Shell Oil may still have plans to drill in the arctic, but thanks to Greenpeace’s pressure on Lego with this amazing video, the iconic toy company ended its partnership with the big oil company. It’s a must-watch video. 

Shell Oil may still have plans to drill in the arctic, but thanks to Greenpeace’s p

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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The post Wow! This Greenpeace Campaign to Get Big Oil’s Attention Over Arctic Drilling Will Leave You Speechless [Video] appeared first on EcoSalon.

One year after an explosion that triggered the worst oil spill in history, EcoSalon examines the continuing impact.

“Nine months have passed since the blowout and the rest of the nation has returned to business as usual, but I can assure you that many in the Gulf have not,” wrote Frances Beinecke in January about her experience serving on the National Oil Spill Commission. It is clear much of the ineptness she witnessed on the part of those in the position to steer a new, safer ship, persists across the board  one year after the nightmarish BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

You have to wonder if the continued protests go unnoticed, the worst disaster of its kind smoothed over as old history. Maybe the conventional media news cycle has abandoned New Orleans and the story, but we need updates as Transocean, the firm that ran the Deepwater rig, pats its executives on the back and awards them millions in bonuses after what it calls “the best year in safety performance in our company’s history.”

According to a regulatory filing, the operator boasts that despite the tragic loss of life in the Gulf, its new recorded incident rate and total potential severity rate is “a reflection on our commitment to achieving an incident free environment, all the time, everywhere.” Except we all know accidents happen, right?

Let’s see where we are in the aftermath.

Back to the Grind

As the sun sets on the disaster, it is expected new public outraged will be fueled by BP plans to restart deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico this summer after getting a firm nod from US regulators. Work will be resumed as early as July on 10 wells halted by a moratorium on drilling after the explosion. This is less than 15 months after the disaster.

Wildlife Toll

A surge in deaths among baby dolphins is now being linked to the spill, some 29 oil-covered newborn calves washing up on the northern shore of the Gulf, a higher toll than ever. And it’s not just the dolphins. Five times as many sea turtles, 10 times as many birds and 200 times more marine mammals were injured or killed than what official tallies tell us. This, according to the Centre for Biological Diversity.

Government Gridlock

Congress is sitting on its hands with regard to lasting legislative reforms recommended by President Obama’s National Oil Spill Commission. It had called for an independent safety agency within the Interior Department to overhaul the bureaucratic approach to monitoring the industry. This includes hiking the oil spill liability limit and more spending on regulation paid by fees on industry. They say prospects of passing a remaining Markey bill enacting the recommendations appear dim at the moment.

BP’s Deep Pockets

To the surprise of skeptics, DP has coughed up tens of billions of dollars in fines, cleanup efforts and payments to families of rig workers, and came out smelling like a rose – not just still in business but boasting more cash than before the spill. Thriving means a newly negotiated energy deal in India and Russia and plans to resume that drilling in the Gulf. Dollars spent: $3.6 billion in awards to injured individuals and businesses; $10.7 billion on cleanup (deploying skimming boars, airplanes, floating oil booms and crews tackling oily residue at beaches and swamps. Another $500 million pledged to academic research of the Gulf environs and support for fishing and tourism industries.

Seafood Testing Still a Must

Fish from the contaminated waters will need to be tested for consumption for decades to come, according to scientists studying the maritime disaster effects on commercial and recreational fishing yield – accounting for 5% of products eaten in the U.S. We are told by University of Florida researchers that the human nose is still the best detector of seafood that has been tainted by harmful oil chemicals such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, cancer causing if ingested in high concentrations.

Clean Up White Glove Test a Failure

From a bird’s eye view, the report card isn’t pretty for BP, with descriptions like sloppy and half-ass being bandied about. Research scientists, such as Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia, say about 50% of the oil is still floating around, as depicted in images of an oil-drenched pelican in the Guardian. From her own submarine scaling the Mississippi Canyon, she can attest that it is far from back to normal on the Gulf when the ocean floor is coated in thick dark brown muck and ropes of slime. Crabs and other creatures remaining are listless, unlike the old days when her sub had them scurrying for safety.

More Signs of New Orleans Abandonment

If it’s not bad enough Congress is cutting off termite controls in the French Quarter’s homes and businesses, a pest problem aggravated by Katrina, many other public health problems persist, especially along the coast due to the oil spill. Alliance Institute Executive Director Stephen Bradbury finds there is no access to good health care for respiratory, dermatological and digestive health ailments. Apparently, patients must drive 45 minutes to an hour to find a treatment center.

