Fri May 18, 2012
Jessica Lass
Surviving the Spill
By Jessica Lass, Louisiana – June 2010
In May I spent two weeks living in the Bayou as the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history unfolded across the Gulf of Mexico. I was in Venice (LA) with a few of my colleagues from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) trying to make sense of the slow moving catastrophe. From the moment we arrived we were met with a pervasive fear and disbelief that blanketed the Louisiana coastal community.
Nonetheless, the shrimpers, fisherman, mothers, doctors, restaurateurs from New Orleans, people supplying the boom to BP and others seemed connected by one uniting thread – they were survivors. This was a phrase we heard over and over again when interviewing locals who had lived through Katrina – a storm that not only flattened the small fishing community of Venice and tossed two-ton boats into the trees, but took the lives of locals determined to wait it out.
On several trips out in a 17 foot fiberglass skiff captained by sport fisherman Carey O’Neil we watched pods of dolphins gasp their way through the slick of dispersed oil. At the mouth of the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, we found oily clumps lining at least a foot above the water level all along the reeds of the island at South Pass. It stained my fingertips red and made my hands sticky. It also emitted a strong smell that burned my nose and eyes.
About 10-15 feet inland reeds thickly immersed in gooey oil were immersed in pools of red liquid visible due to the low tide. There were pools of oil farther inland and also tar-balls, about the size of a quarter – some slightly larger others smaller – that had washed up onto the shore and congealed with the sand. Some of the tar balls had started to liquefy from the heat of the hot sun – making it virtually impossible to ever separate it from the sand.
We learned that several shrimpers had cast their nets aside signing up with BP to use their shrimping boats as “vessels of opportunity” placing absorbent boom where hundreds of pounds of shrimp were once hauled in. The shrimpers seemed leery about going out to fight the oil spill. Most of them knew the magnitude of the spill and expected to be out to sea for days at a time armed with booms and bags and assorted absorbent materials.
Deckhands dressed in hazmat suits with respirators handled the oil-soaked materials. But regardless of whether you’re handling the oil-soaked booms or not, if you’re out on the water in 100 degree heat over an oil slick the size of New Jersey you’re bound to run into health problems. So it’s not a surprise that many of these fishermen need to be air lifted to hospitals due health complications at sea.
Some of the men we talked to were concerned about how their work with the booms and absorbent materials would actually make a difference given the one million gallons of oil spewing out of the Deepwater Horizon daily. How are these men with their shrimping boats expected to make a dent in fighting a spill of this magnitude? One shrimper asked somewhat rhetorically, “How many gallons could we possibly absorb with the booms if the oil continues to gush at its current rate?”
I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know the community feels they have to do something, they have to stay mobilized, they have to stay working and trying to earn a living. Signing a contract with BP to put their boats in the middle of an oil spill and trying to contain the damage is what many see as their best option, even if it means tearing up their boats in the process.
Many of the shrimpers I met in May have been out on the water for more than 40 days. Some have come in periodically to see their families, but most stay out as long as they can stand it, in hopes that they can get as much of the oily gunk out of the sea as possible. They want to protect their precious shrimping grounds if they can.
Now is typically the time when these men would be out on the sea every day, hauling in catches sometimes totaling $17,000. The industry has already lost more than $18 million since the oil spill. While the daily paycheck from BP of $1,500 isn’t anything to scoff at and most shrimpers seem to welcome the payment, it certainly won’t amount to what they could make in a good season. Unfortunately for the Gulf, the next good season could be years if not decades away.
Information on the activities of the Natural Resources Defense Council can be found at www.nrdc.org
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