I keep telling people that crude oil is really really toxic. No one really listens.
I know this is not centered and you can not read all the text. Tough. Go to our BB Refrigerator Magnets and click on Louisiana Environmental Action Network to read the whole thing. Or better yet, go to their website and read the original if you are really interested…I think you get the drift from what you can see.
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More tomorrow.
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Our latest update from LEAN. This is a group you should support.
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See Booby Jindal and Billy “the blimp” Nungasser believe that if you run around acting like you’re in charge and “doing something” then voters will think you are an effective leader. But what the “near miss hurricane” showed is that they and their sand barriers are full of crap. Even worse, by insisting that BP hire local unemployed workers as clean up people, the tox results from previous oil spills show that they are also going to lead to people’s deaths. Way to go you two.
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The shut down on June 23 of part of the state’s dredging operations for construction of offshore sand berms was treated by Governor Jindal as a sudden and arbitrary action by federal agencies. (1) But the reality is somewhat different.
While some media stories conveyed the impression that the state’s entire sand berm plan was approved by the Corps of Engineers in late May, only six sections of the original proposal were given a permit. Two sections to the east of the river, on the upper end of the Chandeleur Island chain, and four sections west of the river were authorized by the Corps, which described them as “critical locations where greater immediate benefit is likely to be achieved with minimal adverse disruption of coastal circulation patterns.” (2)
The Corps Permit specified the source areas for sand/sediment: Ship Shoal, South Pelto, the Mississippi River Offshore Disposal Site, and Pass a Loutre for the western sites, and St. Bernard shoal and Hewes Point for the sites to the east. The location of borrow and dredge sites at the northern end of the Chandeleur Islands has been one of the areas of greatest concern. NOAA and other agencies had pointed out that creating borrow pits or dredging in close proximity to the islands could cause accelerated erosion and even compromise their stability, so using a source site a couple of miles away was a condition of the permit.
Soon after receiving its permit, however, the state began to voice its intention to source near to the islands after all, due to a lack of pipe for pumping sand and mud from a distance. The state said it would replace sand from the dredged site within a few weeks, but federal agencies agreed to this change with a much shorter time limit because of the possible effects on the island.
Despite the Governor’s repeated claims that “we don’t have a day to wait,” the state was not ready for the approved level of dredging even after it was approved. Federal officials said that “the state has been unprepared since the beginning, has caused further delay because it did not have the proper pipe available and has continued to asked for time to shift to the offshore site. According to the Interior Department, it gave the state permission for more than a week to use the closer source of sand while locating the pipe, but that allowing the state to continue dredging could have negative effects on existing barrier islands.” (3)
An official with the Department of Interior noted that if the department had allowed the state to continue digging where it was digging, they feared approaching a “tipping point” with an “impact on that island chain that may never be restored.”(4) The Governor’s reaction was to completely ignore these considerations and instead attack the federal agencies: “We haven’t heard from them before today about any concern about these islands or this area. All of a sudden now that we’re building new land to protect our coast, they’re worried about a hypothetical consequence?” (5)
The Governor may not have heard or read the federal agencies concerns in their response to the state’s permit application, or have seen the U.S. Geological Survey report last year about the status of the Chandeleur Islands and how they could be actually restored in ways that minimize adverse impacts (http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2009/5252). He could have read the comments of his own Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, which pointed out in its letter to the Corps the need to “determine whether or not borrow area excavation will increase wave energy and subsequent shoreline erosion, alter littoral currents, or otherwise impact depositional processes, in a way that undermines the sustainability of inland islands, marsh, and shorelines, most importantly the Chandeleur Islands.” (6)
For views of the sand berm and other spill related issues from the perspective of a coastal scientist please visit the Louisiana Coast Post by Len Bahr, Ph.D. Dr. Bahr is a former LSU marine sciences faculty member who served 18 years as a coastal policy advisor to Louisiana governors from Roemer to Jindal. Dr. Bahr gives the sand berm plan an official “thumbs down” here.
(2) Documents related to the plan and the state’s permit request to the Corps of Engineers have been posted at http://leanweb.org/images/stories/bpspill/emergency_permit_documents_final.pdf.
