Sunset on the Gulf

July 15, 2010 By

I stum­bled across this photo on my phone. I took it last sum­mer dur­ing a work trip on the Gulf.

Filed Under: Gulf Oil Spill of 2010, Picture of the Day Tagged With: ,

The Gulf Oil Spill — A Photo Post

June 30, 2010 By
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These pic­tures were taken by a co-worker on Horn Island, one of Mississippi’s beau­ti­ful bar­rier islands.  I’ll let the pic­tures do the talk­ing.  Click on the link to bring the pic­tures up in a viewer.  Warn­ing:  A cou­ple of the images are a lit­tle graphic.

 

Filed Under: Gulf Oil Spill of 2010 Tagged With: ,

Oil Spill Update: Oil Slick Enters Mississippi Sound

June 25, 2010 By
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It looks as though the Mis­sis­sippi state waters are now seri­ously threat­ened by the oil spill.  Accord­ing to NOAA, pre­vail­ing winds seem to be push­ing the oil more toward the bar­rier islands than before, and some slicks have already moved into the Mis­sis­sippi Sound:

A large patch of oil oozed into Mis­sis­sippi Sound, the fer­tile waters between the bar­rier islands and main­land of a state that has mostly been spared.

The news came as a cap col­lect­ing oil from the well was back in place after a deep-sea robot bumped it and engi­neers con­cerned about escap­ing gas removed it for about 10 hours Wednesday.

This is ter­ri­ble news, con­sid­er­ing that the shrimp­ing and fish­ing that could be done was in state waters, and now even that ecosys­tem is seri­ously threatened.

Here’s the lat­est slick fore­cast from NOAA:

Filed Under: Gulf Oil Spill of 2010 Tagged With: ,

Oil Spill’s Emotional Toll Leads to Apparent Suicide

June 24, 2010 By

Allen “Rookie” Kruse, a char­ter fish­ing boat cap­tain for over twenty years, went to work for BP two weeks ago to help clean­ing up the oil spill that has put him and so many oth­ers out of work.  Sadly, this hard-working man apprently com­mit­ted sui­cide on Wednes­day while out on his boat working.

On Wednes­day morn­ing, Kruse drove to his boat as usual. As the deck­hands pre­pared for the day’s work, Kruse, as the cap­tain, was sup­posed to turn on the gen­er­a­tor. But after a few min­utes, the crew mem­bers said, they didn’t hear any­thing and went look­ing for him. A deck­hand found him in the wheel­house, shot in the head.

Today is day 65 of the tragic oil spill.  Right now it seems there is no end in sight to the end­less geyser spew­ing from the bot­tom of the gulf.  An ever-increasing feel­ing of help­less­ness effects every­one in this area — espe­cially those whose liveli­hoods are derived directly from the water, like Allen Kruse.  Numer­ous faith-based groups are deploy­ing chap­lains to areas around the Gulf Coast to help with the pyscho­log­i­cal toll.

Please pray for every­one down here.  The sit­u­a­tion just keeps dete­ri­o­rat­ing, and with no end in sight to the oil gusher I fear we may see more cases like this.  It’s sad and  heart­break­ing that some folks feel they have no other choice but sui­cide.  That is not the case.  There are fam­ily, friends, neigh­bors, and even strangers that will help oth­ers get through this mess.

Filed Under: Gulf Oil Spill of 2010 Tagged With: ,

Oil Spill Will Cost MS Coast $120 Million This Summer

June 17, 2010 By

Accord­ing to researchers at the Uni­ver­sity of  South­ern Mis­sis­sippi, the Gulf Oil Spill will cost the three coastal coun­ties of Mis­sis­sippi $120 mil­lion this sum­mer sea­son.  This will come in mostly the areas of tourism and ser­vice indus­try revenues.

Here’s a quick syn­op­sis of their fig­ures, just for the sum­mer months (June-August):

  • Busi­ness at non-casino hotels are down 50%.
  • Char­ter boat rev­enue is down 70%.
  • Boat and boat trailer sales are down 65–70%.
  • Seafood restau­rant busi­ness is down 30%, with seafood prices up 30%.

This is based on the rev­enue gen­er­ated the same time last year.  No oil has washed up on Mis­sis­sippi beaches yet (although some tar­balls have washed up on Horn and Petit Bois Islands).  The drop in rev­enue is strictly based on the images seen on national news, and the per­cep­tion that the oil has washed up every­where.  Just imag­ine what these num­bers will be, if and when the oil does wash up on the beaches.