Spilling over into Consumer Dining Behavior

A study by Technomic finds the  spill and nasty toxic images of wildlife has seafood consumption down at restaurants with 19 percent of consumers eating less fish as much as four months later as a direct result of the disaster. Meantime, thousands of fishermen who have joined the ranks of the unemployed are partnering with agencies and regional commissions to try to resume fishing when possible or find alternative work.

Halliburton Still Unscathed From Fallout

One thing that remains clear in all the muck is that Halliburton continues to slither under the radar, despite acknowledging it skipped doing a critical test on the formulation of its cement used to seal the BP oil well. While earlier tests apparently showed the mix was stable, they never conducted a final safety test and used the mix anyway. Still, Halliburton points to BP well design and operations as the cause of the blowout, even though the cement failed to prevent oil and gas from entering the wells. And what of the cement design? Experts say it was poor since a foam slurry was created by injecting nitrogen into the cement to secure the bottom of the well. Oops. Still, government contract favoritism has its privileges.

A Way of Life Crushed?

In a nutshell, or perhaps clam shell, observers argue a way of life has been crushed due to the spill and its perpetual damage, visible on the wildlife but not always recognizable on the devastated fishermen. Poignantly stated in the Plight of the Louisiana Fishing Family blog,”this reaches far beyond money; we are talking about the possible destruction and ending of a culture.”

Image: Infrogmation; Win Mcnamee

The post The Gulf, One Year Later appeared first on EcoSalon.

“So all the dispersants are gone,”  I ask.

“Yes,” says John from NOAA.

“So, again, at this point it would be a scientific impossibility for them to persist, given their volatile nature?”

“Yes, maybe a few ‘in between compounds’, but yes, pretty much they should be entirely gone.”

Based on simple chemistry, if BP did in fact quit using dispersants as of July 15th (which the company is on the record saying), the compounds have to be gone. I press.

“So, the only way that they could be out there is if BP is doing this on the sly, as some fisherman have argued.”

Crickets. I let it go. With the helicopter noise, they can feign ‘selective hearing.’ But, I’ve already arrived at the answer to my own question. I don’t believe these NOAA folks are spinning me, I believe that they believe what they’re telling me.

I turn the discussion towards a need for independent sources that will corroborate claims about the efficiency of the microbes eating up all this dispersed oil. Nicolle Rutherford, the NOAA biologist, keeps pointing me to Dr. Terry Hazen’s work. I look at it. Sure enough, it says mostly what she insists it will.

But guess who paid for the study? To the tune of $500 million? To be fair, it seems that only industry on earth that would commission a study on oil eating microbes is the oil industry. But it still smells fishy to me. I want something totally independent.

The drone of the helicopter blades and the pressurized air is making me sleepy. We’re now out over the open ocean and the delta mud color is replaced by blue. There isn’t much to see, just a few gentle white caps on the surface of the water. I had expected this ride to be more dramatic, a little more unsteady. It’s so stable it’s kind of boring.

Then, we arrive. And no one announces it. This, to me, is exceptionally bizarre. Eleven men were killed here and there is no elegy, no admission that tragedy struck here, nary a mention. All we’re here to see is “exceptional progress.” The copter stays way, way off the site as we circle it. I’ve got a 300mm lens on a high resolution camera, and still I can’t make out the words on the relief well platforms. Why are we so far away? It bugs me, but the distance is obviously intentional.

Besides the three relief wells, I count 27 other “things” (boats, barges) in the water. I ask the BP guy what all these other boats are doing.

“Oh, these are vessels engaged in facilitating the incident response effort,” he says.

“Can I quote you on that?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says, obviously not picking up on the dripping sarcasm in my voice. Engaged in facilitating the incident response effort. This is the best thing I’ve heard on the trip so far by a factor of ten. Man, seriously? I’m watching the other reporters write this drivel down. Seriously? None of the journos seems to think this is as absurd as I do, save for one guy from The Hartford.  Another asks, where is the Deep Water Horizon?

Back on land, we have a chance to talk to the NOAA folks in a waiting room area. They’re good people. One in the group actually cries because she’s so upset about how poor the messaging has been from NOAA. She believes it is at the root of all the fear and distrust that’s been caused amongst the communities all over the Gulf Coast. Her tears are genuine, but I want to tell her it’s way more complicated than just the failure of her own agency. Nicolle (her name) is not a spin doctor, she’s a doctor doctor, of biology. As such, she’s not necessarily looking to investigate her own agency, and no one working here has gone without media training.