(3) C. Kirkham, J. Tilove, Times-Picayune, “State halts dredging of sand for berms,” 6/23/10.
(4) Times-Picayune, 6/24/10.
(5) Times-Picayune, 6/24/10.
(6) Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries, letter of 5/13/10, http://leanweb.org/images/stories/bpspill/emergency_permit_documents_final.pdf.
Visit SaveOurGulf.org to get more information about the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster from Waterkeeper organizations across the Gulf Coast and donate to Save Our Gulf!
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Jim Johnston and Sustainable Springfield had the Smart Growth panel last night and I saw Will. A head slap moment occurred immediately, so here are the photos from the HIGH Speed Rail Corridor community input session on MAY 7!!!!! Yup 2 months late.
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Sorry for the size issues but it makes the map readable
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There is the whole thing. Then there were the key areas of concern. In nor particular order as they say.
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This is the last today…the post is getting long and I am still learning the new Word Press system for handling pictures…
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More tomorrow Will
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That is right the Sun creates all the energy on the Earth. Well, the Sun or its cousins because the heavy metals that we use for our version of “nuclear power” were created in Suns of the past that blew up. The oil, natural gas and the coal we burn are nothing but dead congealed plants and animals nurtured by the sun. Really think about it what is “natural gas”. The stink of the dead from the past. So why do we do that? We can get all the energy we need directly from the Sun? The point is that if the capitalist system can sell you bottled water then it surely can sell you petroleum products.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
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|
| Observation data | |
|---|---|
| Mean distance from Earth |
1.496×108 km 8 min 19 s at light speed |
| Visual brightness (V) | ?26.74 [1] |
| Absolute magnitude | 4.83 [1] |
| Spectral classification | G2V |
| Metallicity | Z = 0.0177 [2] |
| Angular size | 31.6? – 32.7? [3] |
| Adjectives | solar |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Mean distance from Milky Way core |
~2.5×1017 km 26,000 light-years |
| Galactic period | (2.25–2.50) × 108 a |
| Velocity | ~220 km/s (orbit around the center of the Galaxy) ~20 km/s (relative to average velocity of other stars in stellar neighborhood) 396.5±3.0 km/s[4] (relative to the cosmic microwave background) |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Mean diameter | 1.392×106 km [1] 109 × Earth |
| Equatorial radius | 6.955×105 km [5] 109 × Earth[5] |
| Equatorial circumference | 4.379×106 km [5] 109 × Earth[5] |
| Flattening | 9×10?6 |
| Surface area | 6.0877×1012 km2 [5] 11,990 × Earth[5] |
| Volume | 1.412×1018 km3 [5] 1,300,000 × Earth |
| Mass | 1.9891×1030 kg [1] 332,900 × Earth[5] |
| Average density | 1.408×103 kg/m3 [1][5][6] |
| Different Densities | Core: 1.5×105 kg/m3 lower Photosphere: 2×10?4 kg/m3 lower Chromosphere: 5×10?6 kg/m3 Avg. Corona: 1×10?12 kg/m3 [7] |
| Equatorial surface gravity | 274.0 m/s2 [1] 27.94 g 28 × Earth[5] |
|
Escape velocity (from the surface) |
617.7 km/s [5] 55 × Earth[5] |
| Temperature of core |
~15.7×106 K [1] |
|
Temperature of surface (effective) |
5,778 K [1] |
| Temperature of corona |
~5×106 K |
| Luminosity (Lsol) | 3.846×1026 W [1] ~3.75×1028 lm ~98 lm/W efficacy |
| Mean Intensity (Isol) | 2.009×107 W·m?2·sr?1 |
| Rotation characteristics | |
| Obliquity | 7.25° [1] (to the ecliptic) 67.23° (to the galactic plane) |
|
Right ascension of North pole[8] |
286.13° 19h 4min 30s |
|
Declination of North pole |
+63.87° 63°52′ North |
| Sidereal rotation period (at equator) |
25.05 days [1] |
| (at 16° latitude) | 25.38 days [1] 25d 9h 7min 13s [8] |
| (at poles) | 34.3 days [1] |
| Rotation velocity (at equator) |
7.189×103 km/h [5] |
| Photospheric composition (by mass) | |
| Hydrogen | 73.46%[9] |
| Helium | 24.85% |
| Oxygen | 0.77% |
| Carbon | 0.29% |
| Iron | 0.16% |
| Sulfur | 0.12% |
| Neon | 0.12% |
| Nitrogen | 0.09% |
| Silicon | 0.07% |
| Magnesium | 0.05% |
