Last week I had the opportunity to spend time with my Sea Shepherd friends on the coast of Mississippi doing some sampling along the beaches and on the barrier islands along with photographing beaches at night using a powerful UV lighting system. The whole experience was “illuminating” to say the least. UV lighting illuminates or causes the more toxic and persistent parts of petroleum to flouresce or shine a bright yellow or orange color, which is clearly visible in the night shots of the walls of small trenches we dug along which were taken in the area of Lat 30,21.1459N Long 89,7.737W, Long Beach/Gulfport Area, and in the images of the Tar Balls littering the beaches at Lat 30,15.5603N Long 89,24.5245W Bay St. Louis area. We did take samples of the the sands in these areas for lab analyzation. I have also attached a picture of what the beach looks like during the day when it is impossible to see what the UV light illuminates. Using the UV light during the day was a challenge, but our leader, Bonny Schumaker, overcame this hurdle with a little ingenuity, using a large black cover which was impermeable by light, to create the darkness needed to look into the many 3 inch wide and 2.5ft deep circular core holes we dug making the UV light effective during daylight hours. Our days were spent on the beaches and Islands from the Pascagula Area, Round Island and Singing River, to Ocean Springs and Waveland collecting more soil samples, live crabs and water samples from the Ocean Springs area, Lat 30,23.0288N Long 88,48.6751W, and also secured some live shrimp, fish and squid samples to be professionally analyzed. Ultimately, we were able to cover a seemingly insurmountable area in a relatively short time thanks to the passionate work of Rex, Brock and Bonny, and the help of some friends in the area. As Always, all of the images here contain the specific Lat/Long coordinates in the metadata.
See the rest of my coverage from mid may up to date at http://nativeorleanian.com/category/bp-oil-spill/

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