When we first arrived, the NOAA folks showed us samples taken of the ocean at various sites showing that it contained a lower concentration of oil than a comparison sample comprised of a bit of dust off the side of the freeway in the same volume of water. It’s a gimmick that says, “look, the side of the road is more toxic than the Gulf.” Those kinds of gimmicks offend thinking people.

Clarity and truth. It’s what I’ve asked for everywhere I go down here. But the more I learn, the more I believe that clarity, truth and justice are not things we’re going to see in this region for years, maybe decades. Damn it.

Editor’s note: Travel editor Stiv Wilson is reporting exclusively from the Gulf of Mexico this month. Read Part 1 of this story, and all of his dispatches, here.

The post Helicopters over Deepwater Horizon, Part 2 appeared first on EcoSalon.

We wake up in Mobile, Alabama, early, and head for Houma, Louisiana. We’ve arranged to get on a BP-sponsored helicopter flight over the Louisiana bayou and head offshore some 60 miles to the site where this whole thing started, where many oilmen died in an explosion. I’m with an activist from the Audubon Society and we’re driving well over 90 to get there on time. With us will be two NOAA scientists, one a biologist, one a geophysicist/oceanographer.

BP runs these sorties for media and has been for several months. The helicopter has 15 seats. I’m excited, not because I get to ride in a helicopter, but because I get nearly three hours to drill the BP guy and the scientists. Already seated are reporters from several major outlets, one, an NPR journalist trying to get good audio in a helicopter. Every time I ask a question, she turns her mic on. I’m doing her job for her.

Taking off, I ask the BP guy about the flight plan for our route. He doesn’t understand what I mean. Who chose it? I’m wondering if we’re seeing what’s really out here or if we’re seeing what they want us to see. He remarks that the journos choose the route, but what he means is they choose the destination. How we get there is up to BP and we’re not flying as the crow does. This is theater.

I take pictures of the wetlands, boom, slick, and some oiled beaches. The NOAA scientists champion the fact that of 77,000 miles of shoreline, only 600 are affected by oil. I don’t know what to do with this statistic. It sounds like an impressive ratio; then again, 600 miles is the entire collective coastline of Oregon and Washington State.

To get an accurate picture of this place you’d need to fly the same route every few days to see what is changing, not what it looks like in one isolated moment. Nonetheless, the photogs start clicking away whenever we come across “incriminating” pictures. But no one is asking questions and it’s driving me absolutely insane. How on earth can any good reporter pass up an opportunity like this?

I strategically place myself next to the BP employee and the scientists. I have a list and I’m going to get answers. The NOAA folks are cooperative, at times emotional. The BP employee is as cool as a cucumber; moreover, he doesn’t seem to know much. Every time I ask him a question he says, “I have all that information back on land, I’ll get back to you on that.”

Dispersants – this is what I want to know about. Specifically Corexit 9500 and 9527 (the ones used). This stuff is toxic as hell if it comes into acute contact with an animal. The effects of chronic, or low-level exposure aren’t known and that’s at the root of the fear that permeates the fishing community.

I talk to John Whitney, a NOAA Oceanographer who worked on the Exxon Valdez disaster. He gives me a crash chemistry lesson. Corexit is an extremely volatile compound. What this means is that it biodegrades very quickly – it has a half life of three to four days, which means after a few weeks it’s entirely gone, reduced to water and carbon dioxide. There are other volatile compounds produced in the degradation process, but no one can name one other than benzine. But it’s the middle of August now. If BP quit using dispersants on July 15th as they say they did, then it’s gone.

Entirely.

The dispersed oil remains, however, and the toxic poly aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) will persist, and not only on the surface.  They’re stratified in the water column. PAHs are bad. Real bad. Having them dispersed isn’t a good thing either, especially when you have plumes from the surface leading way, way down. Dispersed means more surface area and more surface area means more biomass comes into contact with it. But NOAA is very rosy (like a dozen, red) on this subject, citing their report that states 75% of the oil is gone – dissolved and gobbled up by microbes. Dissolved? I wouldn’t drink it.

They show me charts reflecting findings that the toxicity isn’t anything to worry about. But only two days prior to this, I was in D’iberville, Mississippi, looking at Flipcam footage shot by fisherman showing beyond a shadow of doubt that oil plume persists in Mississippi Sound. I only get them on the record saying that it’s all “mostly” gone or in such low concentrations that it doesn’t matter. It matters, all right.