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It has a diameter of about 1,392,000 kilometers (865,000 mi), about 109 times that of Earth, and its mass (about 2 × 1030 kilograms, 330,000 times that of Earth) accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System.[10] About three quarters of the Sun’s mass consists of hydrogen, while the rest is mostly helium. Less than 2% consists of heavier elements, including iron, oxygen, carbon, neon, and others.[11]
The Sun’s color is white, although from the surface of the Earth it may appear yellow because of atmospheric scattering.[12] Its stellar classification, based on spectral class, is G2V, and is informally designated a yellow star, because the majority of its radiation is in the yellow-green portion of the visible spectrum.[13] In this spectral class label, G2 indicates its surface temperature of approximately 5,778 K (5,505 °C; 9,941 °F), and V (Roman five) indicates that the Sun, like most stars, is a main sequence star, and thus generates its energy by nuclear fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium. In its core, the Sun fuses 430–600 million tons of hydrogen each second. Once regarded by astronomers as a small and relatively insignificant star, the Sun is now presumed to be brighter than about 85% of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy, most of which are red dwarfs.[14][15] The absolute magnitude of the Sun is +4.83; however, as the star closest to Earth, the Sun is the brightest object in the sky with an apparent magnitude of ?26.74.[16][17] The Sun’s hot corona continuously expands in space creating the solar wind, a hypersonic stream of charged particles that extends to the heliopause at roughly 100 astronomical units. The bubble in the interstellar medium formed by the solar wind, the heliosphere, is the largest continuous structure in the Solar System.[18][19]
The Sun is currently traveling through the Local Interstellar Cloud in the Local Bubble zone, within the inner rim of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Of the 50 nearest stellar systems within 17 light-years from Earth, the Sun ranks 4th in mass.[20] The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way at a distance of approximately 24,000–26,000 light years from the galactic center, completing one clockwise orbit, as viewed from the galactic north pole, in about 225–250 million years.
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The sun will come out tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jdpc7aaAlQ&feature=related
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The Sun is cooling and shrinking. Scientists have predicted that this was going to happen and in addition they predicted that a little ice age might occur. There was much positing that there were longer solar cycles then just the moderately well understood 11 year cycle. The thought was that the Sun waxed and waned every 300 or 400 years. No one was sure. Then an amazing thing happened. As the solar flares died down the Earth heated up. That was when scientists turned to man and the atmosphere to try to get some answers. The answer appeared to be that all of the GASES (not just co2 but every gas we throw off – there are 20 or more) we dump into the air are heating the planet up. This could lead to climate destabilization. Well the Sun is still quiet. For 2 1/2 years the Sun has been quiet. That is unprecedented in the 150 years at least that we have been observing the solar cycles. For much more on this subject please see one of the best articles I have ever read on the subject.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627640.800-whats-wrong-with-the-sun.html
Video: Sun spots
SUNSPOTS come and go, but recently they have mostly gone. For centuries, astronomers have recorded when these dark blemishes on the solar surface emerge, only for them to fade away again after a few days, weeks or months. Thanks to their efforts, we know that sunspot numbers ebb and flow in cycles lasting about 11 years.
But for the past two years, the sunspots have mostly been missing. Their absence, the most prolonged for nearly a hundred years, has taken even seasoned sun watchers by surprise. “This is solar behaviour we haven’t seen in living memory,” says David Hathaway, a physicist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
The sun is under scrutiny as never before thanks to an armada of space telescopes. The results they beam back are portraying our nearest star, and its influence on Earth, in a new light. Sunspots and other clues indicate that the sun’s magnetic activity is diminishing, and that the sun may even be shrinking. Together the results hint that something profound is happening inside the sun. The big question is what?
