The oil has engaged the wetlands.
Jindal, sitting at the edge of an airboat, swept a handheld fishing net through the mess and held it up. It was coated with brown sludge, which had stained the lower shafts of the leafy green reeds sticking up to eight feet out of the water.
"This has laid down a blanket in the marsh that will destroy every living thing there," Nungesser said.
Jindal said there had been indications of such coastal contamination from aerial observations on Tuesday. Wednesday's trip confirmed the incursion.
"The day that we've been fearing is upon us today," he said later at a news conference in the coastal town of Venice, about an hour away by boat.
But the damage from the chocolate milk will be totally "modest," right BP?