Editor’s note: Travel editor Stiv Wilson is reporting exclusively from the Gulf of Mexico this month. Read all of his dispatches here.

The post Helicopters Over Deepwater Horizon and Why the Media in the Gulf Is Letting Us Down, Part 1 appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’re rushing from Grand Isle, Louisiana to D’iberville, Mississippi where our guide, Pat Heidingsfelder, has set up a town hall style meeting with Gulf Coast shrimpers. It’s an uncanny mix of folks: half are Cajun, the others are from the Vietnamese community. But they all share something in common in this room. They’re angry at the situation in their waters and they feel helpless to do anything about it.

What’s at the crux of this problem is mistrust and confusion. I’m currently investigating the real effects of dispersants, talking with high level folks at NOAA fisheries and reading all that’s being published. Lots of information that’s coming out isn’t from peer-reviewed sources and from my journalistic vantage, can’t be considered credible. Anecdotal evidence is important, but sound science is paramount.

Knee deep in uncertainty, here’s what I know: The truth of the toxicity of the water is remarkably more complex than the media have been portraying and lots of scientists, unqualified to speak to the implications of Corexit 9500 and 9527, are screaming at the top of their lungs on MSNBC. And it’s not helpful.

Rumor turns to fact once it disseminates across a community. Invariably, it gets quoted by journalists looking for juice, and there’s no shortage of ambulance chasers here, journalistic and otherwise. But when that juice gets picked up by the Associated Press and spreads like a game of telephone hotted up on SEO, it’s hard to unpack the truth. Our cynical media outlets don’t care, and people are suffering hard for it. It makes me angry, especially since I’m one who believes that truth is progress.

We’re in town, right at the close of Brown Shrimp season and the opening of White Shrimp season. The fishermen talk about an ocean dead. They talk about getting sick from dispersants. They talk about finding oil in the water when Dr. Bill Walker, head of Marine Natural Resources for Mississippi, says their is no oil in the water. They show videos of finding it three quarters of a mile offshore, in 12 feet of water.

What’s at stake is big. The seafood industry has collapsed in the Gulf because public perception is reality. And the reality is that it’s unsafe. It may very well be. But that’s the point exactly; Walker has declared that fishing season is open, which by definition, means state officials are declaring that it’s safe. It also means BP isn’t on the hook for lost days of work anymore. But if their are no shrimp and there is evidence of oil, these guys can’t sell their product, even if they can find it. Besides, none of them want to sell stuff that will make people sick. When the facilitator asks who is buying right now, only one man raises his hand. It’s for a small buyer. In effect, there is no market. Would you eat Gulf seafood right now?

To add insult to injury, these men are often divided on the issue. In the wake of a massive fisheries collapse, and when the oil was still spewing, several of these guys were hired by BP’s “Vessels of Opportunity” program to assist in the ‘incident response effort’ as BP named it. Half the men in this room have made a bucket full of cash – one netting 200K in just 74 days – by re-purposing their boats for the BP cause. But others haven’t been hired, and they don’t know why. Truck sales are booming from BP money, and truck repossessions are rampant from out of work, un-BP-hired fisherman. The net result, and perhaps one of the most insidious facts I’ve uncovered during my time here, is that this divide destroys this group’s ability to organize and unify. We know what results from a lack of cohesion: muffling.

As the evening progresses, I’m looking at the other members of our delegation, bearing witness, as I photograph everything. I haven’t seen this kind of emotion on people’s faces since watching airplanes fly into the World Trade Center. It’s heart wrenching and I feel dirty, ugly. As the complexities unfold, meaning splinters and darkens.

This is a region in crisis. This is a world gone mad. What’s hardest on the heart is that what people desperately want, above all, is to get back to how things were. But how it was isn’t sustainable. This is a never ending story.

Images: Stiv Wilson

The post Watching Grown Men Cry: Fear and Mistrust in Mississippi appeared first on EcoSalon.

I’m driving from Bayou La Batr down to Gulf Shores, the Miami Beach of southern Alabama. It’s August; tourist season should be in full swing but I see no traffic. The high rise condos, quiet on the beach, stand in stark contrast to the natural landscape. Many of these structures are half-finished and given the economic devastation caused by the spill here, I’d wager some are in the “never to be finished” category. I knew nostalgic stories of a friend’s beach dreams had here; she has served as my text messaging Virgil as I’ve explored the region and this unrelenting hell the people have endured. Part of me is glad she’s not here to see what I’ve seen; it’s better to let her keep her good memories of this place.

