Louisiana Senate: Vitter-Melancon Race Stays Quiet Despite Fireworks Potential
NEW ORLEANS -- With less than six weeks until Election Day, Louisiana's senatorial race has unfolded in surprisingly tepid fashion. This dearth of drama prevails because the popular Republican incumbent, David Vitter, is expected to handily defeat his Democratic challenger, Congressman Charlie Melancon. (An Aug. 30 Rasmussen poll puts the spread at 54 percent for Vitter to Melancon's 33 percent, while the average tally at RealClearPolitics.com is 51.0 percent to 36.7 percent.) A recent debate between the two, at Loyola University in New Orleans, was most noteworthy for staying completely ...
Sealing of BP Oil Well Doesn't Eliminate Questions and Anxiety
Now that the BP oil spill has been capped for two months -- and completely sealed for good as of Sunday -- national interest in its aftermath has slackened considerably. But unresolved issues continue to concern the people living along the Gulf of Mexico who are caught in a swirl of anxiety and contradictory data. Such pressing matters include these question: Is it safe to eat local seafood? Has all the spilled oil been accounted for? Will people who lost months of pay and profit really get full compensation from BP via the federal government? There are few conclusive answers, and ...
Katrina Anniversary in New Orleans Brings Pride, Anguish and Anxiety About Future
NEW ORLEANS -- As New Orleans observes the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina – "celebrates" is not the right word – a swirl of emotions has enveloped the city. There is a palpable sense of good fortune at simply being alive, tempered by unresolved grief and anger, remembrance of loss, flashbacks of post-traumatic stress, and anxiety that another big storm could yet strike this year. The pride about the significant progress of recovery clashes with anguish about all that still must be fixed. And there is other unfinished business. Many displaced citizens still are unable to ...
Gulf Oil Spill: Residents' Skepticism, Resentment Remain Uncapped
The BP spill appears to be capped for good, even though the ultimate solution known as "final kill" has yet to be implemented. But while fresh oil has stopped gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, distrust and resentment continue to flow freely. Many citizens and scientists alike do not believe an inter-agency federal report stating that roughly 25 percent of the spilled oil was collected by processes such as skimming, 25 percent has deteriorated or been consumed by microbes, and 25 percent has dispersed. The remaining "residual amount," the report continues, ". . . is either on or just below the ...
What the Oil-Rig Cook Saw: Corruption, Mostly
For 15 years, Dan Peterson worked as a cook on oil rigs off the coast of Louisiana. During much of that time Peterson lived on Grand Isle, the barrier island community that has experienced some of the worst damage from the BP spill. Although Peterson retired three years ago, he maintains close ties with his offshore compadres, and has keenly monitored the events of the past 100-plus days. Peterson did not participate in drilling per se. On a rig, food service personnel are considered a lower caste by those who actually work in oil production. But 18 hours of daily duty in the galley, where ...
The Oil Spill Has Stopped, but Berm Controversy Rages On
The cap on the Deepwater Horizon rig has held for 10 days now. This might mean that the BP oil spill has gushed its last, thus putting finite, if as yet immeasurable, limits on the huge cleanup that remains. But Saturday's emergence of a short-lived tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico was a harsh reminder that, even if the spewing has stopped for good, the vast uncontained slick could still blow ashore and cause further fouling, especially in Louisiana. But In the view of the Baton Rouge-based coastal scientist Leonard Bahr, the environmental threat posed by such leaked oil is menacingly ...
Oil Spill Takes a Toll on All, but Gulf Minorities Feel Marginalized Again
Although the BP oil spill may finally be stopped for good, there is no gush of relief and jubilation in southeast Louisiana. Months if not years of expensive and arduous cleanup remain to be done, and no one knows when, if ever, the commercial-fishing economy will return to pre-spill levels. The entire populace -- every racial, cultural, ethnic, neighborhood and socio-economic group -- has been seriously affected. In response, every group with a sense of self-identity has rallied to its own defense. But variances in political connections, education, money, organizational skills and media ...
Ivor van Heerden, the Controversial Cassandra of the Gulf
LIVINGSTON, Louisiana -- Dr. Ivor van Heerden, the former deputy director of Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center, was one of several experts to presciently predict the disastrous consequences -- including catastrophic levee failure -- if a major hurricane were to hit the New Orleans area. "Louisiana is a terminally ill patient requiring major surgery," van Heerden told the PBS program "Nova" in 2004. In the course of encouraging transformative hurricane preparation, van Heerden additionally called for the restoration of Louisiana's coastal wetlands. Decades of erosion due to oil ...
Gulf Coast Plea: 'Keep Buying Our Louisiana Seafood'
Like concentric waves from the splash of a thrown stone, economic damage from the BP oil spill continues to radiate ever-further outward. South Louisiana's seafood industry bore the initial brunt of this ongoing disaster, but now that impact has reached a second beachhead of service businesses and suppliers. In the small town of Dulac, for instance, some 80 miles southwest of New Orleans, revenue is way down at the Huey Ice Co. "Usually at this time of year," owner Marty Theriot said, "I make and sell about 300 blocks of ice per day. Those blocks weigh 300 pounds each, so we're looking at ...
Oil Spill Fallout: Oyster Industry Takes Hit as Gulf Company Shuts Doors
Louisiana's oyster industry took another major hit as the AmeriPure Processing Co. announced a temporary halt in operations, and the layoff of forty employees. The company, in Franklin, Louisiana, has a large payroll because it uses an elaborate process of cooling and heating to kill several strains of the dangerous Vibrio bacteria. Managing Partner Patrick Fahey explained Friday that his company's ability to get "oysters has been severely limited as a result of the spill. This is due to the combination of the precautionary closing of some oyster harvest-areas, and, more to the point, the ...
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