Ellington

Read DMR Director Bill Walker's letter

Mississippi Department of Marine Resources Director Bill Walker issued a letter Friday for all Coastal municipalities to stop BP-funded oil disaster work, The Sun Herald reported today.

"Because of the diminished threat from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources is directing all recipients for Mississippi British Petroleum Deepwater Horizon Response Block Grant sub-grants to not initiate any new response projects and stop all work ... effective August 9, 2010," the letter states.

In the letter, Walker claims that while tar balls will wash ashore for several months or longer, they "will not contaminate marine waters and will not destroy our sensitive marsh habitat."

Walker told the Sun Herald that BP would continue their own clean-up efforts.

BP work crews have also removed 300,000 feet of boom from Mississippi waters, WLOX reported yesterday.

The state received $25 million from BP for local government oil spill clean up earlier this summer.