Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The Last Catch: The BP Oil Leak One Month Later

The Last Catch

May 24, 2010
By Ilka de Laat

Venice, LA – When charter boat captain Allan Welch leaves Venice Marina in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana on Wednesday, he will not be guiding his regular customers to catch Redfish: Plaquemines Parish is under a fishing ban. Instead, Welch will be escorting a British Petroleum taskforce to an oil clean-up site.
Though the oil gushing from the BP Deepwater Horizon leak has been ongoing for over a month, the impact of the disaster is just now starting to be felt along the southern Louisiana coastline. Fishermen can’t begin to guess what the long-term impact to their livelihoods might be, while emergency bird rescue centres have been standing at the ready for two weeks. Only now are they expecting an onslaught of affected birds as the oil slowly starts to accumulate along the fragile marshlands.
The destination of the oil as it journeys through the Gulf of Mexico remains a mystery. The Exxon Valdez spill, previously the largest oil disaster, was contained to the water’s surface, remained in a finite geographical area, and washed up on a rocky shore. The BP oil leak is already proving near-impossible to contain and collect as much of the oil remains trapped between the fresh water of the Mississippi River and the salt water of the Gulf. Clashing currents and chemical dispersant further prevent the oil from gathering obediently at the water’s surface. One charter boat captain who took divers out to the oil said they that they dove through a 25-foot deep oil patch found just below the water’s surface during a dive on May 23rd.
Dispersants are pumped at the source of the leak as well as sprayed from airplanes, but are really only effective on fresh oil. Jay Holcomb, Director of the International Bird Research and Rescue Center says dispersants can be as toxic as the oil itself and affects the feathers equally.
The Environmental Protection Agency has demanded that BP reduce overhead deployment of the current dispersant Corexit and find a less-toxic alternative by May 25th. BP has countered that the only other federally approved dispersant currently available contains an endocrine-disruptor. This discussion heats up alongside another between the EPA and Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser who confronted EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on May 24th and said they are not doing enough or moving fast enough to protect the fragile marshlands.
Meanwhile, Captain Welch laments that the reeds are already dying. “My 8th grade science fair project was on coastal erosion. We were losing a football field of land then, we’re still losing a football field of land every fifteen minutes now. Then we get this…” he motions to the oil-stained reeds, “it will never come back.”
Charter boat captains are being forced to exchange fishing for BP clean-up contracts to replace income lost, ironically, to the BP leak itself. This is far from an ideal situation, but BP pays twice the going charter rate, and with the fisheries closed for an indeterminate period of time, Captain Welch will accept the income while and when he can.
“These are proud people, these are fishermen,” says Nungesser. There is talk that BP may financially compensate the fishermen for the loss of their livelihood. But as Nungesser awaits BP to announce a compensation plan, he expresses his deep concern. “It doesn’t look like our industry is going to be what it used to be for many years to come.”

SEE JOSEPH WENKOFF'S PHOTO ESSAY here. Click on "Essay" then on "The Last Catch."

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Our Kid's Library

I haven't written at all I see since we found out we were pregnant in December! Since then, I've been busy growing a human. How weird is that?!

I'm in my 19th week of pregnancy now (that's about halfway through) and I've just started to feel little wee kicks. So naturally I am beginning to believe for once and for all that I am going to be a mother. It's been very cool and exciting in a dreamy, theoritical kind of way, thinking about motherhood - until now. Now that I'm being literally kicked into reality, I've started to think about the plethora of "accoutrements" that a baby needs.

Blankets and other sundry nursery items aside, I have pleasantly come to the conclusion that collecting books for our kid's library is my favourite hobby the past two days. In order to keep myself on track I've put together a list of an "ideal kid's library."

In this list are some cherished personal favourites (like "The Paper Bag Princess" and "Winnie the Pooh"), some titles I've been waiting to read (like "Where the Sidewalk Ends"), and some titles I've never heard before (like "Five Little Peppers and How They Grew.")

But I have this nagging feeling that I am missing some obvious selections.

What books were your beloved? Which do you plan to read to your children? Which of these titles do you recommend and which titles am I missing? I'm dying to know.

Here's my list. The starred titles are books I've already collected. Sigh. I've got a long ways of collecting to go!

Our Kid’s Ideal Library

For The First Years

A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond
Aesop’s Fables by Russel Ash
Alexander & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
Alligator Pie by Dennis Lee
Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
Berenstein Bear series by Stan & Jan Berenstain
Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
Clifford the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell
Curious George series by H. A. Rey
Eloise by Kay Thompson
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney
Good Dog, Carl by Alexandra Day
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
*Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
*Guess How Much I Love You? by Sam McBratney
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff
*Love You Forever by Robert Munsch
Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
Mr. Men and Little Miss books by Roger Hargreaves
Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
*Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt
Richard Scarry’s Best Storybook Ever by Richard Scarry
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear
The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
The Story of Babar by Jean de Brunhoff
*The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
*Where’s Spot? By Eric Hill
Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
Winnie the Pooh series by A Milne


For A Bit Older

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Grimm’s Fairy Tales by the brother’s Grimm
Hans Christian Andersen Tales
Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Oh, The Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss
The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew mysteries
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Twits by Roald Dahl