Blog
August 29th, 2010 | T r u t h o u t
Laboratory confirmed oil-soaked sorbent pad. (Photo © Erika Blumenfeld 2010)
Story by Dahr Jamail; Photos by Erika Blumenfeld
The State of Mississippi’s Department of Marine Resources (DMR) opened all of its territorial waters to fishing on August 6. This was done in coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Food and Drug Administration, despite concerns from commercial fishermen in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida about the presence of oil and toxic dispersants from the BP oil disaster.
On August 19, Truthout accompanied two commercial fishermen from Mississippi on a trip into the Mississippi Sound in order to test for the presence of submerged oil. Laboratory test results from samples taken on that trip show extremely high concentrations of oil in the Mississippi Sound.
James “Catfish” Miller and Mark Stewart, both lifelong fishermen, have refused to trawl for shrimp because they believe the Mississippi Sound contains submerged oil. [Read more →]
by Dahr Jamail
August 26th, 2010 | Inter Press Service
Dead fish wash up at Port Fourchon, Louisiana. Credit:Erika Blumenfeld/IPS
OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi - Another massive fish kill, this time in Louisiana, has alarmed scientists, fishers and environmentalists who believe they are caused by oil and dispersants.
On Aug. 22, St. Bernard Parish authorities reported a huge fish kill at the mouth of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.
“By our estimates there were thousands - and I’m talking about 5,000 to 15,000 - dead fish,” St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro told reporters. “Different species were found dead, including crabs, sting rays, eel, drum, speckled trout, red fish, you name it, included in that kill.”
The next day, a thick, orange substance with tar balls and a “strong diesel smell” was discovered around Grassy Island, near the fish kill, according to a news release.
Taffaro admitted that there was oil in the area, but cautioned against assuming it was the cause of the fish kill.
[Read more →]
The Obama administration announced last week that it is safe to eat fish and shrimp caught in the 78 percent of federal waters in the Gulf that are now reopened to fishing. But many are still concerned about the levels of toxins in the water and the impact on marine life. Independent journalist Dahr Jamail has been reporting from the Gulf Coast for over a month now. Last week he spoke to some commercial fishermen in Mississippi who are refusing to trawl because of the oil and dispersants that are still in the water.
by Dahr Jamail
August 22nd, 2010 | T r u t h o u t
Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010
The scene is post-apocalyptic. Under a grey sky, two families play in the surf just off the beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana. To get to the beach, we walk past a red, plastic barrier fence that until very recently was there to keep people away from the oil-soaked area. Now, there are a few openings that beach goers can use. The fence is left largely intact, I presume, for when they will need to close the beach again when the next invasion of BP’s oil occurs.
A father jokingly throws sand at his little boy who laughs while dodging it. This, against a background of oil rigs and platforms looming in the Gulf. In the foreground, littering the beach, are tar balls. We stroll through the area, eyeing even more tar balls that bob lazily underwater, amidst sand ripples in the shallows … they are in the same location where the father sits, grabbing handfuls of sand to toss near his son. [Read more →]
Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010
Dear Readers:
I have been on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana for well over a month now, and together with my partner, Erika Blumenfeld, we have brought you stories and photographs that document and archive the human and environmental impact of the historic and horrific disaster that is the BP oil catastrophe.
We produced a report for Inter Press Service, Scientists Deeply Concerned About BP Disaster’s Long-Term Impact, which investigates the future of the Gulf’s ecosystems after being inundated by toxic mixture of crude oil and BP’s Corexit.
In our story, Out of Sight, Out of Mind (Even when it’s not out of sight), we expose the impressive oil catastrophe cover-up across all four Gulf States being enacted by the US Government and BP, and look at how this tactic is similar to Russia’s attempt to hide the severity of the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
In our most recent piece, Gulf Coast Fishermen Challenge US Government over Dispersants, we wrote about how commercial fisher folk in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida are sick from the ongoing exposure to BP’s use of dispersant, and are uniting to demand government agencies to force BP to discontinue its use and conduct accurate scientific testing of the waters before opening them up to fishing.
The complexity and breadth of this continued crisis is beyond what we could have imagined, and our questions have led us to dynamic and impassioned interviews with environmental philosophers, activists, scientists, sociologists, riverkeepers, bayoukeepers, indigenous tribes, and fisher people.
As a freelance team, we could not have produced this important work without your generous support. We are deeply grateful to those who were able to contribute to our efforts thus far.
Our work here is ongoing, and with so much of our investigation requiring that we be out in the field, I am humbly appealing for your continued support to help us extend our reporting, so that we may continue to bring you the unfolding events of this devastating issue that clearly effects us all.
Please support our work in the Gulf Coast by making a donation. There are several ways you can donate:
If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation, International Media Project (IMP) is providing fiscal sponsorship to Dahr Jamail.
Checks for tax-deductible donations should be made out to “International Media Project.” please write “Dahr Jamail” in the memo line and mail to:
International Media Project/Dahr Jamail
1714 Franklin St.
#100-251
Oakland, CA 94612
Online, you can use Paypal to donate HERE.
