bluejean journalists

2010-06-21T22:07:00.000-07:00

A gusher and the oil too. Two Gulf Coast disasters in suits.

Assorted pics of the Gulf Coast

2010-06-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

Back to the Gulf--with special visitor

2010-06-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

Crossposted on Daily Kos


    Greetings fellow nature lovers. We really are up shit's oily creek. This is Reddhead here and we just got back from another trip to the Gulf Coast...and it's bad, but of course, you already know that. I'm pissed but I know that we can't depend on Rachel to do all the yelling for us. So, here I'm gonna do some yelling myself.

    I have seen the clips on Rachel's show and in the papers, but it literally brought me to tears standing on Gulf Shores Beach and watching wave after wave roll up with so many pieces of oil sludge that you know are going to wash up on this beach before the present ones can even be scooped up. Knowing that there are fish and turtles and dolphins and whales and coral and crustaceans who must live in and try to survive this shit. That what once was known as being one of the most beautiful beaches in the world is now covered in oil and the water comes with a warning; not sharks, not jellyfish, but chemicals, and we all bear some responsibility.

    With all the horror of seeing first-hand what is undoubtedly just the tip of the iceberg there was one surprising and exciting moment which I'll get back to later. We have pics and video for you today, plus we'd like to introduce our new blog Bluejean Journalists. We don't need to be spoon-fed or force-fed the agendas, deceptions and outright lies that a corporate industry continually refers to as news. So we've decided to step into the void. We know we have a lot to learn and will certainly make mistakes, but we will try to provide a forum for news without an angle, except one, to inform, and we hope you'll join us.

And now the news...
    We only had 2 days this time so we stayed close to home. Our first stop was the Fort Pickens area of the peninsula just west of Pensacola Beach. There are public beaches as well as bird sanctuary and nesting grounds. As we were walking towards the water on one of the beach access points, some workers were heading back to the parking area. I tried to ask them a few questions, it went like this:
    Me: "Hi, have you found anything here today?"
    A worker: "We can't talk to anyone. we will get fired."
    Me: "Do you work for BP?"
    A worker "Sorry, we can't answer that."
    Me: Incredulous...

    The beach was clear and the water looked inviting. It was a very hot day already so we took a swim then went up the road to Pensacola Beach. It was fairly busy, almost like the previous weekend with the exception of workers tents (empty) on the beach. The lifeguard told me there hadn't been much for the workers here, but it was worse to the west. So, that's where we headed.

As Rachel mentioned in Perdido Pass they have taken it upon themselves to build a sturdier pipe boom to protect Mobile Bay.

We went to the berm we've been keeping tabs on. There was a crew working there sucking up the oil from the water in front of the berm with what looked like a big vacuum cleaner into a truck. The berm was intact and no oil had breached it as far as we could see. The beach had some tar balls on it.

Directly east, less than a quarter mile up the road, was our first sight of massive amounts of oil, and an ineffective boom which was heading straight out into the water from shore, one side buried in sand the other buoyed in the water. A dead fish turned somersaults in the water with the waves. The air smelled of gas fumes, so strong it gave my husband a headache. The beach so covered in oil our sandals were ruined. Bags of tar balls filled the dumpsters.

It was time to stop for the night so we backtracked a little to Big Lagoon State Park, an area, so far, unaffected. We were able to swim a little and take some pics of it's beauty.

    We decided to go to a local restaurant for dinner. We had been told (and both a poster in the park and the Park Ranger confirmed the idea) that it's helpful to the local economy. Plus we love seafood and we were hungry. We weren't sure if our young waitress would have any thoughts about what was happening in the Gulf, but when we asked, she became effusive.

    "See those lights out there?," she asked, pointing to a group of 3 lights out on the water. "That's my husband, he's in the Coast Guard and spends 9 days out on the water because of the spill before getting a 3 day break. They have been cleaning up some of the mess. He sent me this."

    She held her phone out, showing us a picture. It showed a mass of bright red oil contained within a boomed area. A skimmer had cleaned part of it, leaving a black looking section on one side. The pic is below. It's blurry because it's a pic of the pic. She said she would try to send a better pic and if she does we will post it.

The next morning we awoke to an already hot day and looked forward to a swim before heading off to our destination, Dauphin Island, Alabama. But when we arrived at Orange Beach we were greeted with this sign.

The smell of oil was in the air and tar balls were scattered on the beach. I talked to a guy in a dune buggy who said that it wasn't as bad as it had been the day before, when he had seen oil-covered birds, including a baby pelican. He had called the rescuers. He also said that the oil was now on the beach around Fort Pickens and that the President was supposedly coming to Orange Beach today. The presence of a lot of boom and a fair number of boats seemed to confirm the idea that the President would be arriving presently.