The stakes have never been higher. Groups of sunspots forewarn of gigantic solar storms that can unleash a billion times more energy than an atomic bomb. Fears that these giant solar eruptions could create havoc on Earth
, and disputes over the sun’s role in climate change, are adding urgency to these studies. When NASA and the European Space Agency launched the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory almost 15 years ago, “understanding the solar cycle was not one of its scientific objectives”, says Bernhard Fleck, the mission’s project scientist. “Now it is one of the key questions.”
Sunspots are windows into the sun’s magnetic soul. They form where giant loops of magnetism, generated deep inside the sun, well up and burst through the surface, leading to a localised drop in temperature which we see as a dark patch. Any changes in sunspot numbers reflect changes inside the sun. “During this transition, the sun is giving us a real glimpse into its interior,” says Hathaway.
When sunspot numbers drop at the end of each 11-year cycle, solar storms die down and all becomes much calmer. This “solar minimum” doesn’t last long. Within a year, the spots and storms begin to build towards a new crescendo, the next solar maximum.
What’s special about this latest dip is that the sun is having trouble starting the next solar cycle. The sun began to calm down in late 2007, so no one expected many sunspots in 2008. But computer models predicted that when the spots did return, they would do so in force. Hathaway was reported as thinking the next solar cycle would be a “doozy”: more sunspots, more solar storms and more energy blasted into space. Others predicted that it would be the most active solar cycle on record. The trouble was, no one told the sun.
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Please finish the article. It is very long and there is a scholarly debate in the comments section about where the center of the Earth’s gravity is. This is kindofa hoot if you understand it. It is true our jokes are different from other peoples.
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It is Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALU5g6Qqi08?
What – do these people think? That if BP goes bankrupt that the world would be a better place…please stop and think about it…
doug –
When we started our Boycott BP campaign, we knew we had to get their attention in a language BP understands – profits. Now, we know it’s working:
A chain of Convenience Stores in Philipsburg, Pa decided to debrand three of its BP-branded stations:
“We are debranding BP. We will no longer be associated with BP by the end of the month. We are doing this because of the backlash and bad publicity from the handling of BP’s catastrophe,” Sean Lay, vice president of operations, said in the report. “We don’t want to be associated with them anymore. We’ve had enough.”[Convenience Store News]
Our campaign has been covered by everyone from the New York Times to industry trade newspapers. You can be sure that BP is paying attention. Now, let’s turn up the heat.
Join the Boycott today and we’ll send you a free bumper sticker to help spread the campaign
In spite of these early effects of the boycott, BP corporate headquarters is still playing games with the numbers and continues to escape accountability. Just this morning, the government updated estimates of the amount of oil gushing into the Gulf to be much higher than BP originally stated.
And yet, BP continues to deny the extent of the problem. A report from NPR asks: “BP officials insisted this week they have found no large plumes of oil concentrated underwater, although it begs the question: if the oil isn’t concentrated in the water, where is it?”
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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKA3tNoK8zM&feature=related )
And
Douglas —
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In making this outrageous suggestion, Boehner was agreeing with one of the Republicans’ biggest shadow groups – a group that has pledged to spend more than $50 million this cycle attacking Democrats and trying to elect other Big Oil protecting Republicans to Congress. But it gets even worse than that…
Boehner’s suggestion of a taxpayer-funded bailout for Big Oil giant BP came after he and other Republicans accepted more than $188 million combined in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. This calls for an immediate response from Grassroots Democrats.
Visit our newly-launched website, BoehnerBPBailout.com to sign our petition denouncing John Boehner’s Taxpayer Funded Bailout for Big Oil giant BP – then help spread the word on Facebook and Twitter.
Now, for all the other happenings from the campaign trail, check out our latest edition of @Stake.
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More than 95,000 of you signed our petition denouncing Congressman Young’s ludicrous comments! You also sent a powerful message to other Big Oil-protecting Republicans that grassroots Democrats will be there to hold them accountable. Thanks again for speaking out!
