Site History: Bayou Verdine has been impacted by releases of hazardous substances since the area around the bayou was developed for industrial purposes. Chemical manufacturing and petroleum refining facilities were established in the vicinity of Calcasieu Parish around the early 1920s when oil and natural gas deposits were discovered in the area. Since that time, the amount of industrial development in the watershed has increased greatly to include over 30 major industries.

Location: Lake Charles, Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana.

Trustees:

• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
• Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ)
• Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF)
• Louisiana Department of Natural Resources(LDNR)

Case status:

• Injury assessment underway
• Restoration planning underway
• Emergency removal complete, additional removal is in planning stage

Overview: Bayou Verdine is a small tributary of the Calcasieu River, in the upper Calcasieu Estuary. It originates in an agricultural area and then flows through both residential and industrial areas before joining the river at the Coon Island Loop.

Natural resources have been harmed by hazardous substances present in sediments in Bayou Verdine and Coon Island Loop. The sediment contamination includes heavy metals, PAHs, and volatile compounds and has primarily impacted benthic resources, including marine worms, blue crabs, bottom dwelling fish and their habitat. Much of the contamination is due to historical releases from two refining facilities located along the bayou (currently owned/operated by ConocoPhillips Company and Sasol North America Inc.) which have been in production for decades. The contamination in the bayou sediments prompted an emergency removal of sediments in 2002-2003 from the West Ditch area at Conoco’s facility, under EPA’s oversight. Additional sediment removal (i.e., dredging of areas within the bayou’s main channel) has been approved by EPA but has not yet been implemented.

State and federal natural resource trustees are conducting a natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) for Bayou Verdine and Coon Island Loop. ConocoPhillips and Sasol North America, the potentially responsible parties (PRPs), have been cooperating with the Trustees in the NRDA process. The objective of this NRDA has been to identify and quantify the natural resources and ecological services that are likely to have been injured or lost due to the hazardous substances present in the bayou and the Loop and to identify appropriate restoration actions to compensate for those losses. The amount and type of compensatory restoration will be based upon the results of the injury assessment.

LDNR is a designated CERCLA trustee in Louisiana, but is not participating directly in the NRDA process for this site because the resource impacts are outside Louisiana’s defined coastal zone, the area of LDNR trust interest. The Trustees have consulted with and kept LDNR informed during the process to ensure there were no potential impacts to LDNR trust resources within the scope of the Bayou Verdine NRDA.