Government Relations and Policy
Reports from the Gulf
Dr. Darron Collins
Dr. Darron Collins, who has worked with WWF for 9 years, has been visiting the gulf region in May and June to provide Frontline Reports on the effects the disaster has had on wildlife, people and the environment.
Working with wildlife has been a lifelong passion of mine. For the past nine years I’ve worked at WWF trying to protect some of the world’s most amazing species and the habitats they live in, so when disaster struck the Gulf, a place I lived for many years obtaining my MA and PHD at Tulane, there wasn’t a question, I needed to be down here.
So many questions race through my head every day that I hope to be able to answer.
- How did this happen?
- How is this affecting the millions of people who live and work in this part of the world and rely on its natural resources for survival?
- What is being done to stop the hemorrhaging of oil that is covering the Gulf and the species that make this area their home, like the brown pelican?
- And what can we do to ensure that there isn’t another environmental disaster such as this in other, more remote parts of the world?
To find the answers I plan on talking to fishermen, local business owners, regular folks, professors, environmentalists - basically anyone involved with the cleanup of the Gulf or affected by the tens of thousands of barrels of oil that explode from the bowels of the earth every day.
I welcome you along for the ride. Read the blog here, or follow me on Twitter @dashercollins
and WWF @World_Wildlife.
Chapter 1
The Journey Begins
I rolled out of bed in Atlanta at 4.30am and made it to LA by 9am – and the LA I’m talking about has nothing to do with Angels. I’m in Mobile, Alabama – Lower Alabama, as low as you can go – and I’m spending the day with the crew at the Mobile Baykeeper, a local conservation organization and important partner to WWF. Read
more
First Sighting of Oil
It’s the third week in May – the start of the shrimping season in any other year. Folks in these parts love their crustaceans and shrimp might just be top dog. Whether partial to white, pink, brown or royal reds the loyalty is to wild caught, Gulf Coast shrimp. Read more
The Experiment
My brain is about to explode from information overload. I spent the day in the relatively cushy confines of my graduate school alma mater, Tulane University, speaking with lawyers, anthropologists, ecologists, ichthyologists and engineers about the ins and outs of the Deepwater Horizon spill. Read more
We’ve Got Cap’n Kennedy
Even with the natural weathering of the oil and the effects of the dispersants, we found oil – on the jetties, all over the high tide mark of some of the barrier islands and floating on the surface, tarnished orange by the dispersant admixture. Read more
Chapter 2
They’re Angry
I’m here now for a second tour because this week is something like D-day for the Deepwater Horizon spill and the implications for drilling in the Arctic: the oil has made landfall, BP will try its widely publicized “top kill” procedure to stop the flow of oil and the Department of the Interior will release its report on the Deepwater Horizon spill and its plans for future regulation of the industry. Read more
Billy Nungesser Likes to Fix Problems
I love helicopters. Today I was blessed with the opportunity to cruise for two hours in an R44, which is akin to an old-school VW bug with no doors and two rotors. Read more
We Speak for those Creatures with No Voice
Today’s entry is dedicated to shedding some light on how this oil spill disaster might touch down on the creatures, most notably the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle and sperm whale. Read more
I’m Finished. We’re Finished. Our Way of Life is Finished
I made it back home in time to celebrate Memorial Day at the local pool. There were plenty of hot dogs and hamburgers and cases of Yuengling and PBR and lots of laughter and levity all the while the disaster continued to unfold down South. I had fun, but the thoughts of the friends I’d made over the past weeks kept creeping in. Read more
Chapter 3
We Can’t Afford to Forget about This – The Tedx Oil Spill Expedition Begins
We can’t afford to forget about this oil disaster. I can only hope that we haven’t already forgotten or no longer care. Enter the TEDx Oil Spill Expedition, which I have been invited to be a part of. Read more
“Come see the truth. I will take you there.”
Duncan Davidson, a photographer on the TEDx Oil Spill Expedition, and I decided to quickly scope out Grand Isle and take advantage of the last hours of sunlight before joining the other members of the team back at the New Orleans airport and launching full force into this week-long expedition. Read more
The More You Look, the More You See
The TEDx Oil Expedition team started the day in the Gretna, LA IHOP and ate with the sense that we’d probably not be eating for a long time. Although the IHOP wait staff didn’t recognize it, we were also in a hurry and the urgency came from the need to boogie west out to Biloxi, Mississippi and attend a rally for Vietnamese shrimpers. Read more
...At Least Superficially, Things Look Pretty Good
The plan for the morning was to storm the Port Perdido beach before sunrise and before the waste management crews arrived. It felt a bit like a military operation until we arrived at the water and stood together silently with a few herons watching the waves gently lap the shore. Read more
Conclusion to "Chapter 3"
I was really hoping that I could begin this ending with something along the lines of “Well, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill will go down as one of the worst anthropogenic environmental disasters in history. But at least the well is plugged and we can focus on restoring the ecology and human ecology in earnest.” But with top caps coming on and off, skimmers being delayed by dangerous weather and the relief wells still at least two months from completion, this thing is far from over. Read more
One Year After the Disaster
Almost a year ago, WWF’s Darron Collins brought us an on-the-ground and in-the-water perspective from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As we approach the one year anniversary of the April 20, 2010, disaster, Darron takes a look back – and forward – at the situation in the Gulf.
