Sea Turtle Restoration Project
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John Quigley |
April 24, 2011
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Tar balls |
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Redfish |
But as Rocky Kistner of NRDC points out, there is a ‘Parallel Universe’ phenomenon going on at Grand Isle.
On one hand, there is incredible degradationof the previously powdery sand beaches – most of which is now completely compacted by heavy equipment from cleanup operations. It’s now as hardas pavement. And where it’s not as hard as a rock, your shoes stickin oily gooey muck as you walk. Tar balls litter the beach ranging from almost powder sizedto the size of a large hamburger. When you look out to the Gulf, the waves are opaque and dark brown ~ not clear and blue. And it doesn’t smell one bit like the ocean.
But then you realize that up and down the beach, there arefamilies doing what they have always done. Kids building sandcastles andfrolicking in the waves, in many instances stepping over large rotting redfish or catfish to reach the water’s edge. I cannot help but wonder –“What are these people thinking?”… and “What health problems will they haveahead of them now?”
Rocky Kistner reported that earlier that day, “Auniformed park ranger packing a 9 mm pistol and a broad-brimmed hat marchedthrough the sand towards us, clearly on a mission. “Excuse me but everyone hereneeds to get off the beach,” he barked. “This beach is closed.” This, due to tar balls and tar mats that continue to coat the previously sandy beach.
Later in the day when I arrived, families with their beach chairs & umbrellas dotted the beach and not one officer was present. And no warning signs wereposted whatsoever.
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Karen Hopkins, Jessica Hagan, Darlene Eschete |
Beyond this, it is puzzling how parents can be so unaware of the potential hazards in this water that they would allow their kids near it atall. Unfortunately it may be the children who will pay the dearest price, asthey receive a much greater dose of toxins due to their size than the adults. I question how so many Americans can bury theirheads in this oily sand.
We as Americans are in denial about just how bad this environmental disaster really is. And shame on us as a people for continuing to delay in moving toward alternative energy and to change our lifestyles to lessen our dependence on petroleum. We’re going to pay a heavy price, but the heaviest price, I am afraid will be paid by future generations long after we are gone.
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Grand Isle Documentarian Betty Doud |
I was surprised to see shrimp trawlers maneuvering in the current by the Route 1 Bridge into Caminada Bay. The water around the boats was black. I wondered if these boats were using TEDs, or Turtle Extrusion Devices, to prevent endangered sea turtles from being drowned in their nets. The situation for the fishermen in the Gulf is serious. There simply are no easy answers to the dilemmas facing the population of the Delta.
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And a final word from Mac MacKenzie |
April 18 – 28, 2011
One year after the Deepwater Horizon Disaster began, just a few days of walks on Gulf beaches from Grand Isle to Biloxi, Mississippi produce a haunting set of photographs showing just how deep the toll on marine life has been from the worst environmental disaster in American history. Walk with me and take a few minutes to think about the fate of the Gulf of Mexico. Makes you think, doesn’t it?
New Orleans, April 23, 2011
It was a rockin’ night in the French Quarter of New Orleans at the House of Blues & also at Tipitina’s – where celebs & regular folks mixed to raise funds & awareness on the first anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon Spill. Kevin Costner & Modern West rocked the house down with some great country rock and a host of others including toxicologist Dr. Susan Shaw & UC Santa Barbara’s Dr. Ira Leifer shed light on what they believe is still just the beginning of the Gulf’s problems from last year’s blowout.
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Captain Paul Watson & Dr. Bonny Schumak |
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Dr. Susan Shaw & friend Mandy |
It was a delight to finally meet another true hero for the Gulf, Dr. Susan Shaw. By the time she took the stage later in the evening, folks at the House of Blues had become a bit loud and rowdy, but after just a few minutes of Susan’s heartfelt words, the crowd hushed to listen. @font-face { font-family: “Cambria”;}@font-face { font-family: “Tahoma”;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }A marine toxicologist and executive director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute in Blue Hill, Maine, she has undertaken a long term study of the Gulf disaster, the Gulf Eco-tox project. As one of the very first people to actually dive into the oil and dispersant filled waters last summer, she knows first hand about the toxins that the Gulf residents have been exposed to. Dr. Shaw is committed to a long term presence in the Gulf, and being an independent researcher, she has always been able to be truthful and outspoken about her findings.
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Dr. Ira Leifer and Robin Young |
The crowd cheered as she promised them that she would stand by them for the long haul, and to do everything in her power to ‘make things right’. As much as the people of the Gulf have been lied to, it was clear that this lady from Maine is truly a force to be reckoned with and a hero who they can trust.
A couple of months back, I attended an Oil Spill Conference at Chevron World Headquarters in San Ramon, California. You can only imagine the level of lies and politics as top oil industry executives from most of the major oil companies took the stage to defend their oil spill management methods – from the use of Corexit to the ‘Burn Box’ man who actually took the podium and admitted that he is a closet pyromaniac. I was horrified, but not surprised.
But on the second day of the conference, Dr. Ira Leifer took the podium and it was like a breath of fresh air. As NASA’s chief scientist in charge of remote sensing for the oil spill, this guy could be a pie-in-the-sky nerdy scientist living in a world of statistics & satellite images. But no. Ira is a man with a heart of gold, and after running NASA’s program which included flying planes at 65,000 feet over the spill with incredibly high tech imagery equipment that revealed amazing amounts of information such as the location, direction, speed and composition of the slick, he is now doing case studies of people in the Gulf who have fallen ill as a result of being exposed to toxins.
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FEMA trailer outside of the “House of Blues” |
And when I asked him who was paying the bill, he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and held it up. He explained that if we wait for funding to come through for these studies, it will be too late, and we will never know the whole truth. It’s already late to be getting started, he says, so he’s putting his heart and soul into this project now – when it matters most for the people of the Gulf. And how lucky they are to have this mindful genius on their side! Perhaps my favorite thing about Ira is his ability to communicate at a simple level. After explaining that although people’s symptoms are perhaps subsiding now in some cases, there will be a new wave of serious illnesses in four to five years, as people’s organs show even more serious effects of the toxic exposures. And after this, he roused the crowd into joining him in a chant of ‘No more bull@&#*’!!!!” Wow.
And I must mention the big draw for the fundraiser – Kevin Costner & his Band, Modern West. He’s just a lowly Academy Award winning movie star, not a rocket scientist like some of the folks I’ve written about today, but he certainly cares a great deal about what’s happening to the people down here. And they can certainly deliver that old good time music. Having spent considerable time in the Gulf over the years, the place & it’s people have obviously gotten under his skin. Kevin and the band brought it home and kept the place jumping for hours.
So on days when it seems like nothing will ever be right again in the Gulf (or anywhere else), when we feel sick and tired of it all, it’s good to know that there are people like these who are working hard – and who will always be working hard to help. There ARE angels among us, and these are some of them.