No gumbo for you!

Over the weekend I read an interesting story in Outside magazine titled "The Gumbo Chronicles".  It's about a man who wanted to see if the BP Gulf oil spill has been as successfully cleaned up as the hype says it has.  To find out, he went to Bayou Lafourche (pronounced la-foosh) just below New Orleans to see how the oystermen, crabbers, and shrimpers in the Gulf and in the bayous are doing these days.  He wanted to buy the ingredients for gumbo and see for himself how healthy and tasty the catch is now.  He found out.  Contrary to what the federal, state, and local governments and chamber's of commerce, not to mention BP, are telling us, things are not as rosy as they would like us to believe.


The proof....catches are less than half of what they were pre-spill.  And the size and quality of the sea creatures is pitiful, too.  Most of the fishermen have gone out of business or are just hanging on, most days not even catching enough to cover expenses.  One crab fisherman used to run 400 cages and he now runs 700, yet his catch is down from 20 pans a day to 13, and dropping weekly.  Similar stories were told by oystermen and shrimpers, too.  Their numbers don't lie.  So why don't we see this at our grocery stores?  Because most of the "fresh seafood" sold here is imported from Asia.  


What about the $20B fund BP set aside to compensate those affected by the spill?  Only about a quarter of it has been paid out, and BP is arguing that since things are now OK, future payments should be curtailed.  OK?  Really?


Here's my point:  We're in a "no-win" situation.  We need more oil in order to escape the grip of the mid-east producers who are robbing us blind.  Yes, we need something besides oil, but for now that's pretty much our only option.  Over time we'll have other options, but for today that's pretty much it.  We've been drilling in the Gulf of Mexico all my life without serious problems, so we know it can be done.  What it takes is REAL OVERSIGHT by regulators who are not bought and paid for by those being regulated.  And let's not kid ourselves, that's exactly what's happening.  


The wealthy, the powerful, get what they want from Washington, and I'm blaming both parties in this fiasco.  We need to allow drilling (and develop an alternative energy source ASAP and mandate conservation, too), but do it with multiple safeguards overseen 24/7 by inspectors who aren't chummy with the oil companies.


I'm not holding my breath for that to happen.  Neither are the Gulf fishermen.  What a mess we're in.


S