Category Archives: Coastal

Pointe-au-Chien, LA

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As the BP oil spill story has faded from the headlines, it also risks fading from our memories, but the story is still all too ever-present for many of the residents of the Gulf Coast. Julie Dermansky has been steadily working on stories down there on the some of the forgotten victims and the continuing impact the spill has had on their lives. If change is to come out of these tragedies, it is critical that a disaster such as the oil spill does not simply become the story of the day, but that it lives on to continue to remind us how different things need to be. – Peter

I got a call from Grace Welch asking me to come to Terribone Parish to see the oil BP is leaving behind as the clean-up efforts to an end. Welch is a Pointe-au-Chien Indian from Pointe-au-Chien, LA. The community has taken a bad blow from the BP oil spill since most people make a living from fishing, shrimping, crabbing and oyster harvesting. Though their ancestral fishing grounds weren’t as badly polluted as Bay Jimmy in Plaquaemines Parish or the beaches near Grand Isle, the marsh was fouled by BP oil.  The marsh grass along the shores in Lake Chien and Lake Raccaurci that got coated in oil in May has died. Today a gooey swath of oil lines the shore. BP never cleaned this area. Some boom was put out after the oil had already gotten into the marsh and then was later removed. That was the extent of the clean up, Russell Dar Dar, an elder tribe member told me.

Grace Welch collects crabs from her traps on the waters of Bayou Pointe-au-Chien back on May 29th. Since then, even though crabbing is again permitted, she says it isn't worth doing the work, because few want to buy the crabs and the price has dropped.

A few members of the tribe are still employed by BP in Terribone Parish, working off Cocodrie where they are removing an oil drenched absorbent boom that has washed up on marshland. Once this boom is picked up, the clean up in Terribone Parish will be over. BP claims it will do the marsh more harm than good to clean it up. Where is their scientific justification coming from? Could it really be that leaving thick oil on the shore that has already killed the grass, to sink deeper into the soil, is a good thing? I watched birds hunting shrimp , sticking their beaks into the oily goop to catch their prey. Maybe a little oil isn’t a bad thing?

Russel DarDar, a Pointe- au-Chien Indian, Surveying ancestral land

Russel DarDar picking up oil off shoreline

A company called Gulfsavers has a solution that is not invasive to the march. Their product, made with oil-eating microbes, would help speed up the natural decomposing process. They have been unable to get BP to buy their product and are hoping enough donations will come in so that they can get some of their product in place and do their part in cleaning the marshland.

Oil covered shoreline

Oil remains on the shore of the marsh in Lake Raccourci

Dar Dar and I watched a shrimp boat at work just a few yards from the oil coated shore, in waters recently re-opened to fishing. We both wonder who would want to eat those shrimp if they saw the spot from which they came. Dar Dar has collected oysters that are being tested by the the Bucket Brigade so he can decide whether or not he will resume oyster harvesting for the Thanksgiving season, but he is worried about the future. He no longer trusts what he is told. The BP oil disaster taught him the power of lies: If they are repeated often enough, people believe them. He decided to go by what he sees, and is having his own testing done.

To see Julie’s complete story on the Pointe-au Chien Indians for the Washington Post, click here

Nurdles

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I woke up this morning to the news the California State Senate failed to pass a ban on plastic bags, really sad news and a disgusting example of our government for sale. The havoc these bags cause to our oceans and waterways is devastating to fish, wildlife and ultimately us. Toxins such as Phthalates, that leach from the plastic, as well as pollutants that adhere themselves to the macro plastic particles, get into the food chain as more and more of the fish we eat mistake these macro particles for their food.

Nurdles I found on Seal Beach

A lot of people are aware of the problems with plastic bags, but many may not know that another culprit is a benignly named little bugger called the nurdle. Nurdles are pre-production plastic pellets and resin materials typically under 5mm in diameter, that are used in the production and manufacturing of thousands of the products we use. Over 250 billion pounds of nurdles are shipped each year, and many, many of them fall off of railroad cars and ships, and then find their way to our oceans and beaches.

Captain Charles Moore showint plastic samples he collected in the North Pacific Gyre

Flying fish and plastic samples, including nurdles, collected in the Gyre

It is estimated that about 10% of the litter found on beaches worldwide are nurdles. I roamed a beach in Seal Beach, just south of Long Beach, to find hundreds of them lying around the beach, I can tell you the story is the same on most any other beach you might find yourself beach-combing on. Nurdles are just part of the family of plastic trash that is caught in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the North Pacific Gyre that wash up on our beaches and get ingested by birds and fish. Atolls in the Hawaiian archipelago like Kure and Midway are littered with plastic debris and the carcasses of albatrosses that migrate there and eat the plastic particles, and either suffocate or starve to death. The graphic example of what was found inside the belly of an albatross is courtesy of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, an organization that is doing extraordinary work in the areas of research and education concerning plastic in our oceans.

