Plastic Nurdles Line The MS River Near New Orleans, And No One Is Required To Clean Them Up

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When I arrived on Sunday, August 9, scores (Ed. - sic) of tiny plastic pellets lined the sandy bank of the Mississippi River downstream from New Orleans, Louisiana, where they glistened in the sun, not far from a War of 1812 battlefield. These precursors of everyday plastic products, also known as nurdles, spilled from a shipping container that fell off a cargo ship at a port in New Orleans the previous Sunday, August 2.

After seeing photographs by New Orleans artist Michael Pajon published on NOLA.com, I went to see if a cleanup of the spilled plastic was underway. A week after the spill, I saw no signs of a cleanup when I arrived in the early afternoon, but I did watch a group of tourists disembark from a riverboat that docked along the plastic-covered riverbank. By most accounts, the translucent plastic pellets are considered pollution, but government bureaucracy and regulatory technicalities are making accountability for removing these bits of plastic from the river’s banks and waters surprisingly challenging.



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“The petrochemicals present will pollute fish and wildlife for years as they degrade in the sun,” Scott Eustis with Healthy Gulf, an environmental advocacy group, wrote of the pellets in an email. “This is ominous for the August 2nd event,” he added, after learning that the nurdles still remain along the river.

Along with the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. Coast Guard is conducting a joint investigation of what happened but has yet to determine who is responsible for the incident at the Ports America facility in New Orleans that knocked four containers off the CMA CGM Bianca, a container ship, according to Sydney Phoenix, a Coast Guard spokesperson. As for a cleanup of the plastic pellets, Phoenix explained on a call, that because nurdles are not categorized as a hazardous material, the Coast Guard does not have the authority to call for a cleanup. Later by email she wrote, “Three of the containers were recovered immediately but one was not, containing the plastic resin pellets. It was recovered earlier this week.” She added that the “Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) has been notified.”

Next, I asked the LDEQ if the state agency was taking any action due to the spilled plastic. “We were not the lead agency. Coast Guard is. I can't speak for them,” Greg Langley, spokesperson for LDEQ, replied by email. When I pressed Langley for information on what LDEQ’s role, if any, is in the Coast Guard investigation, he replied: “We are assisting the investigation. Once the responsible party is determined, they will be responsible for any cleanup activities,” adding, “If someone spills something into the environment in Louisiana, we as stewards will usher a positive response.”

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https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/08/11/nurdles-plastics-spill-mississippi-river-chalmette-louisiana-formosa