Louisiana wildlife officials say they have documented more than 100 oil-soaked birds after crude oil spilled from a refinery flooded during Hurricane Ida.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said a growing number of oiled birds had been observed within heavy pockets of oil throughout the Phillips 66 Alliance Refinery in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, as well as nearby flooded fields and retention ponds along the Mississippi River.

Jon Wiebe, a biologist running the state restoration program, said 10 oiled birds have been captured and transported to a rehabilitation location for cleaning. Five additional dead birds were recovered and bagged as evidence, he said.

White House calls on Congress to pass $24 billion in disaster relief
A summary issued Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency said it had received 43 notifications of significant inland oil spills and chemical releases in its jurisdiction after Ida.

The agency’s compliance arm has issued 10 requests to facility operators seeking information to determine whether federal environmental laws were violated during the storm, potentially triggering penalties and fines.

That is a small fraction of the 1,539 reports of pollution a U.S. Coast Guard hotline has received since the Category 4 storm made landfall made landfall Aug. 29 at Port Fourchon, the primary port for the offshore oil and gas industry.

The Coast Guard said Thursday it was actively supervising the cleanup and mitigation efforts at 564 sites. Another 197 reports were listed as unverified because there was no remaining evidence of pollution.

Asked about reports of levee failures near the refinery the day after Ida hit, Phillips 66 spokesman Bernardo Fallas told AP there was “some water” in the facility and stressed that operations were shut down in advance of the storm.

Asked two days after the storm about potential environmental hazards emanating from the facility, Fallas referred a reporter to a statement on the company’s website saying its response is focused “on ensuring the safety and well-being of our employees and our surrounding communities.”

On Day Three, after the AP sent Phillips 66 aerial photos showing extensive flooding at the refinery and what appeared to be petroleum in the water, Fallas conceded the company could had “discovered a sheen of unknown origin in some flooded areas” of the refinery and that all pollution had been “secured and contained within refinery grounds” at that time.

This image provided by NOAA taken Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021 and reviewed by The Associated Press shows oil slicks at the flooded Phillips 66 Alliance Refinery in Belle Chasse, La.

State and federal regulators responded to the spill site after AP provided the photos of the spill Wednesday and the company acknowledged a “sheen of unknown origin” at its flooded refinery.

A Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality assessment team sent to the refinery last week reported a sizable spill of heavy crude oil at the site was being addressed with booms and absorbent pads.

A levee meant to protect the plant had breached, allowing floodwaters to flow in during the storm and then back out as the surge receded.

Despite the gap in the levee remaining open for days after the storm, Fallas once again asserted Thursday no oil spilled beyond the land owned by Phillips 66.

“The breach has been secured,” Fallas said. “Clean-up crews continue to remove oil and sheen contained within some flooded areas of the refinery.

There has been no offsite impact. We continue to work with all appropriate regulatory agencies.”

No estimate for how much oil might have spilled from the refinery has yet been made public by state or federal regulators.

When fully operational, the Alliance Refinery can process more than 255,000 barrels of crude oil per day into gasoline and other petroleum products.

The company listed the aging refinery for sale last month, before the storm hit, citing poor market conditions.

The facility remained shut down Thursday, with no timetable to reopen.

Following inquires, Fallas also confirmed that a Phillips 66 pipeline in an uninhabited area outside Paradis, Lousiana, leaked during Ida.

Records show the company reported to the Coast Guard on Aug. 31 that 2,700 barrels of isobutane, a liquified flammable gas often used to fuel camping stoves, had spilled.

“The site was isolated and brought under control last week,” Fallas said. “The product vaporized to the atmosphere when it was released; there was no impact to soil or water. The pipeline remains shut down while repairs are underway.”

Supply trucks are once again delivering beer on Bourbon Street and the landmark Cafe Du Monde is serving beignets, fried pastries covered with white sugar, even though there aren’t many tourists or locals around to partake of either.

With almost all the power back on in New Orleans nearly two weeks after Hurricane Ida struck, the city is showing signs of making a comeback from the Category 4 storm, which is blamed for more than two dozen deaths in the state.

More businesses are opening daily, gasoline is easier to find and many roads are lined with huge debris piles from cleanup work.

Thousands are still struggling without electricity and water outside the metro area.

It could still be weeks before power is restored in some areas, and many residents who evacuated haven’t returned.

Around New Orleans, residents are seeing signs that life is getting back to normal after Ida.

Philip Palumbo, who lives in the French Quarter and works at a bar that remains shuttered, said the citywide curfew being lifted should help restaurants and bars struggling to reopen get more customers.

“There’s not a lot around yet, but they’ll be back,” he said.

Power crews reached a “major milestone” in the New Orleans area by restoring electricity to the vast majority of customers, Phillip May, chief executive of the state’s largest power provider, Entergy Louisiana, said in a conference call with reporters.

About 201,000 of Entergy’s 205,000 customers, or 98% percent, now have power, the company said, and those that don’t had more severe damage.

More than 220,000 homes and businesses remained without power Friday in southeast Louisiana, according to the state Public Service Commission.

And while Baton Rouge and New Orleans were almost completely restored, the four hardest-hit parishes — St. John the Baptist, St. Charles, Terrebonne and Lafourche — still had 80% or more of their utility customers without power.

Now that power is mostly restored to New Orleans and Baton Rouge, more crews are heading south to the areas hardest-hit by the storm, May said.

“As we move into those harder-hit areas, the effort to restore customers becomes greater,” said May, who vowed to “keep up the pace” of restoring electricity across the region.

Across the system, “heat illness is a big concern,” said Dr. Robert Hart, Ochsner’s chief medical officer.

Hart said emergency rooms have also seen several patients stricken by carbon monoxide, a common problem after big storms as people use gas-powered generators for electricity, sometimes indoors.

Around New Orleans, progress is showing up both in lights that are back on and piles of debris that line multiple streets.

As residents return home they are stacking up wet mattresses, fractured lumber, tree limbs and other storm refuse along curbs. In the French Quarter, a big pile sat beneath balconies with decorative ironwork.

In the New Orleans suburb of Gretna, Tiffany Scott and her family had a long pile of debris along the sidewalk outside her home.

Scott said it has slowly gotten easier to get gas, ice and other supplies that were scarce immediately after the hurricane.

“We’ve been through this before, so most of us are used to knowing that we have to go drive and sit in a line,” she said. “But it’s a lot easier to find the things you need.”

Still, there is evidence the city has a ways to go before it is fully recovered.