Black Tide: Voices from the Gulf

Curator: 

This film was selected by Amity Doolittle, Senior Lecturer at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

Why I selected this film

Even though coverage on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill eventually faded from national news media, local residents continue to feel the impact individually, economically, and environmentally one year later. The film highlights the need for local communities to continue fighting for justice through political action to continue the cleanup, revive the economy, mitigate damage to flora and fauna, and gather scientific information to better quantify the impact of future similar disasters. The film reminds viewers that disasters of this size and scale harm local communities in a multitude of ways that may not be visible, and that without sustained action to hold oil companies accountable, environmental justice is hard to achieve.

Teacher's guide  
Please see the teacher's guide for maps, background information, suggested subjects, questions and activities.

Synopsis 

One year after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, the coastal communities of Grand Isle, Louisiana had still not recovered from the devastating effects wrought by the 200 million gallons of oil spilled following the explosion. Documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger traveled across the Louisiana coast interviewing local fishers, restaurant owners, marine scientists, and British Petroleum (BP) representatives to find out how they dealt with the cleanup. The departure of news media in the months after the initial explosion left coastal Louisianans to quietly rebuild their lives. Berlinger’s documentary provides critical insight into a story of recovery in the wake of the disaster.

The environmental justice focus of the film

The Louisiana fishers, business owners, and communities whose livelihoods depend on coastal resources like shellfish, bivalves, and fish were hit hard by an environmental disaster in which they played no part. Although they received some financial settlements, many aspects of their livelihoods, like the loss of fishing culture and community, were not accounted for. By focusing on the spill’s broad impact on the local communities, the film highlights the efforts of residents who are fighting for environmental justice in the wake of an environmental catastrophe.

Download the teacher's guide for Black Tide: Voices from the Gulf (PDF)

WEBVTT

00:00:02.349 --> 00:00:03.624
-This is paradise.

00:00:03.689 --> 00:00:05.825
You walk out your house,
you walk half a mile,

00:00:05.825 --> 00:00:07.488
you can fish, you can crab.

00:00:07.793 --> 00:00:09.947
-When you do,
you catch what we call big drags,

00:00:09.995 --> 00:00:12.623
and you that the shrimp,
and it\'s not always about the money.

00:00:12.623 --> 00:00:13.547
It\'s about the rush.

00:00:13.691 --> 00:00:15.742
-We have taken the richness
of what we had

00:00:15.774 --> 00:00:17.074
maybe too much for granted.

00:00:17.074 --> 00:00:20.413
We just drop a hook in the water
and something\'s on the end of it.

00:00:20.840 --> 00:00:24.463
We just put a pipe in the ground
and something comes up.

00:00:25.365 --> 00:00:28.205
-We had over a hundred days
of oil coming up

00:00:28.205 --> 00:00:28.894
from the bottom of the gulf.

00:00:29.723 --> 00:00:31.455
Those images had been burned

00:00:31.455 --> 00:00:33.483
into the imaginations
of the American public.

00:00:33.507 --> 00:00:36.467
-A lot of people refused
to eat Louisiana seafood product

00:00:36.467 --> 00:00:37.902
because of the oil spill.

00:00:38.059 --> 00:00:39.323
-This is not typical.

00:00:39.616 --> 00:00:41.797
Usually this is full of oysters.

00:00:41.839 --> 00:00:47.149
-I hear it, the invective, the anger,
the frustration, the disappointment.

00:00:47.243 --> 00:00:48.471
-It\'s all over the news.

00:00:48.712 --> 00:00:49.992
They cut corners.

00:00:49.992 --> 00:00:53.692
-This was a very beautiful,
pristine, eco-environment.

00:00:54.284 --> 00:00:57.791
What it is now, will never be
what it once was.

00:00:58.217 --> 00:00:59.724
-Is the seafood safe?

00:00:59.812 --> 00:01:00.990
Are the beaches safe?

00:01:01.158 --> 00:01:02.838
Yes, the water is safe.

00:01:03.018 --> 00:01:04.949
It is beautiful and pristine.