We headed off to grab the ferry to Dauphin Island. On the way we saw a sign stating that the road would be closed between 4pm and 6pm that day. We ended up just getting the last ferry to the island. A young girl working on the ferry confirmed that it was the last public run of the day and that the President would be using it later, though she herself was considered too inexperienced to be allowed to be one of the hands.

It took about 45 minutes to cross Mobile Bay, a body of water littered with structures that we were told were natural gas rigs.

As soon as we landed on the island we saw a 'Welcome Mr. President' sign, secret service, police and military.

Our visit to Dauphin Island would soon become quite memorable. But first we headed out to the beach. There were advisory signs and tar balls along with birds. The beaches were almost empty including the workers' tents.

We drove back to the ferry and parked, joining the small crowd of people gathered. I know it might not be a big deal to some, but I actually f****ing saw my President, Mr. Obama! No, we couldn't get that close and no he didn't speak to the crowd. The secret service guys were very respectful during the whole thing, not once was there a rude order given (even when they were kicking us off the curb). Same goes for the local police and military that we came in contact with. We have a short, somewhat choppy handheld video. The quality is poor but the irony is rich (check out the end).

Transcript of girl in last frame of vid:
"Should we go to the beach?"

"Signs of the times" on the Gulf Coast.

Gulf Coast Photo Diary

2010-06-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, this is our first diary. I'm Reddhead on here and my husband is Reddbierd. He has been a long time member of Daily Kos. I am brand new to all of this. It has been expressed in some recent diaries that we as concerned citizens need to be the new reporters. We need to pick up our cameras and go out and see for ourselves what is going. So with this as our mission, we decided to pack up and drive out to the Gulf Coast. We live in Southern Alabama, about an hour from the coast.

Our trip began last week on Wed.,June 2, when we went to the Gulf for the day. In Gulf Shores, Alabama we saw workers building a berm in the opening of an inland waterway. I got out and took some pics and talked to one of the workers. He said they were temporarily closing it off from the gulf waters to protect it from the oil spill. As I was walked back across the berm a resident was standing there and we started talking. He told me that the waterway was managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. He had attended a city council meeting a few weeks back, where the city petitioned to build a berm of sand. The sand came from a stockpile that had been scooped out periodically to keep the waterway open and then used to replenish the beaches. Now it was being put back to keep the oil out. Alabama recycles...who knew? :)

I walked up to the road to get a few more shots and as I was standing there a local FOX news reporter came running over to me. He asked me what I thought of the berm and if I had noticed the booms. I did a short interview (I'm a star!) and then I asked him if he'd been to Pensacola Beach. He said another news team was covering it, there had been reports of oil on shore. So we took off to Pensacola Beach, the beautiful blue waters of the Gulf Of Mexico on our right.

The beaches that we passed on our way were all very busy, lots of sunworshipers seemingly out for a last chance to enjoy the white sandy beaches. Just before the bridge near Gulf State Park we saw piles and piles of some kind of material. I spoke to a BP supervisor who told me it was absorbent boom which would be placed along the shoreline if the oil came this way. He said it would soak up the oil and let the water pass through and that it had been used very successfully before.

We crossed the bridge and pulled into the state park. There we watched as boats strung orange boom across the pass. The boats themselves shrouded in clouds of black smoke as they chugged along.

We continued on to Pensacola Beach, where we saw a lot of news vans and vast crowds of bathers. We went a little further down the beach where is was less crowded but didn't see any signs of tarballs. Sitting there looking out at this gorgeous blue ocean and this beautiful sandy beach it was difficult to believe that an oil slick was probably on it's way. The last sighting said it was only 9 miles offshore. It may be the last time we see it this looking just like this.

After a swim we drove home planning on returning at the first opportunity.

That opportunity came quickly and within the next 3 days we were packed and ready to go. This time we wanted to go a little further down the coast so we picked an area we had actually lived in before. It is known as the Forgotten Coast and encompasses Appalachacola, Carrabelle, and St. George Island.

We left on Sunday, driving first to Pensacola Beach to see if anything had changed. There were lots of people driving across the bridge to the beach, making it seem like a normal summer afternoon until we saw this sign:

Walked out onto the beach itself but saw only sunbathers, no oil yet.

We proceeded down to Navarre Beach just east of Pensacola. There we found many small clumps of tar and tar mixed with seaweed. There were workers cleaning the beach and bags full of sand and tar. I tried to talk to a few of them, but was directed to go to their supervisor. He confirmed that they were working for BP. He also told me that he was not supposed to answer questions, that he'd been instructed to hand out a couple of phone numbers people could call for answers. However, he stated that the people that he had come in contact with had been so nice that he was answering anything that he could. He told me that all the workers were local (though he was not) and they were finding a lot of clumps of oil mixed in the sand. According to him, the clumping is a natural process that happens when the oil is exposed to the saltwater and air, and is not due to the dispersants.

