The Advocate: Mats w. oil-eating microbes might protect Louisiana coast

The May 11 edition of The Advocate carries an article about a Baton Rouge, Louisiana company that plans to install 1,000 feet of mats near Grand Isle today (also May 11) in a bid to “rebuff” oil that is drifting to shore from a late April blowout and explosion at the BP-operated Macondo well offshore Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Deepwater Horizon drilling vessel that was under contract to BP at Macondo, which continues to leak oil, sank to the bottom of the Gulf two days after the fatal explosion.

Baton Rouge-based Floating Island Environmental Solutions’ mats, which consist of nonwoven plastic filaments bonded with marine foam, PVC pipe and cable, will hold oil-eating microbes produced by TMD Technologies Group of Lafayette.

According to The Advocate, Floating Island’s President Ted Martin said Jefferson Parish agreed to the Grand Island demonstration project as a preventive measure.

The newspaper said Louisiana Business and Technology Center at Louisiana State University “paired Floating Island with Ralph Portier, a professor in LSU’s School of the Coast and Environment. Portier has worked for years with TMD, which spun off LSU research into a company that furnishes microbes for environmental spills and cleanups.”

The article said “use of the microbes was commercialized after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill offshore Alaska.

“I got both companies together and tweaked it a little bit and came up with a ‘bio-barrier’ that we think is an improved boom device,” Portier told The Advocate, explaining that oil containment booms must be gathered and disposed of in an environmentally safe fashion after a single use. The bio-barriers offer a more stable system, Portier said, and they can be cleaned and used again.
What’s more, the TMD’s oil-eating microbes and Floating Island’s mats have already proven effective in a 53,000-barrel oil spill in 2006 at Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Read the full article here.

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About The Advocate: Based in Baton Rouge, The Advocate is a morning newspaper, published Monday through Friday by Capital City Press, which was founded in 1909 by Charles P. Manship Sr. and James Edmonds. Manship purchased his partner's interest in 1912, and today the publishing company is owned and operated by the founder's four grandchildren. In addition to The Advocate, Capital City Press owns the Sunday Advocate newspaper.