00:01:05.285 --> 00:01:07.649
-I\'ve never done a dive
when I didn\'t see

00:01:07.649 --> 00:01:09.520
a lot of invertebrate fauna
on the bottom.

00:01:09.787 --> 00:01:10.907
We saw a crab.

00:01:11.681 --> 00:01:12.673
One crab.

00:01:12.983 --> 00:01:15.504
People want to know
where\'s the oil and gas.

00:01:15.504 --> 00:01:18.414
Just because you can\'t find
it, doesn\'t mean it\'s not there.

00:01:18.414 --> 00:01:20.095
It means you\'re looking
in the wrong place.

00:01:20.164 --> 00:01:24.374
-This is about helping to restore
an environment and a way of life.

00:01:24.374 --> 00:01:26.193
We have stepped up as BP.

00:01:26.361 --> 00:01:29.711
People believe we\'re leaving,
but we are here for the long-term.

00:01:38.582 --> 00:01:45.481
[music]

00:02:08.423 --> 00:02:11.069
-If I can have your attention,
we\'re going to go ahead

00:02:11.122 --> 00:02:14.249
and get started
with this prayer service.

00:02:15.200 --> 00:02:17.327
I always call Grand Isle home,

00:02:17.591 --> 00:02:19.662
and so it is a blessing
for me to be able

00:02:19.830 --> 00:02:22.338
to encourage you tonight
as we remember.

00:02:23.004 --> 00:02:27.078
I know that we grieve the loss
of not only the 11 men

00:02:27.152 --> 00:02:29.104
who died that day, but I know

00:02:29.272 --> 00:02:31.512
that we grieve
the loss of many things.

00:02:41.643 --> 00:02:45.116
-On the night of the incident,
everything was business as usual.

00:02:45.179 --> 00:02:49.863
Beautiful weather, ideal conditions,
we had some radio communications

00:02:49.998 --> 00:02:53.318
in the rig [?], and no indications
of any issues at the time.

00:02:53.925 --> 00:02:58.306
Right before ten o\'clock
is when the first incidents happened.

00:02:58.620 --> 00:03:02.692
-I was awoken from
my sleep to the--

00:03:05.428 --> 00:03:06.246
-Breaking news.

00:03:06.414 --> 00:03:09.962
Emergency crews search for 11 workers
missing after a powerful explosion

00:03:10.130 --> 00:03:12.311
of an oil rig
off the coast of Louisiana.

00:03:12.414 --> 00:03:14.820
-I just went into autopilot,
put on my coveralls,

00:03:14.988 --> 00:03:16.022
grabbed my life vest.

00:03:16.190 --> 00:03:17.749
-We had heavy
smoke around the rig.

00:03:17.884 --> 00:03:20.892
The fire was
200 to 300 hundred feet in the air.

00:03:21.384 --> 00:03:23.330
-When we arrived
at the Damon Bankston,

00:03:23.473 --> 00:03:27.489
they lowered a rope ladder
on the starboard side of the ship.

00:03:27.657 --> 00:03:29.679
-17 people injured
in the initial blast

00:03:29.847 --> 00:03:31.316
have been airlifted to hospitals.

00:03:31.484 --> 00:03:34.210
About 100 survivors were taken
to shore by boat overnight.

00:03:34.378 --> 00:03:36.340
-We got a headcount of 115.

00:03:36.508 --> 00:03:41.708
There was 126 on board,
so we had lost that 11.

00:03:41.947 --> 00:03:44.639
-Emergency crews are racing
to find out whether the collapse

00:03:44.807 --> 00:03:48.246
of that burning oil rig is causing
crude oil to leak into the sea.

00:03:48.414 --> 00:03:51.824
-Amid the sadness, the first thing
a lot of people thought about was,

00:03:51.992 --> 00:03:55.031
\"All that oil, this can\'t
be good for the environment.\"

00:03:58.563 --> 00:04:00.350
-There\'s something special
about the waters here.

00:04:00.518 --> 00:04:03.436
With the Mississippi,
in the brackish waters that we have,

00:04:03.604 --> 00:04:07.148
our shrimp are sweeter,
oysters are plumper and saltier.