Over the radio, NPR is reporting that Alabama will sue BP for an undisclosed amount. It’s the first such statewide lawsuit filed. Governor Riley wants to keep it out of the courts and settle, but Alabama’s attorney general has different ideas and they hint at a political conflict. Like everything happening in the region, confusion and fear reigns, and good policy and science – unlike the oil – is not dispersing.

I walk with our videographer in front of a resort where a few random tourists are occupying the beach. It’s an area where sand has been trucked in to cover the oil. Cabanas and lounge chairs rest on top. The scene is one of post apocalypse in paradise. Just a month ago, there were puddles of oil on this beach.

We ask the cabana boy for a shovel and begin to dig. We dig three feet down to the water line, and stratified throughout is oil. Tarballs. We knew they were here: the wind over the beach smells like an auto parts store. We’re not sure if the water is safe or not, and the signage doesn’t help much: all it says is that the water has been affected by oil and if you come into contact with it, it will not be good. But still, a few children are body surfing as their parents lounge in the sun. The videographer, John Waller, normally a stoic presence, can’t believe what he’s seeing. “What mother would – I can’t believe – I mean seriously!”

Just beyond the beachgoers, there is yet another Incident Command Unit. As we approach, walking the beach where the resorts stop, the tarballs grow by degrees in number. Closing in, we count 12 men working. They have a contraption that resembles a screen door and they are sifting sand for oil, then bagging it in plastic bags to be hauled away. Asking the men where it goes, they don’t have an answer. The ubiquitous “theys” that occupy hierarchy here “take care of it.”

This is far and away the most absurd thing I’ve seen in a three-state tour of oil-affected areas. Imagine sifting millions of cubic feet of sand with a f#@&ing screen door. This is humanity reduced to helplessness. This is pissing in the wind.

Turtle Babies

The Gulf Shores is home to Loggerneck and (less commonly), Kemps Ridley turtle nests. The incubation for turtles is 55-70 days, and their mystical geo-location system (the faculty by which the females navigate back to the place of their nesting to lay eggs of their own) is online by 40 days. Typically, there are around 50 nests a year in the area.

We’re here to meet Mike Reynolds, Turtle Czar, who oversees a volunteer program called Share The Beach that ensures that turtle nests are left undisturbed by humans. But because of the BP oil spill, Reynolds is organizing turtle egg relocation to Cape Canaveral, Florida (after the turtles’ geolocation device has developed), to be hatched in the open Atlantic. Reynolds is concerned about the effect of oil and dispersants in the water on the youngsters and doesn’t believe it’s safe for the Loggernecks to swim in the open gulf. Besides, with what oil remains in the open, ambient water, there could be an issue with the patches of Sargassum, a surface floating weed where hatchlings find food and shelter from predators as they develop. If the Sargassum patches are tainted, it’s bad news for turtles. And given the devastation already wreaked on the population by the spill, Reynolds isn’t taking any chances.

Not 300 feet away, people are swimming in the water while people like Reynolds are relocating turtles for fear of their health. I ask him about this point. He responds with a hint of irony, “Well, I guess, humans aren’t as endangered as turtles are.”

The post TarTurtlebabies and the Myth of Sisyphus in Gulf Shores Alabama appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’re standing on a very remote dock on Grand Bayou, a chain of wetlands interspersed with human made channels where natural gas lines run out to rigs in the open Gulf. These pipes lay on the mud, running some four miles out to sea to their source and inland to a storage facility where the fuel is collected and brought to market.

Once again, standing in the remnants of architecture destroyed by Katrina, we are overwhelmed by the true identity of this place. Hurricane Katrina is like the B.C. and A.D. of the Gulf Coast, a place and time that demarcates two distinct realities.

Some residents hate BP, some think they’re doing a good job (to varying degrees), but everyone I’ve spoken to has three things in common: they have an uncanny sense of place, they have no self-pity, and the aftermath of Katrina affects their lives everyday.

By the water, there is a basketball hoop with no backboard but a perfectly intact net. The court below isn’t visible – it’s buried by mud and vegetation overgrowth. We’d hoped to meet a fisherman from a local tribe, Jeremiah, with whom we’d made arrangements with to take us out into the affected areas in his boat. Crabbing is closed in the open bays but not in these fingered channels. But Jeremiah, we learn, is already out. No boat equals no story.

