The Lens contacted Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office recently to discuss her role in the oil spill response. In an interview with Tom Michaels, the senator’s legislative director, and Aaron Saunders, her communications director, we discussed campaign contributions from BP and from the maker of the dispersants and whether drilling for oil continues to be a [...]
Fewer controversial oil-spill issues exist right now than the use of dispersants. Specifically, environmentalists, residents and clean-up workers are concerned about BP’s use of petroleum-based Corexit brand, which is more toxic than many of the alternatives approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and is only 55 percent effective on the type of oil gushing [...]
Headed down La. 39 on the east bank of Plaquemines Parish, a few miles down after the Belle Chasse Ferry, drivers pass a tall, white picket fence on the left with a sign that reads “Welcome White Ditch” in a circle around an outline of the state with a pelican inside. A few yards ahead, [...]
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will not allow land barriers to be built to protect the state’s coastline, Plaquemines Parish Billy Nungesser told The Lens today. “They turned it down,” Nungesser said. “They denied the plan to do the barrier islands, so I don’t know, so we’ll have to come up with something else. [...]
With an environmental disaster imminent off the Louisiana coast, the New Orleans government’s web page on “Coastal Restoration” is blank – as is the seat for the mayor’s director of Office of Environmental Affairs. While it’s noted on the city’s home page that the site is being redesigned, the page for Coastal Restoration is tabula [...]
A special oil-spill class set up by BP Tuesday to train Vietnamese fishers in their native language went poorly, with translators giving up just minutes into the four-hour session, and bilingual audience members struggling to fill the gap, one observer said. Those attending got the necessary certification and are qualified to be called into service [...]
Last week, The Lens traveled to Lafitte in Jefferson Parish to talk with fishers whose livelihoods may be severely hampered, if not suspended by the BP oil spill. On that day, May 4, the oil hadn’t invaded lakes and estuaries that far in from the Gulf, nor had shrimping, crab-catching and fishing been closed down [...]
If it’s a bit difficult getting your brain around how large the BP oil spill is, try this application out for size. Using Google Earth and maps from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Paul Rademacher, an engineering manager for Google, has devised a website where you can have the shape of the spill projected [...]
Today, the City of New Orleans announced a special oil spill job training session put on by BP in eastern New Orleans that will be held, well, today. On Friday, BP representative Hugh Depland arranged for a training session catering to the Vietnamese community, to be held at the Mary Queen of Vietnam church, at [...]
The Rev. Vien Nguyen, pastor of the Mary Queen of Vietnam church, waited patiently through hours of talk from BP, Coast Guard, state and federal representatives, and questions from his congregation before finally raising his own question: “Of the fishers BP has hired, are over 50 percent of them Vietnamese?” “I don’t know the answer [...]