Albatross carcass from Kure Atoll with plastic debris in stomach. Courtesy of Algalita Marine Research Foundation

There is no easy way to wrap this up I’m afraid, passage of the plastic bag ban would have been a good start. This leaves it up to local cities and towns to institute bans, which has already started to happen in towns like San Francisco and Palo Alto, with other cities like Santa Monica and Manhattan Beach soon to follow. As long as the chemistry and petroleum industry has millions of dollars to spend swaying the votes of our legislators, it will be a long hard fought battle each time.

Ballona Wetlands

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It’s August and I am slowing down with Summer’s end approaching, so I thought I would just run some one shot posts for a few weeks. I went out last night to shoot the Ballona Wetlands, a beautiful area south of Marina Del Rey and just west of the Playa Vista housing development. For a number of years, and continuing to this day, there has been a battle to save the Ballona Wetlands from further development. The wetlands once extended north to Venice and further inland, and has been slowly built on over the years, the latest foray was the massive housing complex of Playa Vista, which you can see on the right side of the photo. What remains of the wetlands was saved by the acquisition of the land by the state, and the efforts of groups like Friends of  Ballona Wetlands. Wetlands, besides their pristine beauty and home to numerous species of birds and other wildlife, are a very complex eco-system as well as nature’s natural wastewater purification filter. The wetlands are located at the mouth of the Ballona Creek, which was once a natural flowing waterway, but is now a paved channel for rain and wastewater runoff.

Ballona Wetlands and Playa Vista housing development

I wanted to juxtapose the wetlands with the encroaching Playa Vista development. I thought a dusk shot would more dramatically make the point with the lights from the buildings and traffic along Lincoln Blvd., contrasted with the quiet serenity of the wetlands. The problem was that all that quiet serenity was going to be very dark compared to the lights, sky and the setting sun. I used a trick that every printer learns to do when making their B&W prints on an enlarger, a little dodging and burning. In this case, I waved my appointment book with its straight edge up and down, right in front of the top half of my lens while I was exposing the image. The exposure was about 20 seconds and I dodged the book for about 15 seconds, which kept the upper part of the exposure dark and from burning out the sky and mountains too much. A little tweaking in Photoshop didn’t hurt either.

War zone or Louisiana?

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We are all happy that at least for now, the leaking of the well has been stopped, barring other leaks and seepage, that is good news. But the story we have been posting about on this site is the PR war BP has waged on the press. It could be easy for all of us to lose interest in this story now that the drama has apparently passed, but if we do that, the most important part of the story may not be told as it should. What are the effects of the spill and what will the effects continue to be on the wildlife, eco-system, residents and clean-up workers in the immediate and surrounding areas.

If journalists cannot get at all the facts, will we know what the true extent of the spill has been, what the effect of the dispersants has been and how to avoid in the future all the numerous mistakes that have been made by both BP and government officials? And will the oil industry continue to get away with saying that they can deal with these situations when we know that cannot? Photojournalist Julie Dermansky provides a second post here on COTP, and gives us a report from the front lines of BP’s PR war and her efforts to get to the truth – Peter.

American flag stained with oil on Dauphin Island Alabama

The Joint information Center after numerous complaints sent out the following statement: “NEW ORLEANS — National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen today announced new procedures to allow media free travel within the 20-meter boom safety zones if they have followed simple procedures for credentialing, and provided they follow certain rules and guidelines.”

Boom dislodged by Hurricane Alex floats in Barataria Bay

The Coast Guard’s about face comes just after I finished writing my latest blog entry showing the type of images that would not be possible to take with the rule keeping media 65 feet back from boom which already keeps one back at least 65 feet. It is important for everyone to know what the Coast Guard did and why it was wrong. For a while I thought I was living in a police state run by corporate interests, which added to the horror of the BP oil disaster. I embrace the Coast Guard’s reversal.

Oil on the gulf's service by jsdart. Skimmer boats near the source of the uncapped BP well

I went out with wildlife and fishery agents on July 3rd to get around the new restrictions. As of June 30th, you have to keep 65 feet away from booms or cleanup vessels. We inspected two protected rookeries, Cat Island and Queen Bess. Absorbent booms full of oil washed up on the shore of the islands. I saw only one boat with two men working on fixing the boom at Queen Bess Island. Could it has been that BP private contractors wanted the 4th of July off, just like most federal employees? If I were handling BP’s PR, I’d put cleanup crews on overtime and make sure bird rookeries were cleaned up. A more effective way to stop the dissemination of images of dying creatures might be to stop the oil from getting to the birds’ habitat in the first place. And then there would be no need to take away the media’s first amendment rights.

Crawfish covered in oil found in the marsh in Plaquemines Parish

The pictures that most damage BP’s image are those of oil-stained animals. Those pictures cause President Obama problems too. He had to answer to his daughter who is worried about the pelicans, he pointed out while addressing the press on his second visit to Louisiana.