Serendipitously, another reporter I’m with finds Brian Gainey, a 20-year-old third generation crabber who moors his boat here. For a little gas money, we can get a ride. He’s with his high school friend Carol Hart, who serves as crew, and he’s going to check on his crab traps laid a few days ago. Brian operates about 500 traps when in full swing, and he drives nearly four hours each way to get here from his home in Mississippi. His workday begins at 4 a.m. and doesn’t end until 8 p.m.

His boat moors for free because his family’s name is respected by the residents of this small, tribal wetland community. But now, his work is severely limited because the outer bays are contaminated. As we tour the marshes with their egrets and herons, we see firsthand why people live here. It’s beautiful. Hot, and beautiful.

Crabs, Brian says, avoid polluted water and have moved into the channels where the oil hasn’t saturated. And though he’s catching, the market rate for his effort has dropped considerably. “Gulf Seafood,” is hardly a selling point with seafood buyers these days. Menus all over the world are being reprinted. Safety is a topic for another post pending, but the perception in the market is that it’s tainted.

But back on the bayou, Brian’s working. His father isn’t; he’s instead accepting the BP checks for out-of-work fisherman, some $5,000 a month. Brian explains that he can generate this amount – gross – in three days of crabbing at pre-spill market prices. Late summer is prime crabbing, and Brian can easily pull in 20 thousand a month. Though he’s thankful to BP for his dad’s payments, it’s unclear how long they’ll last. They are only promised through August and he doesn’t know if they’ll continue beyond that. No one knows. Unknowing is the sentiment that prevails everywhere.

Brian is angry about the situation and he blames BP for all of the problems affecting his way of life, but he also believes that BP is doing everything they can right now. That they’re taking care of business.

This is the crux of life here: The entire economics of this region, with the exception of tourism (which is utterly destroyed), hangs in the balance of a healthy seafood economy and a healthy oil economy. But depending on whom you ask, BP is either a savior for giving jobs, or the devil for destroying the sea. Brian is somewhere in between. He doesn’t fish because he doesn’t have other options, but like most fishermen I’ve talked to, he does this because he loves it.

The post BP and The Bayou: Oil and Water Mix appeared first on EcoSalon.

A picture is worth a thousand words. The expression may sound cliche, but in the conservation movement, it couldn’t be more true. In the day and age of quick soundbites and short attention spans, when it comes to promoting a cause, grabbing people’s attention is key. We need more than just hearing about things in order to care; we need to see them, and we need to be moved.

That’s one of the main reasons that pilot Tom Hutchings takes visitors to the Gulf of Mexico up in the air in his Cessna 182, knowing very well the visual power of seeing this environmental catastrophe from above. In the weeks following the Deepwater explosion, oil covered the diverse marsh landscape of the Mississippi Delta, turning a pristine habitat into an alien environment.

Hutchings flies for South Wings, a non-profit with a tagline of “conservation through aviation.” Founded in 1996, the organization is committed to connect conservation groups with pilots, providing flights at no cost.

“Do you get motion sick?” Hutchings ask as he works to take off a back hatch on the Cessna so our videographer can film through it as we fly.

“Not really,” I respond, not completely sure what I’m getting myself into. As I stare into the small cockpit wondering how I am going to cram my legs in, I realize I actually have no idea what I’m about to take on. This is my first aerial photography tour, something that I’ve always wanted to do, but never had the opportunity.

We load into the small plane and make our way down the runway, slowly lifting into the air and leaving the urban landscape of New Orleans behind. “All the waterways that you see that are straight are manmade,” Hutchings points out. And there are a lot of straight waterways. From above it’s pretty clear why levy failure during Hurricane Katrina had such an impact; this city is surrounded by water.

Soon we’re in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, flying over small islands and marshes. These days, there is in fact less oil visible to the human eye. Gone are the days when entire bays were covered in a reflective slick, but the oil’s presence and destruction is still ever present. Marshes are lined with a reddish color, evidence of oil soaked sand. In a couple of places, thin long lines of oil streak the blue water, almost as if painted on. In protected bays, oil collects and doesn’t move. As Hutchings points out, stormy weather blows it in, and there’s no way to get it out.

But it’s not just the destruction that gets to me; it’s the natural beauty. Blue water dotted with bright green marshes. Natural designs created from the various waterways. From the moment that we start flying over this diverse and rich natural landscape, it’s apparent how unique and sensitive it is; to storms, to oil and to people.

“Disaster tourism” is what some people deem projects that take travelers to areas that have seen some kind of catastrophe or devastation. Yet when you travel to a place and see it first hand, you quickly realize how connected you are to that place.

