Gulf Gusher Update

It was very stormy today and I am still grading finals but I managed to catch a few things on the local news that show the level of frustration down here with BP and the response to the tragedy unfolding in the Gulf. There’s so much speculation as to how desperate the situation will be that every one wants more information and it doesn’t appear very forthcoming.

A group of fishermen got angry at officials at a meeting in the two hard hit parishes here. That would be Plaquemines and St. Bernard. Both were slammed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and haven’t really recovered to any place you’d call normal. Most of the folks that have stayed there have livelihoods that depend on the gulf including shrimpers and folks that live on commercial and sport fishing. These families are about at the end of their ropes and most have been in the area and in the business for generations. It’s more than just a living to them.

The fishermen said they feel like their livelihood is being threatened and they’re being punished twice — first by the spill and now by their parish and BP.

“We have to suffer because of their damn mistakes,” said Suzanna Guidroz, who works as a deckhand. “They should have had a backup plan for this oil spill before it even happened. It should have been in the works years ago.”

More of the frustration stemmed from the pay that captains and deckhands are being offered, which is far less than they’re used to making.

“I dropped out of seventh grade to do this,” fisherman Michael Thonn said. “I’ve been doing this my whole life, since I was a kid. It’s all I know. How am I supposed to pay my bills? I got family to take care of. I got kids.”

“These fishermen make a lot more than $17 an hour and $250 a day for their boat,” Guidroz said. “They could not compare to what these guys are making out there right now.”

Meanwhile, confusion over the testimony at last week’s congressional hearing has caused Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to fire off a letter to the CEO of BP. Since no one was claiming any responsibility, she felt the urge to get a little clarification.

The letter specifically mentions an interview with Reuters on April 30 in which BP CEO Dr. Anthony Hayword said, “We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up, and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honor them. We are going to be very, very aggressive in all of that.”

As recent as May 11, Lamar McKay, the chairman and president of BP America, was reported as making similar claims before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. In his testimony, Napolitano’s letter said that McKay agreed that BP will pay all claims, even if they exceed what he described as an “irrelevant” statutory cap of $75 million per incident.

If this winds up in court ala the Exxon Valdez and the AMOCO Cadiz, people will most likely be dead before they have hope of recovering any of the damages. The Napolitano letter followed up the White House Rose Garden speech where TOTUS instructed POTUS to be very angry. I think this means the buck is going to stop on the back of those of us that live on the Gulf right now. Believe me, the pain will spread too. If this thing gets up into the Mississippi, there is no telling what will happen. That’s a major artery for commerce as well as the source of a lot of drinking water. The President seems to think his administration’s response has been okey dokey.

With the Gulf spill, he said, the response was “comprehensive and fast” and the Coast Guard and Interior Department were on the scene almost immediately.

Yeah. That was the same group that pulled us off of roofs during Hurricane Katrina. I’m beginning to trust the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries over just about any body else in the country, frankly. How about sending us a few brilliant engineers to figure out how to plug up the gusher?

Meanwhile, back to the poor folks in Chalmette and to the rest of us that can’t live without our Shrimp Po’ Boys.

All of the waters directly affected by the spill remained closed to commercial and recreational fishing, so no seafood from the region is at risk of oil contamination.

It is almost certain, however, that the life cycle of shrimp in the Gulf will be affected by the spill. Shrimp reproduce and lay their eggs in the Gulf, which is now largely covered in dispersed and floating oil, and then move inshore to the estuaries, which are are also at risk.

I think we’re all kinda tired of making history down here.

You can consider this an open thread, but I have to tell you, there’s not much on my mind right now but how bad this is going to be.