Sign at a private home on grand Isle

The BP oil spill, the largest, most disastrous spill in United States history, affects us all. That, and the First Amendment, is why restrictions on the press should challenged. We as a society should not let corporate polluters, in this case BP, in cooperation with the government control the media. It’s true that the Joint Information Center, run by BP and the Coast Guard have provided many opportunities to the press, but that does not give them the right to make independent reporting difficult via regulations disguised as public safety rules, or by using intimidation tactics, turning away journalists at every pass as documented many times by those covering the story.

Read here about the Coast guard’s media liaison’s connection to BP’s PR agency.
Listen to what Billy Nungesser has to say about the new restrictions here.
Listen to Anderson coopers outrage about the media restriction here.

bp sign on home of resdient on Grand Isle

Restricted zones, joint information centers, decontamination areas, embedded media: Am I in a war zone or Louisiana? New restrictions on the media made it almost impossible to properly tell the story. Even now with the reversal of the rules, BP reps along side the Coast Guard can still force the media out of any area they deem dangerous, at their discretion. BP has chosen to spend $50 million on PR while leaving the birds on major rookeries in danger. Protecting our national resources should not become a political battle. Should we turn to BP’s hired hack reporters to get our news? See BPs blog here. To those who try to defend the new restrictions I say, go outside with a camera, step back 65 feet from your subject ( an estimate of how far the boom keeps you from your subject before the new rules went in effect) then step back another 65 ft and see what kind of picture you get. After you do that, see if you can get Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen to disclose which officials asked him to enact these “safety measures.” (Thad Allan is off the hook with the call for him to reveal that information since he has given he retracted his 65 ft rule).

Oil found on dead fish on a beach in Plaquemines Parish

The well is capped for the moment. Questions are already arising about where the well might be leaking elsewhere. In the best case scenario – BP having the oil gush contained, now it is time to focus only on the clean up.   Will it be at BP’s discretion when to call the clean-up a rap? Are their subcontractors to be trusted blindly? I for one plan to go check the cleanup first hand. This story is far from over.

To see a photo essay I created on the oil disaster on The Atlantic’s site click here. The story led to two TV interviews, CNN and Fox and Friends asked me about intimidation factors I have met while covering the disaster.


Gulf Coast II

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Julie Dermansky has been doing some extraordinary work covering the oil disaster in the Gulf Coast, and this week in our second guest post from there, she shares her thoughts and observations about the clean-up and the PR campaign being waged by BP and government officials. We are fortunate to live in a time when we are able to get a more complete story than the just the mainstream media provides. The hard work and dedication of photographers like Julie make this possible – Peter

Politicians and BP officials who assure the public that all that can be done is being done to protect and clean up the Gulf Coast might want to reconsider such statements. Brown Pelicans on Queen Bess Island are living dangerously close to splotches of oil stuck inside and outside the boom meant to protect the island.  Many of them have been rescued by wildlife and fishery officials, while countless others have died.

Baby tern stuck in an oil patch on Grand Isle beach is rescued by Chris Hernandez, Street Superintendent of Grand Isle

Queen Bess Island, a rookery for brown pelicans, Louisiana's State bird, and other migratory birds is contaminated with oil that is on booth sides of boom put around the island to protect it

The cleanup effort ramps up when VIP’s are around; other than that, the cleanup and containment effort is sporadic at best. Christopher Hernandez of Grand Isle called members of the press down to show them around the day after 600 workers were bussed in to clean the beach for Obama’s visit. Post-Obama, the cleanup crews numbers dwindled and their work hours were almost nonexistent. Watch Hernandez here-

Chris Hernandez, Street Superintendent of Grand Isle puts an paddle into an oil patch on Grand Isle beach showing how thick the oil is while pointing out the lack of clean up crews on the beach

Oil in waves crashing in on the shore at Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge , in Alabama on June 12, 2010

Obama has promised to make all coastal areas whole again. But to say that the best effort is being put forth is not true, not after what I witnessed on Grand Isle and in other Gulf Coast communities. Spend a day on Grand Isle or in any of the rookeries where birds are landing in oil that is inside and outside the boomed-off areas and you’ll know that anyone who thinks the cleanup is proceeding well is buying into BP’s rhetoric. The beaches of Alabama have also been hit with oil. Watch the Mayor of Orange Beach http://www.youtube.com/user/jsdart#p/u/5/GIGZBQawzAU

Braddon and Maci Thomas dig a big whole on the beach in Orange Alabama, since oil is washing on shore and they cannot swim

Protest sign against BP on Grand Island where oil had washed up on shore and shut down the fishing industry

Me on the beach at Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge gets up close to oil on the beach

A reporter puts his hand in an oil patch on the surface of Barataria Bay

The truth is not hard to find, despite BP’s efforts to quell the story. Actions are speaking louder than words along the Gulf Coast. Surely the $50 million BP is spending on PR to fix their image would be better spent cleaning up the oil.

To see more of Julie’s work, visit her blog – www.jsdart.com