In the Gulf of Mexico, it’s apparent that even being from the Northwest, this is my backyard. It’s hard not to get emotional as I fly over this amazing place, thinking about how I would feel if a similar disaster were to happen to the natural spaces that I call home. Tears well up as I continue snapping photos, trying to capture the scope and colors of what passes below me.

“Did you even think about the Gulf of Mexico before this oil spill?” Hutchings asks me.

I think for a second. I’m embarrassed by my answer: “No, not really.” And it’s true. Besides having looked at it on the map, I realize that I’ve never really given a second thought to this region’s culture, environment and economy. But it’s a region that works its way into all of our lives, from goods that get transported up the Mississippi, to seafood that’s shipped all over the country to jazz music.

I realize that it’s all this that we’re trying to capture in photos and with video. That’s a big order. But it must be done, or we will never contemplate what our everyday actions have on people and regions outside of our immediate circles. And that’s why Hutchings continues to fly, and we have to continue to pay attention.

Aerial Tour from Uncage the Soul Productions on Vimeo.

To check out a full gallery of photos, click here.

This post originally appeared on the project PDX 2 Gulf Coast’s website and has been cross-posted.

The post Seeing the Gulf From Above appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’re approaching the part of Louisiana where land and water become indistinct. South of New Orleans, approaching Grand Isle, we’re driving a series of elevated roadways and bridges, traversing a mammoth, venerable estuary the likes of which I’ve never seen. The likes of which I never knew existed. This area serves as a natural buffer between the Gulf and New Orleans, an ecosystem that not only provides vital habitat for waterfowl and other aquatic life, but a geography that protects the city itself from storms. It has been threatened by years of development of channels for commercial ship navigation that transect the estuary. And it’s always threatened by oil.

On the island proper, we’re meant to meet up with U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Search and Rescue. Unfortunately, our tour of the bay structure, where distressed, oiled birds are captured and then taken to a rehab center nearby, was not to be. We’re in the height of hurricane season now, and though we’re not looking at such a storm, we’re looking at a massive wall of gray just on the horizon and the official is telling us that the mission is officially standing down.

I ask the search and rescue team leader how bad the spill is, after her tells us he’s worked on three other spills. “Monumental,” he says. I’m with a reporter from my hometown newspaper and he’s unsatisfied with the answer. He presses. The official speaks in gentle equivocations – it’s not his job to argue, it’s his job to get the media out to these places, to see what is what and get the story to the public.

His body language says what his reticence doesn’t. Besides, monumental is a monumental word.

We take the opportunity to tour Grand Isle. I haven’t been here before but it looks like a middle class summer wonderland, a place where families fish and fight the the oppressive heat by bathing in the placid sea. I’m constantly texting pictures to a friend of mine who has a strong connection to the place, and I’m sad she’s not with us. It feels weird to translate this place myself, without her knowledge as guide.

We eat lunch at the local eatery where a serious rush is underway. Coast Guard, Louisiana officials, BP workers and boat captains eat gumbo and fried oysters in relative peace. We sample boiled peanuts for the first time, and I’m not a fan. Standing in line, waiting for my sandwich, everyone gets along. But there is tension. Some of these people literally can’t talk to each other – they can’t tell each other what they know, or what they do. The subject on everyone’s mind is avoided; the room lacks the levity lunch usually brings.

Barrier islands make this area surfless, which makes for perfect bathing. But the beaches are closed. The houses are mostly unoccupied, and many of them are still in disrepair from Katrina. Frisbees are getting dusty, beach balls are deflating.

We walk the beach – no one’s here to tell us not to. Akimbo check point tents are empty. There are a few locals crabbing and fishing, but largely, the beach looks as empty as Coney Island in the wintertime. What’s astonishing is the lay of the beach – uniform and unnaturally level. It has been scrubbed by machines. This area had been entirely covered with oil not long ago.  Every time it washes up, machines comes through and takes the top layer off and then haul it away to where the oil and the sand is separated. I want to see this place.

As the storm approaches, the locals on the beach say that the oil will come back, and the skim will happen again. And again. And again. This is a common theme when I speak to people here. At a bar in St. Bernard’s Parish, New Orleans, I talk with a woman named Donna. St. Bernard’s Parish was the only total devastation zone in New Orleans – meaning everything flooded. Her house was under 17 feet of water only six weeks after she bought it.

“You learn to roll with the punches here, and you roll through, but it ain’t never gonna get back to normal.”

She’s upbeat, but she looks beaten. Hardened by a hard life and hard times.