I got back in the car and we continued our drive down the coast. I looked down and noticed this clump sticking to my knee. YUCK.

    As we traveled down the coast highway we passed many beaches, all clear of oil clumps for the moment. Our destination for the night was St. Joseph Pennissula State Park on Cape San Blas. We arrived just in time to talk to the park ranger before she went home for the night. She told us that so far there had been no problem with oil on the beach and the park was at its normal occupancy for this time of year. It was already getting dark, so we just set up camp and called it a night.
    The next morning we drove on to Carrabelle, the town we used to live in. I spoke to a real estate agent who told me that the area had just started to experience an upswing, and had looked like it might be coming out of a 5 year slump when the oil leak happened. Now, she said, they are all just waiting to see what happens and fielding a lot of questions from people. In her opinion the oil would most likely make its way to their beaches.
    We left Carrabelle (after checking out the old homestead) and went as far as the Ochlockonee Bay Bridge. Again, there was no sign of oil hitting this part of the coastline yet. We backtracked to Alligator Point where we found a spot to go swimming with our dog, a big black lab named Poncho. This whole area is a big sea turtle nesting area, with lots of sand dunes and nesting birds as well.

After a refreshing swim we headed back through Carrabelle to St. George Island to camp at the state park. Along the way we passed dozens of little fresh seafood shantys. Oysters in particular have been a huge industry here for many many generations. They are known as Appalachacola oysters from, of course, the Appalachacola Bay. This area alone supplies 90% of Florida's oysters and 10% of the countries oysters. We set up camp and decided to partake of the local bounty for dinner at a little eatery that allowed us to bring our puppy with us. We snapped a few shots as the sun was going down on the small inlet we were dining next to.

In the morning we stopped at a little coffee shop in Apalachicola. The young woman behind the counter said that business was definitely being affected by the oil spill. She blamed the media for clumping the entire gulf coast together in their coverage of the oil spill. Her belief was that the Apalachicola area would not see oil washing ashore since they are in a bit of an inlet and are missed by most hurricanes for that reason. We hope she is right.
Going back up the coast we stopped at Wind Mark Beach, just north of Port St. Joe. Again we were lucky to find a dog friendly beach and succumbed to the pantings of our pooch.

Continuing north stopping into Navarre again, we saw birds nesting in the sand dunes that run along the coast beach. Workers there were now willing to talk to us and told us the water was very clear today and the beaches they had been to were fairly clean. Less than a mile away we saw workers raking and digging. We stopped again and talked to a worker who was happy to show me what he had just dug up. Clumps of tar were being washed ashore then buried in the sand from the waves. They were digging them up and bagging them and raking the large piles of seaweed that had clumps of oil tangled in it. He spoke with a heavy spanish accent when he expressed how beautiful this whole area is and how he wants to make sure that they get all the clumps out of the sand so that when I brought my family here my children would not come in contact with it. He said he wouldn't want his little girl to be digging in the sand and come upon it.

We headed up to Pensacola Beach where I spoke to a lifeguard who told me things had been pretty normal and the beach had been clean for the last few days. He hadn't even seen any workers in the area. We did see a few news vans there though.
We wanted to check back at Gulf Shores to see how the berm was doing. On the way back we saw the now-placed boom off of Gulf Shores State Park.

Seeing some workers on the beach we stopped. This time it was the Coast Guard, the first we'd seen of their presence so far. On my way over to them I felt my foot hit something. I reached down to find tar balls in the sand. The young man wearing the Coast Guard uniform told me they had found some (tar balls) in the area, just wanted to get it all. I asked about this being the first I'd seen of them so far and he said their presence was being increased now that it is coming ashore. He then had to leave so I could ask no more questions.

We continued on to Gulf Shores and found a number of police cars and policemen around the bridge over the berm. The area had a lot of Coast Guard working as well. The berm seemed to be a good thing as there was oil in the water in front of it.

We saw a couple of young guys putting away some equipment and found out that they worked for a local environmental company called Green Life Technologies from Loxley, Alabama. They said they were collecting water samples because their company makes a product (called Environmental-1) that is a 100% biodegradable dispersant. It is environmentally safe and rated 600+% safer than baby shampoo according to the company. Here is a link to their website Green Life Technology.
And so our journey came to an end. We were glad to have the chance to see and enjoy the beach. We can only hope that we all get to have that chance for many years to come. We plan to go out again at the next opportunity. We greatly appreciate any feedback; comments, suggestions, ideas for future trips or thoughts about zombie journalism. Thank you for reading.

Great video hopefully moot.