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkJWTQpvADU&feature=related )
Then there are the people bragging about defeating a resolution…a resolution mind you.
Dear doug,
Good news! With your help, on Thursday, the Senate voted to reject Senator Murkowski’s “Dirty Air Act” – a proposal that would have destroyed 40 years of progress on clean energy by gutting the Clean Air Act and stripping the EPA of its power to regulate the pollution that causes climate change.
The vote was close – 53 to 47 – but your calls and letters made the difference, putting the pressure on Congress to do the right thing.
Thanks to you, we won this fight – but the oil that continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico daily is a vivid reminder of the continued danger of depending on fossil fuels. With your help, we will continue to push for comprehensive clean energy and global warming legislation that will give us greater economic security, reduce pollution and global warming, and transition America to a cleaner energy future.
Thank you again for your activism and support. We will be in touch in the days and weeks to come with more ways of getting involved.
Sincerely,
Michael Town
Campaign Director, SaveOurEnvironment.org
info@saveourenvironment.org
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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GdsrywWNQU&feature=related )
And
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Dear doug,
Yesterday, thanks to your hard work, the U.S. Senate did the right thing — voting with the climate science and against a resolution that would have stripped the Clean Air Act’s protections against climate pollution. The Senate is to be commended for defeating Senator Lisa Murkowski’s disastrously misguided proposal. But the truth is, in the face of the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history, Senator Murkowski’s resolution never should have even reached the Senate floor. The fact that we had to work to defeat this legislation is a testament to the continued strength of the fossil fuel lobby. But the fact that we did defeat it gives us fresh momentum for the months ahead, as our nation confronts the costs of our dependence on fossil fuels more directly than ever. This summer, we can and must set our nation on the path of independence from oil and other dirty energy. We must confront the growing plumes of oil now consuming the Gulf Coast and soon to affect much of the Eastern Seaboard. We must pass comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation — our best hope of staving off the catastrophic climate change that will dwarf the Deepwater Oil Disaster in scope and devastation. And we must accomplish all this despite the millions of dollars that big oil will spend to defeat us. Yesterday’s vote shows that when we work together, we can defeat these forces. Over the last two years, over 250,000 of us have taken action to protect the Clean Air Act, including:
This summer, it’s time to take exactly the same tenacity and commitment we have shown on these attacks on the Clean Air Act and win the biggest prize of all: comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation that transitions our economy to clean energy. Donate now to support our campaign to Repower America: http://cpaf.repoweramerica.org/cleanairvictorynd We’ve won an important battle. Now, it’s time to win the war. Al Gore |
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Please get out of my mail box.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mskqBz2cZTA&feature=related
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I had no idea when I started this meditation how many sites there were that focused on the topic of Green Wash. Here is another with an excerpt of an article they cite. It will come complete with music tomorrow I hope.
http://www.greenwashingindex.com/
Site Goal #2:
Hold businesses accountable to their environmental marketing claims.
Site Goal #3:
Stimulate the market and demand for sustainable business practices that truly reduce the impact on the environment.
1 AVERAGE RATING
1 AVERAGE RATING
1.1 AVERAGE RATING
1 AVERAGE RATING
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http://www.environmentalleader.com/2009/06/10/ftc-cites-kmart-tender-dyna-e-for-false-green-claims/
June 10, 2009
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has charged Kmart Corp., Tender Corp., and Dyna-E International with making false and unsubstantiated claims that their paper products were “biodegradable.”
FTC charged the companies with making the following deceptive biodegradable claims:
Kmart and Tender have agreed to settle the cases against them while the case against Dyna-E will be litigated. The FTC says with the recent growth in “green” advertising and product lines, the agency will continue its efforts to ensure that environmental marketing is truthful, substantiated, and not confusing to consumers.
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More tomorrow.