00:04:07.443 --> 00:04:10.419
It\'s just the way God made it.

00:04:10.587 --> 00:04:14.053
-The Louisiana coast, and I think
people have come to understand this,

00:04:14.221 --> 00:04:16.116
it\'s not a recreation place.

00:04:16.284 --> 00:04:17.291
People work there.

00:04:17.459 --> 00:04:18.140
Their lives are there.

00:04:18.308 --> 00:04:19.085
They\'re intertwined.

00:04:19.196 --> 00:04:20.379
It\'s part of our culture.

00:04:24.260 --> 00:04:28.122
[music]

00:04:28.917 --> 00:04:30.520
-30% percent of the oil and gas

00:04:30.688 --> 00:04:33.346
that goes to the nation
comes from our state.

00:04:33.514 --> 00:04:36.597
-We have oyster men,
then in the off-season,

00:04:36.813 --> 00:04:40.180
they go out on a rig
and help with the production of oil.

00:04:40.719 --> 00:04:43.733
-In the case of methane
and oil dynamics,

00:04:44.071 --> 00:04:46.581
the gulf is one of the best places
in the world to work.

00:04:53.332 --> 00:04:56.942
I love being on the water,
and the Gulf of Mexico, to me,

00:04:57.110 --> 00:04:59.837
is just one of the most special
places on the planet.

00:05:01.853 --> 00:05:05.442
When I first heard
about the explosion,

00:05:05.585 --> 00:05:08.571
I actually had some colleagues
who were out on the water,

00:05:08.791 --> 00:05:10.362
and they saw smoke.

00:05:10.993 --> 00:05:12.903
There were so many unknowns
in the beginning.

00:05:13.081 --> 00:05:16.603
All I could think of was,
if there was a breach in that pipe,

00:05:16.865 --> 00:05:18.897
\"Wow, this was going to be bad.\"

00:05:19.230 --> 00:05:21.445
There\'s a lot of oil
and gas in there,

00:05:21.611 --> 00:05:25.004
and the thought
of just having an open tap

00:05:25.172 --> 00:05:29.237
on the bottom of that reservoir
was simply terrifying to me.

00:05:31.592 --> 00:05:33.182
Then there was a week or two

00:05:33.350 --> 00:05:34.927
that went by where
people were saying,

00:05:35.095 --> 00:05:36.775
\"Oh, nothing\'s leaking.
Everything\'s fine.\"

00:05:38.064 --> 00:05:41.124
Yet, there\'s this slick
that\'s expanding,

00:05:41.292 --> 00:05:42.894
so you know something\'s leaking.

00:05:43.103 --> 00:05:46.088
It\'s not a leak, it\'s a jet.

00:05:47.024 --> 00:05:48.752
It\'s a fire hose of oil and gas.

00:05:58.662 --> 00:06:03.454
One evening, one of the crew members
spots an oiled bird.

00:06:04.334 --> 00:06:08.194
I have never seen a bird with a look
of sheer terror in its eyes.

00:06:08.677 --> 00:06:10.858
Howard and a couple of the other guys

00:06:11.167 --> 00:06:13.805
spent an hour washing this thing
down with Dawn,

00:06:14.377 --> 00:06:20.281
and that was when it went from
looking at instrument data

00:06:20.449 --> 00:06:22.670
and chemistry data to seeing

00:06:22.879 --> 00:06:26.917
a living being impacted
by the oil spill.

00:06:30.187 --> 00:06:36.561
[music]

00:06:39.829 --> 00:06:43.068
-Some people have asked us,
\"Are there large concentrations

00:06:43.179 --> 00:06:44.701
of oil under the sea?\"

00:06:44.869 --> 00:06:46.719
Those have not been found
so far by us

00:06:46.887 --> 00:06:48.841
or anyone else that\'s measuring this.

00:06:51.412 --> 00:06:54.936
-Back in 2000,
there was a joint industry project,

00:06:55.104 --> 00:06:56.428
called Project Deep Spill,

00:06:56.596 --> 00:07:00.052
and they basically
did a purposeful deep water spill.

