saw the toll the oil spill is exacting on Louisiana's wildlife, the oil executive immediately pledged $60 million to construct sand berms.
"What I saw was painful, it was emotional and shocking," Dudley told The Advocate. "The images are disturbing when you see them on television and in the newspapers. But when you see them firsthand, it becomes very personal."
This is the first installment from BP of what the state estimates to be a $360 million, 24 separate berms project, if all permits are obtained from the Corps. Currently, the state holds six permits and a plans to begin dredging and building the berms immediately.
While critics of the plan in part say the berms are too little too late, the spill continues to gush into the gulf at an unspecified rate, and rafts of oil are drifting into the state's fragile estuaries, breeding grounds for myriad marine species.