On the ground update 6-14-10

7 miles is all we had to ride from Myrtle Grove Marina to find oil coating the marshes. I was shocked. My previous trips to the oiled wetlands have been out of Venice and down the Mississippi River -- some 30-40 miles from civilization. Now, we're at 7.

Usually when I visit the Myrtle Grove Marina, I'm picking up market shrimp for fishing trips to Magnolia, an area about 13 miles down Highway 23. Magnolia is known amongst kayak fisherman as one of the most accessible and productive spots in South Louisiana and it's not uncommon to fill a kayak with a limit of redfish in a day spent there. It's an easy paddle from the highway and very little motor boat traffic offers a safe experience. Now the oil is 7 miles away from Magnolia. I can't tell from the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries fishing closure maps whether Maganolia is still open or not. I would love to take a day off and go fishing there, but I'm asking myself if I would really want to eat fish that could have been exposed to the toxic goo.

Not far from the 7 mile spot where we first saw oil was the mobile command center for cleanup operations. Men in hard hats and life vests worked on barges piled high with hard boom, absorbent boom, and bags of plastic pom poms. All different types of boats pulled in and out as fishermen left for cleanup assignments. Oiled white boom lined the banks of the adjacent marshes.

For someone who has never spent time in the wetlands, this may not have been a tough sight to see, but for me it was devastating. The marsh is where I go to escape the hustle and bustle of my everyday life. The peaceful serenity of a wide open prairie and slow moving bayous offers me a release that can't be found anywhere else. The fish and waterfowl that I take from this environment lets me sustain myself in a way that my ancestors did. Now, the marsh has been transformed into a noisy, oily mess and we've yet to figure out a way to stop the leak.