Primary Injury:

The Trustees and PRPs are conducting a cooperative assessment using data and other information that is available from remedial investigations undertaken in the upper Calcasieu Estuary, including data from in and around Bayou Verdine. These data, together with results from other studies and injury benchmarks reported in the scientific literature, are being used to evaluate the potential for injuries to benthic habitat and communities, surface water resources, higher trophic level species (i.e., birds, mammals, & non-demersal fish), and human recreational use of area waters. This evaluation indicates the primary impacts are to benthic resources, including marine worms, blue crabs, bottom dwelling fish and their habitat.

The proposed assessment of these losses is described in the Draft Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment (DARP/EA) for Bayou Verdine, Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, released by the Trustees on March 27, 2009.  That assessment incorporates conservative assumptions (i.e., in favor of natural resources, thus leading to higher estimates of injury).