Before officials closed it Friday, visitors walked along the beach at Grand Isle, checking out the oil that washed up on the sand from the offshore platform that exploded and sank in April....
From the Advocate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana:
Walking over the sand dune separating Grand Isle camps from the Gulf of Mexico, Paul Trouard said he didn’t see anything unusual.
Trouard, 36, and Walter Allred, 41, both of Lafayette, were on the island to get together with friends and do some fishing.
They said they hadn’t been on the Grand Isle beach for years, but with all the talk of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, they decided to take a look for themselves Friday morning.
“I didn’t expect this,” Trouard said, pointing to the beach.
On the water’s edge, the beach was covered with oily globs the consistency of chocolate mousse and streaks of oil. In some locations, pools of oil were getting trapped in low-lying beach areas.
“They told us it was coming,” Allred said.
He said he brought a plastic bag to the shoreline to collect some of the oil and a camera to take some pictures. Trouard and Allred both agreed they’d probably be telling their children about the day they were fishing and oil came ashore in Grand Isle.
“It’s epic,” Allred said.
It's epic all right, epically catastrophic.
A small sand crab covered with oil...makes its way around the beach Friday at Grand Isle.
What are the chances for the little sand crab?
Tragic. But thank you for the witness.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mary.
ReplyDeleteBleah. Thanks for sharing, Mimi.
ReplyDeleteAs painful as it is for you to post these photographs, thank you for doing so, making more real a tragedy that is so remote from the Green Mountains of Vermont.
ReplyDeleteI hate looking at the pictures. Posting on the ill effects of the oil gusher is not the funnest part of blogging, but someone's got to do it, and I'm close to the scene.
ReplyDeleteOh, Grandmère, It was so sad to see the little sand crab and the oil line on the beautiful beach at Grand Isle. It was sad to hear from the Marine Lab at Dauphin Island this week that the bodies of bottlenose dolphins and sea turtles are starting to wash ashore on Gulf beaches. I hope they finally get that portal from hell plugged up soon.
ReplyDeleteBooCat, it was bound to happen. I hate that the BBC downplayed the extent of the catastrophe in the beginning and for weeks afterward. The whole world watches the BBC. Not that the world knowing does us and the poor sea creatures much good, but still....
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mimi, for doing this for us.
ReplyDeleteamyj
I remember as a child being on the beach at Grand Isle during WW II. The sand was also covered with oil--from tankers torpedoed by German U-boats.
ReplyDeleteHeck of a job Barack! Big Oil is going to trump the Gulf Coast ecosystem any day (like, where's the votes?), regardless of Administration.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry for you and for Louisiana!
ReplyDeleteAmy, you're welcome. I must do this.
ReplyDeleteOrmonde, Tom reminded me of the huge amounts of oil that were spilled in the waters during WWII. I wish I could be more hopeful, but I can't. I envision the worst-case scenario, but then, I admit I lean toward the pessimistic view.
Lapin, it's not only Obama. We in the technologized, industrialized world are all complicit.
Göran, thank you.
Sad. Sad. Sad. Mother Earth is weeping for her children.
ReplyDelete