Last week, I went to New Orleans to meet with environmental and social justice groups that are working on the BP oil spill. A couple of locals were kind enough to take some of the attendees on a boat trip out into the bayou and the Gulf of Mexico.
Here is one of the boats leaving Happy Jack's fish camp in Plaquemines Parish:
The first thing that hit me was the overwhelming smell of crude oil. Our boat captain, a local, told us that he had been to this area many times before and never smelled anything like this. When our boat would stop, the smell would envelop us as though we were in a lake of crude oil.
Not far from Happy Jack’s, we pulled up to look at oiled marsh grasses. Here is an example of what we saw:
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On our way back, we stopped for lunch at L’il G’s Kajun Restaurant in Belle Chase. You can check out their menu at: http://www.lilgsrestaurant.com/. The sign outside of L’il G’s spoke eloquently of the concerns of the locals about the health of the fishing industry, an industry that is far more valuable to the State of Louisiana than oil: “Yes Yes Yes We Have Seafood.” While one-third of the Gulf is still off-limits to fishing, some justly famous Louisiana seafood is still to be found. If you come down to Belle Chase, stop in and try some.