Out of Control
By Tracy Kuhns, Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper

On January 20, 2007, sometime between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., a tugboat hit a newly drilled oil wellhead in Bayou Perot in Barataria, Louisiana, 30 miles southwest of New Orleans. The tug operator did not stop and the well spewed oil into the wetlands until daylight before the Coast Guard was notified. By noon emergency response folks began containment.

Nearly 300,000 gallons of oil spread into Lake Salvador and cypress swamps to the north, and Little Lake, a salt marsh area, to the south. Booms were deployed and emergency response personnel went into marsh areas to ‘haze’ birds and wildlife out of area. Oil was cleaned from marsh, mud flats and wildlife, including alligators.

Everything, they told us, was under control. But the experience of our local family fishermen tells us we need to look beyond the surface waters to the water bottom. The Barataria Basin is home to people whose livelihood and culture is dependant on the natural resources. Folks in our community fish commercially for shrimp, crabs and fish. But the basin is rich in oil, as well as seafood. Time and again oil spills occur and we are told they have been cleaned up. But more often than not, when our fishermen begin shrimping, their nets come up covered in oil tar. Sometimes, as happened after Hurricane Katrina, residues can contaminate seafood. If even a small amount of that seafood inadvertently hits the market it can destroy the price for seafood harvested throughout the state, causing not only potential adverse health effects to consumers, but severe economic harm to resource dependent families and communities.