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George Bush and his deregulationistas turned green into a bad name. From their expansion of organic products from 120 to well over 1,000 to their attempt to promote something mythologically called clean coal, the Bush administration was hell bent on destroying the environment. Tragically he may be remembered as the man who set aside more ocean square miles as a wild life sanctuary than any other president…but that is another story…
here is a great site for it:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Greenwashing
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SourceWatch needs your financial support to survive and thrive. If you’ve found this information on the people, organizations, and issues shaping the public agenda helpful, please make a tax-deductible donation now. |
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This is part of the Center for Media & Democracy’s climate change project. |
Greenwashing is the unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue by a company, an industry, a government, a politician or even a non-government organization to create a pro-environmental image, sell a product or a policy, or to try and rehabilitate their standing with the public and decision makers after being embroiled in controversy.
The U.S.-based watchdog group CorpWatch defines greenwash as “the phenomena of socially and environmentally destructive corporations, attempting to preserve and expand their markets or power by posing as friends of the environment.” This definition was shaped by by the group’s focus on corporate behavior and the rise of corporate green advertising at the time. However, governments, political candidates, trade associations and non-government organizations have also been accused of greenwashing. [1]
The 10th edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary defined greenwash as “disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image. Derivatives greenwashing (n). Origin from green on the pattern of whitewash.” [1]
In 2008 the environmental group Greenpeace launched a website Stop Greenwash to “confront deceptive greenwashing campaigns, engage companies in debate, and give consumers and activists and lawmakers the information and tools they need to … hold corporations accountable for the impacts their core business decisions and investments are having on our planet.” [2]
Contents[hide] |
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Of course Green Peace has to have their say:
Every day, Americans are bombarded with advertising about environmentally friendly goods and services. But how many really are green, and how many are just pretending?
dddot dddot dddot
About Shell Oil they say:
At a time when the fate of this federally protected area is so vulnerable and at risk of being altered forever by oil, Greenpeace felt it necessary to shed light on the ironic fact that Shell has used the place to brand its own image as green and actually caring about the environment.
The oil company ran a full-page print advertisement in National Geographic Magazine and several other publications, which featured a color picture of a diver swimming through deep blue water featuring brightly colored fish and coral. The statement in the middle of the ad says: “What do we really need in today’s energy hungry world? More gardeners.”
More gardeners? If that’s really what we needed, we could just stop drilling for oil all together right? All we need is more gardeners.
But Shell doesn’t really mean that at all.
They know that in today’s energy hungry world, oil is the food and the company’s main priority. Even through the thickest green glasses, few are going to dispute that fact.
The rest of the text on the advertisement reads that a Shell employee and marine biologist has been working with the company to protect the area.
But how much could the oil giant really be protecting when the company also actually drills near the vulnerable sanctuary.
The advertisement and words on the page are clearly for show.
Shell does have close ties to the Flower Gardens. In fact, an executive from Shell Canada, Rebecca Nadel serves on the sanctuary’s advisory council. Also on the team for the sanctuary is James Sinclair of the now notorious Minerals Management Service. At first glance, it doesn’t exactly look like those employed to protect the sanctuary are representing the most responsible organizations.
Shell has a cozy bed in sanctuary bureaucracy.
The company however, does donate money to Flower Gardens. The Green Life reports $5,000 of direct funding each year. However, the site also acknowledges that it costs nearly six figures to run one advertisement in National Geographic. For a drop in the bucket, the oil giant rebrands its image as being concerned with the underwater sanctuary.
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More tomorrow
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How could you possibly continue to call that thing a Blowout Preventer? It is just too sick to contemplate. Drilling mud is pretty toxic so here is hoping very little of it has to be pumped in to the Gulf itself.
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The boat ride, out, from Lafitte, Louisiana, Sunday, May 23, 2010, to our fishing grounds was not unlike any other I have taken in my life, as a commercial fisherman from this area. I have made the trip thousands of times in my 35 plus years shrimping and crabbing. A warm breeze in my face, it is a typical Louisiana summer day. 3 people were with me, my wife Tracy, Ian Wren, and our grandson, Scottie. I was soon to find out, how untypical this day would become for me, not unlike a death in the family. This was going to be a very bad day for me.
