By Leonard Earl Johnson
ConsumerAffairs.com
May 24, 2010
Emotions run from panic to despair as oil from the massive BP leak in the Gulf of Mexico begins its ascent up the hill.
In the vernacular of the sea, "The Hill" is the beach. Everything above sea level is on "the hill."
In Plaquemines Parish -- the parish on the last spit of Louisiana below New Orleans -- Parish President Billy Nungesser, a man of great girth, grit and determination has "more or less stopped sleeping."
From the first days after the explosion and sinking of the Horizon drilling rig, Nungesser has advocated building some kind of berm, or levee at sea, to hold back the oil he knew was coming. This weekend Louisiana Governor Bobby Jendall ordered his state's National Guard to begin doing just that. No one is sure the plan will work.
Something like the panic of those escaping over the last bridge out of New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina began lashing the pillars can be heard on talk radio. Almost always right-wing and anti-government, those wanting to blame President Obama now temper their views with blame for the downsizing of government regulations.
For others the problem is old and simple. Four elderly oil men stood outside the City Diner in 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 four retired oil men are telling each other how necessary their work is to the well-being of America.
Tell it to the brown pelican, the state bird brought back from DDT-related near-extinction. The birds' two rockeries are covered in oil and their future once again grim.
 Nungesser |
At first BP officials said what Bonano was asking was illegal. But not so, according to Louisiana law.
"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, President Obama appointed Bob Graham, former U. S. Senator from Florida, and William K. Reilly, Chairman Emertis of the World Wildlife Forum, as a two-man investigative team. This may be the saddest portent of all. As the old Washington joke goes: "When you can't do anything, you do something." This little inside-the-Beltway humor is drawn from knowledge that when you can do nothing you set up a committee.
Nunguesser has gained some kind of hero status among coastal residents for his criticisms of slow action from Washington, British Petroleum, and Baton Rouge. Nunguesser was first out of the pulpit with the idea of building up sand barrier berms, a kind of levee at sea.
The Governor expanded the idea to connecting existing barrier islands with barrier berms.
The image of levees ringing the marshland that protect us from hurricanes and feed us and feed much of America's seafood industry is not all that reassuring. Levees failed us mightily during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Hurricane Season opens June First.
When you fly over the site of the leak you come upon the Enterprise, the vessel collecting oil from the pipe leading down one mile to the blow out. The Enterprise has a huge flame blowing out the ship's side burning off gas gathered along with the oil. BP had at first claimed it was collecting all of the spilled oil, a claim that did not stand up for long.
BP has reluctantly released a live video feed of the oil leak, and conceded that more oil is leaking than its initial estimate of 210,000 gallons a day,
Meanwhile, life goes on, sort of.
Mayor David Camardelle of the barrier island town of Grand Isle announced the closure of his beaches but said that, at least for now, he was not canceling the Tarpon Rodeo, which claims to be the oldest fishing tournament in the United States, scheduled this year for July 22 and 23. A "rodeo" in Louisiana, by the way, is a fishing derby, not a bronco-riding competition but that may change this year.
Some of the critters captured during last year's Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo.
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.
