By Leonard Earl Johnson
ConsumerAffairs.com
May 30, 2010
Anger and despair greeted the news that British Petroleum's latest attempt to cap its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico had failed. It was the news that everyone knew was coming, said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.
Almost from Day One of the explosion that sank the Horizon drilling rig, Nungesser has advocated building some kind of berm, or levee, to capture at least some of the oil before it makes its way to shore. His pleas went largely ignored.
But after President Obama's latest visit, his second, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jendall said he had won Obama's approval to begin building a small, four-mile berm to test the idea. No one is sure the plan will work but the hope is that it will at least reduce damage to the fertile wetlands that are home to millions of oysters and clams.
President Obama meets with fishermen in Venice, La., Sunday, May 2. White House photo.
After President Obama's motorcade roared out of town, Nungesser said of the president, "I think he gets it." Plaquemines Parish is the last spit of land below New Orleans and is home to a unique economy built largely around fishing, shrimping and talking about it.
Meanwhile, clean-up efforts in the Gulf were interruped as workers became ill and had to return to shore. All 125 commercial vessles working to clean up the oil spill were ordered back to shore, at least temporarily, ProPublica reported.
Cajun Navy
Earlier on Grand Isle, Jefferson Parish Homeland Security Director Deano Bonano had commandeered all forty of BP's hired boats sitting off-island when Bonano and the boatmen saw oil lapping ashore. These are the shrimpers and other local boatmen now hired by BP for clean-up work.
At first BP officials said what Bonano was asking was illegal. But not so, according to Louisiana Homeland Security laws.
"We've made requests several times ... actually spent four hours in Houma meeting with BP officials to try and get these skimmers mobilized, but that had not been done," said Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts.
In Washington, Obama appointed former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, and William K. Reilly, Chairman Emertis of the World Wildlife Forum, as a two-man investigative team. Cynics said it exemplified the Washington tradition that when there is nothing to be done, a committee must be appointed to fill time.
Nungesser vs. Big Oil
Nungesser |
Others cringe at the thought of levees ringing the marshlands protecting us from oil-laden hurricane winds. Levees failed the region greatly during the Hurricanes of 2005, you may recall, and the 2010 hurricane season begins June 1.
Airborne incendiaries
Something like the panic of escaping over the last bridge out of New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina began lashing the pillars can be heard on local talk radio. As in most of America, radio talk is mostly right wing and anti-government. But some of those who normally ramble on about Obamas supposed Communism and non-citizenship now temper their views with blame for downsizing government regulation of big oil.
WWL-AM, the powerful New Orleans radio station that comforted many in evacuation during Katrina and Rita leaves the subject of the oil spill for nothing less than the LSU-Ole Miss game.
Before the game took the airwaves, local talkmaster Spud McConnell entertained many phone calls from listeners who had witnessed hazmat-attired workers arrive on school buses and clean the already relatively clean beaches of Grand Isle while President Obama looked on. When the President left, the workers took off their coveralls, reboarded the buses and left, the callers said.
Back in Acadiana
For others the problem is old and simple. Four elderly oil workers stood outside the City Diner in downtown Lafayette's Oil Center, a 1950-ish development of strip mall-like buildings housing much of the region's oil related offices, and the shops and cafes that serve them. A spanking new Lafayette General Hospital tower rises above it all.
The retired oil workers tell each other how vital their work has been to the well-being of America.
Not so for the brown pelican, the Louisiana state bird brought back from DDDT-related near-extinction a decade ago by the gift of eggs from Florida. Like its human counterparts, this feathered fisherman has run amuck of BPs big leak. The big birds' only two Louisiana rookeries are covered in oil. This time there may be no Florida eggs with which to reseed them. The seemingly unstoppable glob moves steadily towards the Sunshine State.
---Leonard Earl Johnson is a former cook, merchant seaman, photographer and columnist for Les Amis de Marigny, a New Orleans monthly magazine. Post-Katrina, he has decamped to Lafayette, La. Columns past, present and future are at www.lej.org.
