Glynn Wilson

Like a number of businesses along the Gulf Coast, long-time favorite haunt Captain’s Galley on the Bon Secour River, famous for its Bon Secour oysters, scrumptious burgers and pizza, is closed down due to the crippled economy and the health threat from the BP oil and chemical disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Join Tim Male, Defenders Vice President of Conservation Policy, visits the Gulf coast a month after the gushing BP Deepwater Horizon well was capped. On this trip, Tim shows how the disaster continues to wreak havoc on the beaches of Louisiana.

Residents along the Gulf Coast experienced a decline in their overall emotional health in the 15 weeks after the onset of the BP oil disaster, according to the Gallup-Healthways Emotional Health Index.

Residents of Gulf Coast-facing counties reported 25.6 percent more clinical diagnoses of depression in the period after the oil spill compared with before it, while those living in inland counties in the same Gulf of Mexico states showed no such drops in emotional health in the oil disaster’s aftermath.

Across each of the daily mood metrics, residents of Gulf Coast-facing counties experienced measurable increases in these negative emotions that their inland counterparts and residents of non-Gulf Coast states did not. The notable increase in diagnoses reveals that clinical depression along the Gulf coastline was climbing at a time when it was flat throughout the remainder of the country.

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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Graphic

by Glynn Wilson

Based on what is being called a “rigorous review” of previously released preliminary data by a team of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists, the federal agency has compiled an expanded report of the birds rescued and collected during the response to the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a statement released Wednesday.

The report outlines a species-by-species breakdown and maps of where the birds were collected, according to Tom Strickland, assistant secretary of the Department of Interior for Fish and Wildlife parks.

“These new detailed reports will give us a better initial picture of the effects to migratory bird populations from the Deepwater Horizon spill, help guide our efforts to restore these populations and help ensure that those responsible will be held accountable for the full impacts of the spill,” Strickland said.

The initial report released by the Fish and Wildlife Service today showed that as of Sept. 14, 2010, a total of 3,634 dead birds and 1,042 live birds have been found in areas affected by the BP oil catastrophe. These numbers are subject to verification and cannot be considered final, according to the report. Of the dead birds, the largest numbers are laughing gulls, followed by brown pelicans and northern gannets.

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The Federal Government or the State Court System?

David Underhill of the Mobile Alabama Sierra Club protests BP in Panama City, Florida

Legal Analysis
by Glynn Wilson

David Underhill of the Mobile Alabama Sierra Club, who recently protested a public forum sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Interior by wearing duct tape over his mouth since citizens were not allowed to speak like they should have been in a real democratic town hall public hearing, was also party to a stakeholders meeting August 17 with officials from national and local government agencies and environmental groups as well as the British Petroleum corporation.

There were already so many public complaints about the lethargic nature of BP’s response to paying claims to individuals and businesses along the Gulf Coast that the Obama administration stepped in June 15 and seized $20 billion of the oil company’s money, to make sure people receive compensation for losses suffered due to the largest and worst environmental disaster in American history.

By June 16, less than two months after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico April 20, killing 11 workers and spreading it’s crude all over the Gulf from the Louisiana marshes to the beaches of Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, President Barack Obama appointed Washington attorney Kenneth Feinberg to act as the arbitrator to lead an independent team to oversee paying out claims from the new $20 billion escrow fund.

But the question on Underhill’s mind at the August 17 meeting was whether Feinberg could truly be independent and fair if he is being paid by BP. So he tried to get an answer from one of the BP representatives at the meeting, Gary Willis. Clearly there is not much trust of BP on the Gulf Coast, since the company has lied time and time again about the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf, about the use of chemical dispersants, even about who has the power to control access to oiled beaches.

The answer Underhill got from the BP official was “fuzzy,” he said, so he and Casi Callaway of the Mobile Baykeeper did a followup interview with BP public relations representative Sam J. Sacco.

In an e-mail exchange obtained exclusively by The Locust Fork News-Journal, Sacco said: “A question was asked by one of your members at the Aug. 17 COAST meeting as to whether BP was paying the appointed claims administrator, Mr. Feinberg,” Sacco said. “The answer to that question is yes.”

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U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke visited Louisiana today to hear from local business owners and community members who have been directly affected by the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. At an economic roundtable in Metairie, La., Locke announced $31.3 million in coastal restoration and economic development grants for Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.

“These grants are another sign of this administration’s commitment to help the Gulf Coast’s economy and environment recover in the wake of the BP oil spill,” Locke said in a statement.

A $30.7 million restoration grant, awarded to the Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration by Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will fund the restoration of a critical barrier headland near Port Fourchon, La.

The headland, which experiences some of the highest shoreline retreat rates in the nation, protects vital bay and wetland habitat and property from storm surge and erosion. Louisiana’s coastal habitat is the state’s first line of defense during storms, reducing the devastating effects of wind, waves, and flooding.

In addition, Locke announced a $600,000 effort by Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) to fund the deployment of 21 Assessment and Evaluation teams to communities affected by the BP oil spill in the Gulf.

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Is BP Trying to Stop the Leak, or Capture the Oil Profits?

The Big Picture
by Glynn Wilson

GULF SHORES, Ala. — You know that feeling you get when you flee a big city and head for the coast, sit down with a beer, and listen to the waves roll onto the beach. I don’t have to tell you this. You have most likely experienced that feeling when your heart beat and adrenaline production slow down. You relax.

I have been visiting the beaches of Gulf Shores on and off for 50 years back to the 1950s when my parents first took me on vacation here, long before there was a single high-rise condo on the beach. For a time in the 1980s, I even lived on West Beach while working for a chain of newspapers on the Gulf Coast. I spent a fair amount of time in a hammock there, lengthening my life by listening to those waves and spending some quality down time between the Gulf of Mexico and Little Lagoon.

Now as I walk these same beaches and see BP’s oil globlets in the surf and on the beaches, my heart is troubled like never before.

Ever since I got into environmental journalism in the 1980s, I have always maintained great hope that with the right kind of information in the press, the public can make democracy work — and save the planet too.

Now I am not so sure. Here’s why.

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