Donations can also be mailed to:
Dahr Jamail
P.O. Box 970
Marfa, TX 79843
Direct links to our pieces produced thus far, thanks to your support:
Living on a Dying Delta (June 29)
Fending for Themselves (July 4)
No Free Press for BP Oil Disaster (July 7)
Mitigating Annihilation (July 7)
Hell Has Come to South Louisiana (July 11)
Toxic Dispersants Near Gulf Harm Humans and Wildlife (July 13)
The Source of Our Despair (July 18)
BP’s Scheme To Swindle The “Small People” (July 19)
BP Oil Poisons the Gulf of Mexico’s Food Chain (July 20)
Gulf Coast Residents Outraged that Money Earned on Cleanup Might Be Subtracted from $20 Billion Claim Fund (July 20) Dahr interviewed on Democracy Now!
What Happens Next? (July 23)
BP Response Workers Report Low Morale, Lack of Pay, Sickness (July 27)
Our Complicity (July 29)
Scientists Deeply Concerned About BP Disaster’s Long-Term Impact (August 2)
Gulf Residents Likely Face Decades of Psychological Impact From BP’s Oil Disaster (August 6)
Out of Sight, Out of Mind (Even when it’s not out of sight) (August 8)
Gulf Coast Fishermen Challenge US Government over Dispersants (August 10)
Gulf Health Problems Blamed on Dispersed Oil (August 12)
Direct link to Erika Blumenfeld’s photographs from our reporting on the Gulf Coast oil catastrophe:
Gulf Coast Photo Gallery
Story by Dahr Jamail
Photography by Erika Blumenfeld
Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010
Since BP announced that CEO Tony Hayward would receive a multi-million dollar golden parachute and be replaced by Bob Dudley, we have witnessed an incredibly broad, and powerful, propaganda campaign. A campaign that peaked this week with the US government, clearly acting in BP’s best interests, itself announcing, via outlets willing to allow themselves to be used to transfer the propaganda, like the New York Times, this message: “The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm.”
The Times was accommodating enough to lead the story with a nice photo of a fishing boat motoring across clean water with several birds in the foreground.
This message was disseminated far and wide, via other mainstream media outlets like the AP and Reuters, effectively announcing to the masses that despite the Gulf of Mexico suffering the largest marine oil disaster in US history, most of the oil was simply “gone.”
Thus, it’s only what is on the surface that counts. If you can’t see it, there is not a problem.
[Read more →]
August 6th, 2010 | T r u t h o u t
Story by Dahr Jamail, Photography by Erika Blumenfeld, t r u t h o u t | Report
Louisiana resident at a public forum about the BP oil disaster and the widespread use of toxic dispersants. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld © 2010)
While the devastating ecological impacts of BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are obvious, the less visible but also long-lasting psychological, community and personal impacts could be worse, according to social scientists, psychologists and psychiatrists.
“People are becoming more and more hopeless and feeling helpless,” Dr. Arwen Podesta, a psychiatrist at Tulane University in New Orleans told Truthout. “They are feeling frantic and overwhelmed. This is worse than [Hurricane] Katrina. There is already more post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and more problems with domestic violence, threats of suicide and alcohol and drugs.”
Dr. Podesta, who also works in addiction clinics and hospitals said, “It’s a remarkably similar experience to that of the stressors of Katrina. There is an acute event, but then a long-term increase in hopelessness with every promise that is broken. Like a promise for money to rebuild a life, then people are put through red tape and each time they fail to move forward, they take five steps back in their psychological welfare.”
“The total number of years this will affect us is unknown,” Dr. Podesta said, adding, “however, it could affect us for possibly 20 to 30 years.”
Dr. Janet Johnson, an associate professor of psychiatry at Tulane University, told Truthout, “People are on edge. People are feeling grief. I’m hearing of physical illnesses related to the oil and people are worried about losing their home, their culture, their way of life.”
[Read more →]
Story by Dahr Jamail
Photography by Erika Blumenfeld
We rather be ruined than changed.
We rather die in our dread,
than climb the cross of the moment,
and let our illusions
die.
-W.H. Auden, excerpted from “The Age of Anxiety”
Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010
Not long ago we strolled along a beautiful white-sand beach in Orange Beach, Alabama, taking photos of freshly washed ashore black and brown tar balls. We watched little boys playing in the shallow surf, trying to catch minnows, as red oil boom bobbed in the waves just offshore behind them. This is the world we have all created.
[Read more →]
Story by Dahr Jamail
Photography by Erika Blumenfeld
Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010
Recently we met with Captain Louis Skrmetta who runs Ship Island Excursions out of Gulfport, Mississippi. His grandfather came to the US from Croatia in 1904, and began working as an oyster fisherman, now an endangered endeavor. From that background arose the family business of ferrying people out to West Ship Island, which is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore, about an hours boat ride south of Gulfport.
[Read more →]
Dahr shares stories of his trip to the Gulf Coast with Amy Goodman and Sharif Abdel Kouddous. Dahr’s segment starts around 42:15 of this video.