Filed Under: Business/Finance, Gulf Oil Spill of 2010 Tagged With:

Obama’s First Oval Office Speech: We need cap and tax!

June 16, 2010 By

Good morn­ing, folks.   As I lis­tened to Obama’s speech (full text here) last night about the oil spill,  I became more wor­ried than I have ever been before.  Instead of reas­sur­ing the peo­ple of the Gulf Coast, where I call home, that the cap­ping of the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon well and clean­ing up the oil spill were top pri­or­ity, Obama decided to push for green energy leg­is­la­tion.  He decided to play pol­i­tics as usual and give a pub­lic relations/political speech instead of a lead­er­ship speech.

As the pres­i­dent started his speech, emo­tion was nowhere to be found.  It started out sound­ing like a professor’s lec­ture — bor­ing and monot­o­nous.  Then, as he started speak­ing about the clean, renew­able energy he wants for this coun­try, he became more ani­mated.  This is what he really wants for the coun­try.  Charles Krautham­mer summed it up per­fectly when he said that Obama is not a “clean-up guy” — he’s a “dreamer”.

This state­ment by Obama will be the defin­ing state­ment of this cri­sis, and his pres­i­dency:   “And sadly, no mat­ter how effec­tive our response is, there will be more oil and more dam­age before this siege is done.”

In his speech, Obama said the fol­low­ing regard­ing green energy: 

For decades, we’ve talked and talked about the need to end America’s century-long addic­tion to fos­sil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this chal­lenge requires. Time and again, the path for­ward has been blocked — not only by oil indus­try lob­by­ists, but also by a lack of polit­i­cal courage and candor.

Well, Mr. Pres­i­dent, I have to say that your admin­is­tra­tion just doesn’t get it.  With this cri­sis, you have “failed to act with the sense of urgency that this chal­lenge requires.”  You have lacked “polit­i­cal courage and can­dor” when it comes to this dis­as­ter.  You are sim­ply unable to sep­a­rate the chaff from the wheat.  What hap­pened with the Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon rig was the fault of BP and your admin­is­tra­tion and not the fault of any other oil com­pany.  What you fail to real­ize is that the off­shore oil indus­try is a sta­ple for this region, and the six-month mora­to­rium you have placed on deep­wa­ter drilling will crip­ple not only our local econ­omy, but the national econ­omy as well.

Accord­ing to the Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions, off­shore oil pro­duc­tion from the Gulf rep­re­sents 30% of all U.S. crude pro­duc­tion, and deep­wa­ter drilling rep­re­sents 70% of that.  And, com­pa­nies are being dri­ven to drill deep­wa­ter wells because fed­eral reg­u­la­tions bar any more shallow-water and land drilling.  So this knee-jerk reac­tion to shut down all deep­wa­ter rigs in the Gulf to ensure safety may sound pru­dent on the sur­face, but in fact it will do more long-term eco­nomic harm than this spill itself.

Get with the pro­gram, Mr. Pres­i­dent.  Like I have said before, we don’t need a politi­cian for pres­i­dent — we need a leader.  And you, sir, are not that man.

Filed Under: Gulf Oil Spill of 2010, Politics Tagged With: , , ,

Mississippi Moxie

June 15, 2010 By

Moxie is an older term defined as “the abil­ity to face dif­fi­culty with spirit and courage.”

This is what the peo­ple of the Gulf Coast have in large quan­ti­ties.  Or, to quote one of my favorite movies, they have “spirit and guts”.  Ever since Hur­ri­cane Camille in 1969 (long before I was born), the res­i­dents of this area have known set­backs and destruc­tion.  They have faced it, and over­come it.

Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina in 2005 was even more destruc­tive that Camille was.  Entire com­mu­ni­ties were wiped off the map.  Homes and busi­nesses were lost.  Lives and land­scape were for­ever changed.  But thanks to the over­whelm­ing out­pour­ing of sup­port — both mon­e­tary and phys­i­cal — from all around the coun­try and the world, the Gulf Coast bounced back, stronger than ever.

Then the eco­nomic reces­sion in 2008 occurred.  Prices of homes bot­tomed out.  Oil prices soared to $100 per bar­rel.  The stock mar­ket fell.  But, things were not as bad in Mis­sis­sippi as they were else­where.  The growth expe­ri­enced after Kat­rina due to the rebuild­ing of busi­nesses and com­mu­ni­ties con­tin­ued, at least for a while.  We sur­vived yet another poten­tial disaster.