00:07:00.220 --> 00:07:03.188
What they found was that
there were plumes,

00:07:03.356 --> 00:07:05.549
and it didn\'t just bubble
up to the surface.

00:07:06.390 --> 00:07:12.340
When this well exploded,
I expected there to be plumes,

00:07:12.410 --> 00:07:14.210
because of what I had read.

00:07:15.150 --> 00:07:16.202
These plumes,

00:07:16.434 --> 00:07:21.249
you can think of them
like you\'ve got a jet of oil and gas

00:07:21.425 --> 00:07:23.639
that\'s basically flying out
of the bottom,

00:07:23.837 --> 00:07:26.602
and it\'s reaching a neutral density,

00:07:26.770 --> 00:07:29.397
somewhere between
1,000 and 1,200 meters,

00:07:29.581 --> 00:07:31.628
and it\'s suspended there.
-Actually,

00:07:31.796 --> 00:07:33.737
everyone\'s out there
looking for these plumes.

00:07:33.865 --> 00:07:35.396
Haven\'t found them yet.

00:07:36.985 --> 00:07:41.494
The science of the plumes hanging
in the water doesn\'t feel right.

00:07:41.742 --> 00:07:44.580
-We found those plumes
of oil and gas.

00:07:45.469 --> 00:07:47.217
We did find something
very interesting.

00:07:47.431 --> 00:07:49.447
We found probably
the most intense plume

00:07:49.615 --> 00:07:51.859
that we\'ve seen out here
so far during this trip.

00:07:52.027 --> 00:07:55.943
-Researchers say they found massive
plumes of oil beneath the surface,

00:07:56.111 --> 00:07:57.933
some hundreds of feet deep.

00:07:58.101 --> 00:08:02.110
The largest is 10 miles long,
and 4 miles wide.

00:08:02.494 --> 00:08:06.329
Oil clouds that are stealing oxygen
and could be toxic.

00:08:06.702 --> 00:08:07.464
-We\'re talking about

00:08:07.632 --> 00:08:10.460
what should be a boring,
straight profile,

00:08:10.676 --> 00:08:12.001
going like this,

00:08:12.169 --> 00:08:17.372
and then shifting like a rocket,
and then staying out here,

00:08:17.540 --> 00:08:20.243
and then coming back down
and being boring and flat again.

00:08:20.499 --> 00:08:25.449
What I thought the plume story
would do was to motivate Noah

00:08:25.617 --> 00:08:28.212
and the response team
to get more ships out there

00:08:28.380 --> 00:08:31.416
to really look and see
how much of this oil and gas

00:08:31.584 --> 00:08:32.794
was in the deep water.

00:08:32.956 --> 00:08:38.285
It\'s a little to the south
of where the Pelican crews found

00:08:38.453 --> 00:08:39.866
their plume two weeks ago.

00:08:41.859 --> 00:08:43.524
Okay, great.

00:08:43.828 --> 00:08:45.391
I\'ll talk to you tomorrow then.

00:08:47.734 --> 00:08:49.414
That was interesting.

00:08:50.281 --> 00:08:53.131
The response that we got
was more like, \"You guys are crazy.

00:08:53.377 --> 00:08:55.005
There ain\'t plumes out there.

00:08:55.173 --> 00:08:56.747
It\'s all coming to the surface.

00:08:56.915 --> 00:08:58.431
Gas floats.
Oil floats.

00:08:58.599 --> 00:08:59.639
End of story.\"

00:09:08.783 --> 00:09:10.586
I am the chief operating officer

00:09:10.711 --> 00:09:13.621
for BP\'s Gulf Coast Restoration
organization.

00:09:14.858 --> 00:09:19.765
I was asked four days into this
to come to Houma, Louisiana

00:09:20.070 --> 00:09:22.959
to be the incident commander
representing BP\'s interests

00:09:23.127 --> 00:09:26.363
in that unified command effort
and have been here ever since.

00:09:27.112 --> 00:09:31.860
It\'s hard to share the challenges
that we faced as we\'ve gone

00:09:32.036 --> 00:09:35.852
from the early stages of the tragedy
of this rig exploding,

00:09:36.020 --> 00:09:37.749
11 men losing their lives,

00:09:37.923 --> 00:09:41.885
to then the reality of oil coming out
of this well at 5,000 feet.

