Venice, Louisiana (CNN) — Frustrated Louisiana officials Sunday demanded the federal government approve their plans to dredge up walls of sand to protect delicate inland estuaries from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
“Either the Coast Guard has to side with its American citizens and protect its communities, or it has to side with a major world corporation named BP and betray American citizens in that process,” St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro told reporters.
With oil sloshing ashore along the state’s barrier islands and seeping into marshes around the mouth of the Mississippi River, state and parish leaders want to use dredges to close channels between the Gulf and the coastal estuaries.
