Gulf oil spill: Crews, fishermen race to protect the coast

The front line in the fight to save the Louisiana coast could be found an hour’s boat ride offshore from the fishing town of Venice, where the fingerling tributaries of the Mississippi dump into the Gulf of Mexico.

About a mile from the turbulent waters of the Gulf Thursday morning, in a waterway called the South Pass, a pair of 30-foot work boats were sidled up behind larger crew boats. Workers in hard hats were passing long lengths of boom, or floating barriers, to the smaller boats, which would then ferry them out to the gulf. The workers did their job quickly and quietly; the only noise at times was from the idling engines and the sound of strong southerly winds whipping through the cane-covered wetlands. The lengths of boom resembled long strips of lifejackets: safety-orange colored, filled with buoyant foam, and covered in orange waterproof material.

When a work boat was filled to groaning with boom, it would head out toward the Gulf of Mexico, where workers were laying it out. A number of boom lines were visible around the mouth of the pass: one long line paralleled the south-facing coast of a small island. It looked inconsequential – and was even difficult to see at times from 50 yards away – as it was tossed around and pounded by white-capped, 4- to 6-foot waves.

In Venice, which bills itself as the fishing capital of the world, crew boats, which normally service the offshore rigs and platforms, were busy Thursday ferrying supplies and people to the big oil spill response ships working offshore. At the Venice Marina, a number of sport fishermen were pulling their boats from their slips and hauling them onto dry land, fearing the effects of the oil on their hulls. “They’re scared, really,” said Greg “Bubba" Ancalade, 19, a marina worker.

Still, sport fishing boats were heading out in the morning, filled with fishermen hoping to get in a few quality hours before things went bad for who knows how long. “I’m not concerned about our trip, but I’m concerned for the environment,” said Clay Bratton, 41, of Biloxi, Miss., as he prepared his 24-foot bay boat for a day hunting for redfish. “This environment’s taken a beating and it can’t take much more oil on top of it.”

---Richard Fausset, reporting from Venice, La.

Related:
Photos: Oil spill spreads in the Gulf of Mexico
Efforts to fight Gulf of Mexico oil spill are ramped up
Interactive: Burning spilled oil

Photo: Workers transfer oil containment booms from a truck to waiting boats at Point Cadet Marina in Biloxi, Mississippi, USA, on  April 29, 2010. Officials in Mississippi are making efforts to protect delicate ecosystems from oil spilling from a sunken rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Credit: EPA/JOHN FITZHUGH

Comments

[Jordan Fenton Brown]

Hello every one. Here is something that is to good to be true but is...
In Ohio there live 2 brothers, one of which has developed a product they are calling 360 and apparently it has the ability to absorb 30 times its own weight of oil, floats on water and is water repellent. It contains bacterial cultures that consume Hydro carbons, meaning it eats up the oil, gas or diesel that it absorbs making it safe to dispose of in land fills. Another pro is that after absorption the product can be squeezed and the oil recaptured. Pretty neat hu!. I want to help them make this a reality. Any suggestions? Pray for us and all those affected in this unfortunate disaster.

[denise terry]

Fishermen and coastal people. My son and I did a experiment on how to clean up oil on water many years ago. Please listen. I will post the video on you tube later today. Fabric softener sheets will absorb oil off the top of water and even reach below the water to clean the oil off things. They can be tied to nets or sewn together and laid out like blanket. They can also clean up the wild life. JUST DO NOT LEAVE THEM FLOATING BY THEM SELVES IN OUR ENVIRONMENT. THEY MUST BE REMOVED! People get together make nets of them, you will need a lot of them. Give them to the fishermen, they will know where to put them. It will work removing the oil sheen.
This is my demonstration of how to clean up the oil sheen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YizjXZivvE
Give it a try. Denise Terry

[austin tolleson]

HI my name is Austin Tolleson an I am looking for a job to help clean up the bp oil spill. I have alot of exp. an safty background. please contact me at austinptolleson@yahoo.com or cell 337-322-7548 thants for helping me do my part.

[SPO101]

WHO KNEW that harmless British Petroleum oil rig in the Gulf was going to blow up and cause the worst environmental disaster since the Exxon Valdez. I’m sure all you “Drill Baby Drill” right-wing, fanatic rednecks in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas and Florida are looking forward to all that valuable oil washing up on your coastline and wetlands… you’ll be RICH, right?

(lol… You pathetic, morons chant “Drill Baby Drill” but think Oil Companies should NOT be responsible for SPILLS and let the government and YOUR tax dollars take care of the environmental disasters. You right-wingers are going to go down in history as the worst sucker fools ever)

That’s the problem here… President Obama has been TRYING so hard to cater to the multinational Corporations and their Republican/Conservative flunkies… he’s forgetting about the Progressives who got him in the Whitehouse. EVERY TIME Obama makes Center Right policy decisions to make Republicans happy his poll numbers go DOWN in the community that VOTED for him in 2008.

The LAST thing the USA needs right now is for the Republican Party low grade thought processes to TAKE BACK Congress…

I can’t tell you how frustrating it is see Obama, Reid and Pelosi kissing up to the Conservative wackos. I WANT THAT CHANGE that was promised m#*~/r’s….

I’m overjoyed to see the Democrats are FINALLY starting to take on the Republican Party of NO! Harry Reid must of got a shot of testosterone or something because he muscled the Republicans to allow debate on Wall Street Reform. OK, filibuster @$$holes, explain o the American PEOPLE exactly WHY you think regulation and reform are bad ideas.

Otherwise I might get the idea Obama/Biden/Democratic Party was setting up the American PEOPLE for a big fall we’re going to take because of all the waste, fraud, abuse, scandal, sexual deviancy, corruption, lies, incompetence, job outsourcing, off-shore tax evasion, reckless economics, welfare for the rich, war profiteering, Constitutional violations AND a Corporate Crime Wave of epic proportions…. The WORST looting of a nation’s wealth and resources in the history of MANKIND! All the result of 8 years of Bush/Cheney and the Republican Controlled Congress of 1994-2006...

Where was the Tea Party anger THEN? ya #*~/ ignorant hypocrites.

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