00:09:42.234 --> 00:09:46.994
We brought together in those
first days almost 48,000 people.

00:09:47.745 --> 00:09:51.679
We had 6,500 vessels
on the water at its peak.

00:09:52.070 --> 00:09:56.622
It is a historic event,
but it is also a historic response.

00:09:57.763 --> 00:10:00.982
This event did bring
a very real impact

00:10:01.205 --> 00:10:03.149
to the fishing side of this

00:10:03.317 --> 00:10:05.934
when the federal waters
and state waters were closed.

00:10:06.615 --> 00:10:10.905
At the end of the day, it also had
very real impacts to the communities,

00:10:11.073 --> 00:10:12.695
to individuals, to businesses.

00:10:13.185 --> 00:10:15.585
It\'s changed forever
our way of life.

00:10:22.354 --> 00:10:29.093
[music]

00:10:32.578 --> 00:10:36.306
-Grand Isle is 7 miles long
with 3/4-mile-wide, it\'s paradise.

00:10:36.736 --> 00:10:37.871
All in one right here.

00:10:38.062 --> 00:10:39.927
You walk out your house,
you walk half a mile,

00:10:40.095 --> 00:10:41.713
you can fish, you can crab.

00:10:41.951 --> 00:10:44.053
I\'m a fourth-generation
commercial fisherman.

00:10:44.478 --> 00:10:46.196
I\'ve been doing it all my life.

00:10:46.943 --> 00:10:49.474
Usually, this time of the year,
we\'ll catch a lot of sponge crabs.

00:10:49.784 --> 00:10:51.331
As the crab,
they got the eggs at the bottom,

00:10:51.499 --> 00:10:53.149
they go lay their babies inland.

00:10:53.317 --> 00:10:55.006
I went out there five days
and in five days,

00:10:55.174 --> 00:10:57.067
I haven\'t caught a sponge crab yet.

00:10:57.609 --> 00:11:01.397
The worst part about the whole thing
is just what we can\'t do right now

00:11:01.668 --> 00:11:03.045
like we used to do freely.

00:11:03.745 --> 00:11:05.955
-Let\'s say there\'s
a new marketable skill

00:11:06.123 --> 00:11:08.223
that could be taught
through a vocational program,

00:11:08.485 --> 00:11:10.564
would anyone be interested
in something like that?

00:11:10.732 --> 00:11:12.572
-I can\'t read or write at all.

00:11:13.405 --> 00:11:15.384
I can\'t read or write or spell.

00:11:16.093 --> 00:11:17.664
What do you think
that\'s going to do with me?

00:11:18.133 --> 00:11:21.071
I tried a whole bunch,
I just can\'t learn.

00:11:21.239 --> 00:11:21.773
I tried.

00:11:21.941 --> 00:11:23.531
Why should I have to leave right now?

00:11:23.626 --> 00:11:24.546
That\'s my point.

00:11:24.689 --> 00:11:25.531
Why?

00:11:25.642 --> 00:11:26.952
This is BP\'s fault.

00:11:27.200 --> 00:11:29.672
BP should pay me to stay here.

00:11:30.257 --> 00:11:33.637
I shouldn\'t have to leave
to go work somewhere because BP\'s a--

00:11:34.698 --> 00:11:36.704
Excuse my language, that\'s the
way I feel about it.

00:11:37.115 --> 00:11:39.438
We\'re just recuperating
from Hurricane Katrina.

00:11:39.606 --> 00:11:40.981
Hurricane, I can fix my house.

00:11:41.328 --> 00:11:42.928
This, I can\'t go out there
and fix that.

00:11:43.196 --> 00:11:43.990
This is our livelihood.

00:11:44.156 --> 00:11:45.436
This is all I want
to do with my life.

00:11:45.578 --> 00:11:47.825
I want to be a commercial fisherman.

00:11:56.382 --> 00:11:57.432
-We\'re not shucking.