As we neared Barataria Bay, the smell of crude oil in the air was getting thicker and thicker. An event that always brought joy to me all of my life, the approach of the fishing grounds, was slowly turning into a nightmare. As we entered Grand Lake, the name we fishermen call Barataria Bay, I started to see a weird, glassy look to the water and soon it became evident to me, there was oil sheen as far as I could see. Soon, we were running past patches of red oil floating on top of the water. As we headed farther south, we saw at least a dozen boats, in the distance, which appeared to be shrimping. We soon realized that shrimping was not what they were doing at all, but instead they were towing oil booms in a desperate attempt to corral oil that was pouring into our fishing grounds. We stopped to talk to one of the fishermen, towing a boom, a young fisherman from Lafitte. What he told me floored me. He said, “What we are seeing in the lake, the oil, was but a drop in the bucket of what was to come.” He had just come out of the Gulf of Mexico and he said, “It was unbelievable, the oil runs for miles and miles and was headed for shore and into our fishing grounds”. I thought, what I had already seen in the lake was enough for a lifetime. We talked a little while longer, gave the fisherman some protective respirators and were soon on our way. As we left the small fleet of boats, working feverishly, trying to corral the oil, I became overwhelmed with what I just saw.
I am not real emotional and consider myself a pretty tough guy.You have to be to survive as a fisherman. As I left that scene, tears flowed down my face and I cried. Something I have not done in a long time, but would do several more times that day. I tried not to let my grandson, Scottie, see me crying. I didn’t think he would understand, I was crying for his stolen future. None of this will be the same, for decades to come. The damage is going to be immense and I do not think our lives here in South Louisiana will ever be the same. He is too young to understand. He has an intense love for our way of life here. He wants to be a fisherman and a fishing guide when he gets older. It is what he is, it is in his soul, and it is his culture. How can I tell him that this may never come to pass now, now that everything he loves in the outdoors may soon be destroyed by this massive oil spill? How do we tell this to a generation of young people, in south Louisiana who live and breathe this bayou life that they love so much, could soon be gone? How do we tell them? All this raced through my mind and I wept.
We continued farther south towards Grand Terre Island. We approached Bird Island. The real name is Queen Bess Island, but we call it Bird Island, because it is always full of birds. It is a rookery, a nesting island for thousands of birds, pelicans, terns, gulls etc. As we got closer, we saw that protective boom had been placed around about two thirds of the island. It was obvious to me, that oil had gone under the boom and was fouling the shore and had undoubtedly oil some birds. My God. We would see this scene again at Cat Island and other unnamed islands that day. We continued on to the east past Coup Abel Pass and more shrimp boats trying to contain some of the oil on the surface. We arrived at 4 Bayou Pass to see more boats working on the same thing. We beached the boat and decided to look at the beach between the passes.
The scene was one of horror to me. There was thick red oil on the entire stretch of beach, with oil continuing to wash ashore. The water looked to be infused with red oil, with billions of, what appeared to be, red pebbles of oil washing up on the beach with every wave. The red oil pebbles, at the high tide mark on the beach were melting into pools of red goo in the hot Louisiana sun. The damage was overwhelming. There was nobody there to clean it up. It would take an army to do it. Like so much of coastal Louisiana, it was accessible only by boat. Will it ever be cleaned up? I don’t know. Tears again. We soon left that beach and started to head home.
We took a little different route home, staying a little farther to the east side of Barataria Bay. As we approached the northern end of the bay, we ran into another raft of oil that appeared to be covering many square miles. It was only a mile from the interior bayous on the north side of Barataria Bay. My God. No boats were towing boom in this area. I do not think anyone even knew it was there. A little bet farther north, we saw some shrimp boats with boom, on anchor, waiting to try and protect Bayou St. Dennis from the oil. I alerted them of the approaching oil. I hope they were able to control it before it reached the bayou. We left them and started to head in.
My heart never felt so heavy, as on that ride in. I thought to myself, this is the most I’ve cried since I was a baby. In fact I am sure it was. This will be a summer of tears for a lot of us in south Louisiana.
Michael Roberts
Louisiana Bayoukeeper, Inc
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Visit SaveOurGulf.org to get more information about the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster from Waterkeeper organizations across the Gulf Coast and donate to Save Our Gulf!
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