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."

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