Dixie Transforming

For the few readers who may be wondering, I haven’t ignored what has been happening down in Louisiana.  You know, the oil spill stuff?  Thousands of jobs lost?  Seafood industries soon to be obliterated?  Wildlife suffocating under brown muck?  The future of Louisiana teetering on the brink of disaster?  Sigh.  Yeah.  I’ve simply been stewing for the last several weeks, trying to figure out a way to get this entry down.

I left Louisiana for Oregon on April 18, 2010, just a couple days before the epic blow out at the BP undersea rig Deepwater Horizon.  Had I anticipated this scoop, I probably would still be down in the bayous today trying to cover the story of the year (a story that happens to address my research thesis for this fellowship trip pretty darn well!).

Earlier in the spring I’d driven along coastal Louisiana hopeful to see some of these fabled rigs out in distance.  For me, a researcher of the South’s economic-fueled landscapes, the opportunity to capture the image of these floating virtual cityscapes was extremely alluring.  Sadly, from the vantage point I chose at Cypremort State Park, I couldn’t see them at all.  I was warned I would need to move further east to see anything – words of advice from an Army Corps of Engineers watchman I met at one of the Old River Control facilities. So I left the South in late April with only a faint idea of what the oil and gas industry means in a physical sense – the closest I got to an actual rig was in Morgan City, Louisiana where a retired (outdated) rig named “Mr. Charlie” is open to curious visitors like myself.  The rig functions as a museum and public outreach facility.

Morgan City's oil rig museum - modern rigs are exponentially larger than this old relic.

Oil and gas extraction is huge business in Louisiana and the South in general.  The diagram below describes the presence of offshore oil and gas rigs along Louisiana’s coast:

Over 3500 oil and gas rigs are in the Gulf of Mexico. Deepwater Horizon is just one of these.

As an avid radio listener, I’ve gotten downright depressed listening to the seemingly endless interviews and feature stories about forlorn shrimpers, oyster guys, and fisherman of lower Louisiana.  These people are some of the most dedicated, self-reliant, and earnest workers I’ve ever read or heard about.  They are not modern people – they are old-fashioned in terms of their global footprint and worldly ambitions.  But they sure know how to work a shrimp boat, which makes them a rare breed in today’s workforce.

One of the most remarkable things about  Louisiana’s coastal fishing communities is how tied to the landscape their members find themselves for their everyday existence.  That close relationship with the land is what makes the situation so much sadder.  With the inevitable arrival of oil into the marshes of coastal Louisiana, shrimp breeding and fishing grounds will be decimated and likely closed by government officials.  Considering forty percent (40%) of the U.S.’s seafood is harvested off the coast of Louisiana, it goes without saying that more than just shrimpers and fisherman will be put out by this oil spill.  As consumers, we will probably have a hard time finding seafood at an affordable price in the coming months and years.

The intertwined relationship these fishing communities have with the oil and gas economy is not unrecognized.  Some of the best paying jobs are on oil rigs and most these communities have members who depend on them for their livelihood.  Many shrimpers work rigs on the off season.  This fact may explain the even-keeled nature of the public’s comments on how BP is handling the capping operations and pending clean up.  Restrictions on future oil drilling is just as much a threat to the communities of coastal Louisiana as is the oil slick arriving in nearby marshes.

As for me, I’m hoping Louisiana’s bad luck changes course real quick.  I would be downright happy if I didn’t hear any news out of the state for a long time save for Super Bowl victories and everyday indecencies on Bourbon Street.