The Mixing of Water and Oil: BP in The Bayou

Photo by Stiv Wilson

We’re standing on a very remote dock on Grand Bayou, a chain of wetlands interspersed with human made channels where Natural Gas lines run out to rigs in the open Gulf. These pipes sit on the mud, about 6-10 feet down, running some four miles out to sea to their source and inland to a storage facility where the fuel is collected and brought to market. Once again, standing in the remnants of architecture destroyed by Katrina, we are imbued with the true identity of the place. Hurricane Katrina is like the B.C. and A.D. of the Gulf Coast, a place and time that demarcates two distinct realities.

Some residents hate BP, some think they’re doing a good job (to varying degrees) but all of them that I’ve talked to have at least three things in common: they have an uncanny sense of place, they have no self-pity, and the aftermath of Katrina affects their lives everyday.

By the water, there is a basketball hoop with no backboard but a perfectly intact net. The court below isn’t apparent- buried by mud and vegetation growing over. We’d hoped to meet a fisherman from a local tribe, Jeremiah, who we’d made arrangements with to take us out into the affected areas in his boat. Crabbing is closed in the open bays but not in these fingered channels. But Jeremiah we learn, is already out. No boat equals no story. Serendipitously, another reporter I’m with finds Brian Gainey, a 20 year-old, third generation crabber who moors his boat here, preparing to go out. For a little gas money, we can get a ride. He’s with his high school friend Carol Hart, who serves as crew, and he’s going to check on his crab traps that were laid a few days previous. Brian operates about 500 traps when in full swing, and he drives nearly four hours each way to get here from his home in Mississippi. His work day is 4am to 8pm with the commute.

His boat is moored here for free, because his family’s name is respected by the residents of this small, tribal wetland community. But now, he’s limited as to where he can work because the outer bays are closed to extractive activities because of oil contamination. As we tour the marshes, looking at egrets and herons, we see firsthand why people live here. It’s beautiful. Hot, but beautiful.

Crabs, Brian says, avoid polluted water and have moved into the channels where the oil hasn’t overtaken. And though he’s catching, the market rate for his effort has dropped considerably. “Gulf Seafood,” isn’t a phrase that’s popular with seafood buyers anymore. Menus the world over are being reprinted. Whether it’s safe or not is a topic for another writing (which you’ll read in the next few days), but the perception in the market is that it’s tainted. Ask any fisherman in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Perception is reality.

But back on the bayou, Brian’s working. His dad isn’t; he’s instead taking the BP checks for out-of- work fisherman, some $5k a month. Brian explains that he makes this amount (gross) in three days of crabbing at pre-spill market prices. Right now, in the later summer months, is the prime crabbing time, and Brian can easily make $15-20k a month. Though he’s thankful to BP for his dad’s payments, it’s unclear how long they’ll last– they are only promised through August and he doesn’t know if they’ll continue beyond that. No one knows. Unknowing is the sentiment that prevails everywhere. Brian is angry about the situation and he blames BP for all of the problems affecting his way of life, but he says that BP is doing everything they can right now. That they’re taking care of business. This is the crux of life here–  the entire economics of this region, with the exception of tourism (which is utterly destroyed), hangs in the balance of a healthy seafood economy and a healthy oil economy. But depending on who you talk to, BP is either — even amongst people in the same line of work — a savior for giving jobs or they’re the devil for killing the sea. Brian is somewhere in between. He’s a motivated, smart young man with a strong sense of place. He could do anything he wanted if he put his heart into it. He doesn’t fish because he doesn’t have other options, but like most fisherman I’ve talked to, he does this because he loves it. Lives to love it.

Full photo gallery here.

By Stiv J. Wilson