The fish­ing and shrimp­ing sea­son of 2010 was promis­ing to be a ban­ner one for the Gulf Coast.  How­ever, things changed on April 20.  The Deep­wa­ter Hori­zon off­shore oil rig exploded, killing 11 work­ers and injur­ing another 17.  Two days later, the rig sunk and oil started gush­ing out of the well.  The oil flow hasn’t stopped since, despite all of the efforts to halt it.

This is a new and dif­fer­ent chal­lenge for the peo­ple of the Gulf Coast.  We have not had to deal with this type of dis­as­ter.  The dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion of the dis­as­ter response and the bureau­cracy that is the over­sight is putting a damper on progress.  Local gov­ern­ments are used to hav­ing the abil­ity to attack the prob­lem head-on and solve it, with lit­tle or no imped­ance from the fed­eral gov­ern­ment.  But in this case, there is so much red tape and con­fu­sion as to who is lead­ing the effort to clean up the oil that it is ham­per­ing oper­a­tions.  Each and every day, the oil moves closer and closer to the beaches.  Poor Louisiana has oil on their shores and in their marshes, and it’s been there quite a while now.

But, as with every dis­as­ter we have faced, the peo­ple of the Mis­sis­sippi Gulf Coast will persevere.

Filed Under: Gulf Oil Spill of 2010 Tagged With: , ,

Read the plan, Mr. President

June 14, 2010 By

In an inter­view with Politico last week, Pres­i­dent Obama said the following:

I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had hap­pened, I had gone up to Con­gress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil com­pa­nies and we need to spend more money on tech­nol­ogy to respond in case of a cat­a­strophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is clas­sic, big-government over­reg­u­la­tion and waste­ful spending.

Not so.  There are already laws on the books that allow for reg­u­la­tion of the oil indus­try and there is already a con­tin­gency plan in place for oil spills.  It would be a good idea if our fear­less leader, who is a Har­vard grad­u­ate after all, reads it.

He also said:

Some of the same folks who have been hol­ler­ing and say­ing ‘do some­thing’ are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were sug­gest­ing that gov­ern­ment needs to stop doing so much…Some of the same peo­ple who are say­ing the pres­i­dent needs to show lead­er­ship and solve this prob­lem are some of the same folks who, just a few months ago, were say­ing this guy is try­ing to engi­neer a takeover of our soci­ety through the fed­eral gov­ern­ment that is going to restrict our freedoms.

How bla­tantly false and disin­gen­u­ous.  Again, those who are say­ing “Do some­thing” are those who are say­ing, “Imple­ment the plan.”  But instead, Obama is con­tent with allow­ing the pri­vate com­pany who is ulti­mately respon­si­ble for the spill to over­see every facet of it, with lit­tle or no input from the gov­ern­ment.  And don’t for­get:  It was the Obama Admin­is­tra­tion who gave BP a waiver on the envi­ron­men­tal impact study they were sup­posed to draft prior to drilling the exploratory well.  The fed­eral gov­ern­ment also dithered in their response to the spill.  It took the pres­i­dent two full weeks to make his first trip to the area, and he still hasn’t called for the imple­men­ta­tion of the national response plan.  Mean­while, mil­lions and mil­lions of gal­lons of oil are con­tin­u­ing to spill out, destroying the ecosys­tem and econ­omy the entire Gulf Coast relies on.  Every effort that BP has under­taken to halt or slow the flow of oil has failed.

Last night I caught some of the Huck­abee show on Fox News Chan­nel.  He had sev­eral guests on there that have and were devel­op­ing meth­ods to absorb the oil.  Some of them looked extremely viable, and with a com­bi­na­tion of sev­eral meth­ods I’m sure the entre­peneur­ship these indi­vid­u­als are show­ing can put a seri­ous dent in the oil in the Gulf.  I hope the government/EPA/BP review these meth­ods and imple­ment them.

Although oil has not directly impacted Mississippi’s beaches yet, the oil has come ashore on two of our bar­rier islands — Petit Bois and Horn Islands.  The local fish­ing and shrimp­ing indus­try is com­pletely halted.  Tourism and busi­ness is down 50–60%.  Seafood restau­rants are tak­ing a beat­ing in busi­ness.  How­ever, I want to tell every­one that the Mis­sis­sippi Gulf Coast has plenty of golf courses and casi­nos for your enjoy­ment.  I invite all every­one to come down and help sup­port our local econ­omy.  We do need your help.

Filed Under: Gulf Oil Spill of 2010 Tagged With: ,