St. Bernard Parish Government

President's Message

Parish President Craig P. Taffaro, Jr. would like to welcome you to St. Bernard Parish

St. Bernard Parish is located just five miles from downtown New Orleans with easy access to all that the city offers. St. Bernard has much to offer on its own as a place to live or visit. St. Bernard has a rich history with its most famous occurrence being the site of the Battle of New Orleans which effectively ended the War of 1812.

Frank Auderer, Jr.
Councilman at Large West

Wayne J. Landry
Councilman at Large East

Ray Lauga, Jr.
Councilman District A

George Cavignac
Councilman District B

Kenneth Henderson
Councilman District C

Mike Ginart, Jr.
Councilman District D

Fred Everhardt, Jr.
Councilman District E

Parish President Craig Taffaro's Current Report

June 15, 2010

Dear Council Members, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today marks day 56 in the Horizon Deepwater Oil Spill disaster. Over the last several weeks, we have seen many scenarios and trajectories unfold- some have been more accurate than others. What has remained consistent in this disaster situation is the continued presence of oil being released into the Gulf waters. Currently, the estimated amount of oil being captured is nearly 16,000 barrels a day with a continued amount not being captured. Oil impacts now stretch from Florida to Western Louisiana. St. Bernard continues to be somewhat more fortunate than our Louisiana neighbors to our west in that we have experienced approximately 1.5 miles of oil landfall which has primarily been on our island masses, specifically Brush Island, Free Mason Island, and parts of the Chandeleurs as well as a few land points. There has been approximately 250 bbls (over 10,000 gallons) of oil picked up in the outer waters of St. Bernard to date. As long as the leak continues, the threat to St. Bernard will be real and heightened. Our planned response to the presence of oil is multi-faceted and involves both offensive and defensive strategies. The offensive strategies include vigilant reconnaissance by boat as well as air operations. We are currently conducting four recon flights a day and have requested an additional air asset to produce real time photos and video recon that can be used along the Mississippi and Louisiana on shore and off shore areas. Additionally, our offensive strategies include test trawling and crab-trap booming. While we have some skimming assets within our command, we continue to reach for additional assets in order to adequately implement our plan. The defensive aspects of our plan include the deployment of hard and soft booming operations. Hard boom has been deployed throughout the St. Bernard boundaries and we have officially begun booming operations in our adjacent Plaquemines Parish waters as well. Our local fishing fleet along with the Oil Spill Response Organizations have deployed some 50 miles of hard boom and another 30 miles of soft boom. We have a staged another 25 miles of hard boom to be deployed in some of the more high maintenance areas as the appropriate time as well as thousands of feet of pom pom and absorbent boom as a matter of inland response, should the need arrive. The Chandeleur Island berm project for St. Bernard is underway on the northern portion of the island and the design for internal sand dams is nearly complete.

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