Government Relations and Policy
Reports from the Gulf
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The Journey Begins
Monday, May 17, 2010
By Darron Collins
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.
Today is the first of four days I’ll be spending on the Gulf Coast from Mobile, Alabama to Venice, Louisiana to get a firsthand look at some of the effects of the Deepwater Horizon spill. I’ll also be talking with folks on the front lines to get a better understanding of what went wrong, how both people and wildlife are suffering from the accident and how the spill might drive legal or policy changes to make sure such disasters don’t happen again here, up in Alaska and anywhere we drill for oil in the open ocean.
Oil Rigs clearly seen from Mobile Bay, AL
© Darron Collins
A lot goes through the collective mind of a conservation group when something like Deepwater Horizon goes down. First and foremost there’s the human disaster – 11 people losing their lives from the blast and fire, 11 families shaken to the core. If you can step back from that and can begin to look at the broader implications, that collective mind races through its geographic database. Where did it happen? What are the currents like? What direction’s the wind coming from? On what shore will all this mess wind up?
For World Wildlife Fund, we’ve prioritized the globe and have selected 20 ecological epicenters and have dedicated our energies to saving those places and the wider threats – like the petrochemical industry – that tie down to them. Many of them you’d guess: the Amazon, the Congo Basin, Borneo, etc. One you’d likely miss is the Southeast Rivers and Streams of the United States, which we define as the combined watersheds of the Tennessee, Cumberland and Mobile Basins. One of the most remarkable spots within that broad geography is in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta in southernmost Alabama. Once the fires of the Deepwater Horizon rig were extinguished and news of tens of thousands of barrels per day of escaped crude hit the wires, my mind zeroed in on the Mobile Tensaw. That’s why I wanted to start here in LA.
Tensaw River, Alabama
© Darron Collins
The Delta itself is one of the most pristine deltas in the country. It’s jaw dropping, especially this time of year when it’s just thick with water birds. The five rivers that pour into the delta drain an enormous chunk of the US landmass, which is very helpful where oil spills are concerned. That massive plug of water and the land dam of the Interstate 10 bridge will most likely keep Deepwater Horizon oil out. A hurricane could change all that of course, but I’m trying to keep at least some sense of optimism.
Casi Calloway, Executive Director of the Mobile Baykeeper, somehow manages to muster optimism. She’s been on the front lines of protecting the Mobile Bay and Delta region for 13 years now and knows the region and its people like the back of her hand.
Mobile Baykeeper, a WWF partner, is an environmental group that preserves and protectes the beauty, health and heritage of the Mobile Bay watershed
© Darron Collins
“Prior to April 22nd of this year we had it relatively easy,” Casi jokes, “ we only had to deal with an overgrown Amazonian snail that had escaped from someone’s aquarium and was pillaging the delta, sewage treatment issues, unsound storm water management and a violent strain of catfish parasite. Now we’ve got this on our hands as well.”
That comment got me thinking. The Gulf of Mexico is already a severely strained environment. Would this be the last straw for the Gulf and for the people that can’t live without a relatively healthy Gulf? Casi introduced me to Bobby Abruscato who is feeling the effects of the spill personally. He’s a world class sport fisherman who makes his living on the water as a guide and as a competitive redfish and speckled trout tournament fisherman. If you want to catch big fish, Bobby’s your guy, hands down. And if his summer is looking a little slow due to the spill, you know other less well-known charter fishermen are really going to have a tough time of it.
Captain Bobby Abruscato is the owner and founder of A-Team Fishing Adventures with 35 years of experience fishing waters adjacent to Dauphin Island
© Darron Collins
Docked shrimp boat with Oil vacuum trucks in the background
© Darron Collins
Fishermen got walloped first by Hurricane Katrina and second by the recession. This year was supposed to be the comeback year for these guys. But fisheries and fishermen are taking yet another direct hit. Bobby took me into a harbor off Dauphin Island to show me something unusual: a harbor full of huge commercial shrimp boats.
“This spot is usually empty – everyone’s supposed to be shrimping this time of year. Look at this place! All these shrimp boats don’t want to be here, they’re hemorrhaging money every hour they’re docked." Though I have not seen one drop of oil nor smelled anything remotely like a hydrocarbon, people are already avoiding trips down here and cancelling reservations left and right. I asked about any sign of oil when I was reserving a campground tent site and the woman on the other line just about pulled me through the wires to convince me that “there’s no oil.”
Well, we’ve all watched the news. There’s actually quite a lot of oil. So far, the worst of it is further west out toward Venice, Louisiana where on Tuesday’s news we heard that the oil had hit the beach. And there’s also half-a-million gallons of “dispersant” that BP has used to sink the oil into the water column. Lots of people around here are raising eyebrows at that move. It’s a more optically benign spill without Valdezesque oil-drenched shore birds.
Boats lay oil retention booms in Dauphin Island
© Darron Collins
Dauphin Island, AL
© Darron Collins
But with miles worth of dispersant-bombarded oil now drifting in the water column, this spill is going to go down in history as really, really ugly. But in the Mobile area people are at this point affected more by the perceived impacts of the spill and the anxiety is palpable.
“It’s like waiting for a hurricane to hit,” Casi tells me, “but we’ve been waiting almost a month now.” Well, the spill is having a very real impact on many critical species. It will touch the bluefin tuna and red snapper, which are spawning in and around the Deepwater Horizon site. The spill will also bludgeon the shrimp which in June are being pushed out into the ocean from the spring rains washing into the Gulf. Sperm whales. Porpoise. A stock of 25 Bryde’s whales. The Louisiana State bird, the brown pelican. Five of the world’s seven species of sea turtles. What will they feel?
Porpoise swims in Dauphin Island
© Darron Collins
LA state bird, the Brown Pelican
© Darron Collins
The deer fly’s down in LA are fierce and they’ve begun to feast on my ankles, so I’m going to move further west and try and answer some of those questions.
Dr. Darron Collins campground for the night
© Darron Collins
