Oil Spill - day five

Today this report from Louisiana is dedicated to all of the wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico. There are no words created to describe the magnitude of the amount of oil in the Gulf. We flew out over the source of the spill and saw miles and miles of oil surrounding the spill sight. Picture yourself having to clean up a sewage flooded basesment with a piece of paper towel - that is about am much effect the boats out there will have in this clean up. There is to much oil for these few boats to have any chance of successfully soaking up the oil. Looking down over the spill I try to image what any species of wildlife must be going through in that water. What was once a healthy environment is now pure poisen to these creatures. We saw the two rigs drilling the relief wells - and there were two rigs burning off gas/petrolium etc. There is a heavy smell of oil in the air. There are perhaps 20 boats skimming the water around the area. It was painfully obvious that it is just a PR spin from BP and the politicians in their pockets when they say that they are committed to cleaning up the spill and that they are doing everything that they can. What we saw was not even a "drop in the bucket".
It's not just the oil that is now killing off the wildlife. Clean up crews brought in to work in this area are zooming along the beaches and protected areas driving over nests and through habitats with their ATVs (brand new ATV's supplied to the workers). The attached picture shows Least Turn Chicks no longer living.

In trying to find some positive - I am at least thankful that the Walrus will be ok if they decide to travel down to the Gulf. Not just the BP saftey manuals - but the other oil companies saftey manuals all report on their knowledge of how to save the walrus in the Gulf should a spill occur. In fact - if it just was not so incredibly hot here - I would put a call in to the walrus and let them know that there are a lot of people down here looking out for their welfare and that they should pack up and move.
As ludicrous as that sounds - what is currently going on here in the Gulf makes that seem like quite a reasonable comment.

Some of the politians are crying loudly about the Oil Rigs that are shut down. Keep in mind that it is only the rigs that were drilling new rigs that are shut down. The rigs that are in production are still up and running. These same "leaders" are also slamming the current white house administration for not doing enough. You can't have it both ways. Of course it is and will continue to be for some time a huge hardship on the oil workers laid off. But that is not what they really care about. Oil owns Louisiana. When we flew over the marshlands next to the Mississippi river that extend out to the gulf - you can see that these once great areas have already been "raped" by the oil companies. Sitting out on the beach here in Grand Isle you can see speckled over the horizon countless rigs out in the gulf.
Make no mistake - it's great politics for them to yell and scream about the spill and the clean up efforts, the fishing industry etc. - but it is the Oil companies that many of them serve.

It is truly heartbreaking to hear the endless stories that are a result of this spill. Trying to find some perspective can be difficult. However, when you see a tiny little chick laying dead on the beach, when you see a Dolphin flounder in the water covered in oil, when you see brown pelicans now black with oil, when you see baby crabs dead and bleached white from the chemicals - when you see miles of oil spreading over the gulf - well it's then that you realize that there is something deeply wrong with the system we have created on this planet.

Tomorrow I leave Grand Isle and continue my journey to New Orleans. I can only hope that I will have the opportunity to travel here again in the future and hopefully find a clean healthy environment but sadly I don't hold out much hope for that.