A constant theme since I started this blog nearly four years ago has been the impact of the BP oil spill on the marine life in Gulf of Mexico. One reason for that is that it seemed like the federal authorities were happy to do the bidding of BP and tell the public that everything was nearly back to normal in a matter of weeks; even President Obama made a big show of coming to the Gulf Coast and...
Are Americans becoming numb to oil spills? You have to wonder sometimes. Over the last couple of years, as domestic fossil fuel production has surged, so have the number of accidents — along pipelines and railroads, on offshore drilling platforms and in barge collisions. And sure, these mishaps and misadventures have received some media coverage — but not all that much. Maybe the...
It’s no secret here on the Gulf Coast that ever since BP’s reckless Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in 2010, dolphins have been getting sick and dying at an alarming rate. I’ve been reporting on this phenomenon since the early months after the spill, and this has been an ongoing, sickening event in the nearly four years that have followed. For example, I noted earlier this year...
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a revered name in environmental circles, and for good reason. As the son of an iconic, martyred U.S. senator and presidential candidate, and the nephew of the late 35th president, RFK Jr. could have surely coasted through life on the Kennedy family name. But instead, he has lived as a tireless crusader for a better planet, including a cleaner Gulf of Mexico. So when...
If you’re a regular reader of the blog, it will come as no surprise to you that the ecological health of the Gulf of Mexico in the aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill is considerally worse than depicted in much of the mainstream media — let alone by the tens of millions on dollars of bogus PR spin that BP has purchased on your television screen. Over the last 36 months...
Sometimes a name can tell you a lot. In the past, I’ve told you about my enthusiastic support for a New Orleans group, active on Facebook and the Internet, that’s called “Hear the Music, Stop the Noise.” The title makes a powerful point: That it’s possible for a great American city like my hometown to continue having a spectacular and vibrant music scene without...
The crisis involving the Bayou Corne sinkhole in Louisiana just doesn’t stop. In what’s becoming an almost daily headline, the sinkhole grew again, swallowing up more trees and even part of an access road: A 1,500 square-foot section caved in from the edge of a sinkhole in Assumption Parish Tuesday night and pulled down several trees and part of an access road, parish officials said...
A lot has happened over the last few weeks. In the political world, the presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney sees a new kerfuffle every few hours. Down here in Louisiana, we’ve been whacked by Hurricane Isaac, and on the environmental front we’re still trying to get BP to pay its fair share for all the havoc it’s wreaked in the Gulf. But there’s one thing...
For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been consumed with the never-ending fallout from BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster. Some 29 months after the explosion that killed 11 people and spewed 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, we’ve seen a hurricane toss BP’s oil onto our once pristine beaches all over again. And we’ve also been fighting it out in the legal...
In recent months, I’ve joined with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and others in calling for the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, to be stripped of its powers and for the federal Environmental Protection Administration, or EPA, to take over. This is not an idea that I toss around lightly. Time and time again, Louisiana’s DEQ has shown that it’s simply...