Life in this region has been in such trauma for so long. Pre- and post-Katrina are the temporal boundaries by which people understand reality. The oil only makes things worse. Locals have come to expect the abnormal as the normal. There is no other life here than spills and storms. It feels like a strange pathology. It makes me sad.

For better or for worse, the oil industry isn’t going away and no one even thinks about that as a possibility. Things don’t change here, but the landscape varies in degree of toxicity.  Walking here, seeing oil at the tide line mixed with dispersant, I too believe that this will never, ever go away. A storm will bring it up. A current will make it known again. It’s an unsettling feeling.

One thing is certain – no one here believes what the government and BP are saying about the oil going away rapidly.

The post BP Took Our Arms; the Government Is Taking Our Legs appeared first on EcoSalon.

From the Hill…

Our friends at the Heritage Foundation (who think Jack Bauer is a real person) have deployed multiple teams of energy, environment, homeland security and response experts to the Gulf to study the federal response to the oil spill. They have visited the areas hit hardest by the crisis. They’ve spoken with response workers, affected oil crews, fishermen, elected leaders and BP representatives. Their finding? President Obama has turned the spill an oil and water equivalent to making a mountain out of a molehill. And you know what? They’re not far off.

From a recent article issued by the foundation’s Web site:

BP is (very) slowly taking accountability for its creation of this crisis. Tony Hayward was finally dismissed as CEO, and they have promised full financial restitution for direct and indirect victims. On Day 100 of the spill, it’s time the Obama administration followed suit.

And what exactly does the administration have to be held accountable for? An environmental disaster made worse by federal incompetence. An unnecessary drilling moratorium that has pulled the plug on a Gulf economy already on life support. A claims process that was negotiated in secret, leaving few answers to why claims aren’t being processed and transparency is lost. A slow response that wasted clear weather days as hurricane season fast approaches, and a decision-making structure led by politics rather than duty.

Environmentally, the President and his eco-left echo chamber consciously chose to ignore the damage caused by the oil in favor of focusing on future tax increases that would expand government largess. The President’s initial push for cap-and-trade taxes as a response to an oil spill was so disconnected and oblivious that it was quickly brushed off by the Democrat-controlled Senate. Even so, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday cap-and-trade taxes were still possible this year if any energy legislation passes the Senate and the bill goes to conference.

Here are some details that are difficult to ignore: the administration assured us that we would not be paying for BP’s mistake at the gas pump, but the recent Reid-Boxer bill moving through the Senate indicates that increased taxes are inevitable and there will be a “drastic increase” in the price of oil per barrel.

Says Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, “Carol Browner, President Obama’s White House Energy and Climate Czar, recently said she thinks only Big Oil, which would include BP and a few others, should be drilling in the Gulf. With the Reid-Boxer oil spill bill, that’s exactly what will happen. And with this legislation, President Obama’s Gulf energy moratorium will become a permanent moratorium that will destroy thousands of good-paying jobs, restrict America’s ability to produce energy, and make America more dependent on foreign oil.”

BP is claiming a tax deduction worth roughly $9.9 billion. Congressman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) went on record stating this development was “reprehensible.”

This backlash is taking on the kind of viral reach that seems rivaled only by the widespread push for Hope just two years ago, when we as a nation took a look at the current state of things and paved a new path with a presidential candidate named Barack Obama. That kind of credit can never last. Someone has to pay for it when it comes due. It was unrealistic, juvenile and cockeyed to posit that one man – a good, fair and excellent communicator – would be able to Fix Problems Now.

Has President Obama failed us in the Gulf? Not really, but his and First Lady Michelle’s glamorous, nearly placating photo-ops on the beach haven’t helped.

But that doesn’t mean things are going well there, either. On the Louisiana coastline, barriers were delivered but wouldn’t get installed until permits were drafted, agreed upon and issued – that’s a legislative issue that would have benefited from an executive call to action.

The Heritage Foundation would have us believe there’s a superhero who can help in our definite time of need, much the way that progressives did in 2008. Our Hope has warped and exaggerated the candidate Obama’s cure-all promises for actual change. Inspiring, but potentially empty, rhetoric during election season cannot translate into action on the scale that we assumed it would. This isn’t a TV show; there isn’t a quick fix.

But if you’re out there, Jack, we’d really, really appreciate it.

Editor’s Note: This is the latest installment in Christopher Correa’s weekly column, Hill/Street Greens, examining the environmental deeds (and misdeeds) of Washington, D.C. and Wall Street.

Image: John Griffiths

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