00:11:57.921 --> 00:12:02.763
We laid off 12 people,
10 of them shuckers.

00:12:03.533 --> 00:12:08.561
We have been shut down
since the spill, since the gusher.

00:12:09.772 --> 00:12:13.772
[music]

00:12:14.375 --> 00:12:18.313
-P&J Oyster Company
is 134-year-old business

00:12:18.481 --> 00:12:19.886
in the city of New Orleans.

00:12:20.489 --> 00:12:25.190
Been a foothold
in the French Quarter since 1921.

00:12:25.551 --> 00:12:29.879
I\'ve been here for 31 years,
my brother about 28 years.

00:12:30.729 --> 00:12:33.077
I worked my way up
through the business

00:12:33.244 --> 00:12:34.569
just like my dad did.

00:12:34.842 --> 00:12:37.596
-It\'s a fifth-generation
family business.

00:12:37.773 --> 00:12:39.531
Louisiana Gulf Oyster

00:12:39.886 --> 00:12:42.206
is the most consumed oyster
in America,

00:12:42.374 --> 00:12:46.378
we provide over 45%
of consumption of oysters in America.

00:12:46.670 --> 00:12:50.950
-Now this particular map
are the oyster growing areas

00:12:51.118 --> 00:12:54.270
and then between Areas 14, and 8,

00:12:54.574 --> 00:12:57.257
that\'s where we get most
of our oysters from.

00:12:57.620 --> 00:13:00.701
This year, we actually lost
our spring season.

00:13:00.900 --> 00:13:05.287
Areas 11, 12, 13
and 14 remain closed.

00:13:05.747 --> 00:13:08.311
There\'s concerns about oiling,

00:13:08.661 --> 00:13:11.194
there\'s concerns
about the dispersants.

00:13:11.411 --> 00:13:13.508
Then you also have areas

00:13:13.676 --> 00:13:16.846
that died
from the freshwater diversions.

00:13:17.140 --> 00:13:21.850
Due to the oil disaster,
the State determined

00:13:22.018 --> 00:13:25.582
that it would be best to turn on
the freshwater diversions

00:13:25.749 --> 00:13:28.245
to allow for this freshwater

00:13:28.413 --> 00:13:31.762
try to hold the oil
outside of the estuary.

00:13:32.270 --> 00:13:35.970
That actually killed
a number of oysters.

00:13:36.444 --> 00:13:42.474
This is where we hold the big sacks
and mini sacks and some gallons too.

00:13:45.793 --> 00:13:47.393
This is not typical.

00:13:47.881 --> 00:13:49.979
Obviously, it\'s empty.

00:13:50.682 --> 00:13:55.422
Usually, this is full oysters
for shucking and for half shell.

00:13:55.642 --> 00:13:57.222
For an oyster to come back

00:13:57.635 --> 00:14:00.568
can take anywhere from two
and a half to five years.

00:14:01.030 --> 00:14:03.969
Typically,
we would have people lined up

00:14:04.137 --> 00:14:07.281
on both sides here shucking oysters.

00:14:07.526 --> 00:14:10.344
We have about 150 wholesale customers

00:14:10.503 --> 00:14:13.506
or had about 150 wholesale customers.

00:14:13.683 --> 00:14:15.776
We have about a quarter
of those now.

00:14:15.911 --> 00:14:21.241
We usually shuck between about
30,000 and 35,000 oysters a day.

00:14:21.513 --> 00:14:23.584
We don\'t have the ability
to get the oysters

00:14:23.752 --> 00:14:25.480
we always have for so long,

00:14:25.829 --> 00:14:30.559
so we may be not able
to process oysters for some time.

00:14:30.792 --> 00:14:34.442
A lot of activity in here is loud,
a lot of clack, clack,

00:14:34.593 --> 00:14:40.013
clack of the oysters, and it\'s
a sound of what we like to hear.

00:14:40.302 --> 00:14:44.816
If the doors closed here,
it would be very emotional.

00:14:45.419 --> 00:14:47.670
I hope that\'s never the case.

00:14:49.802 --> 00:14:56.511
[music]

00:15:01.322 --> 00:15:05.727
-We began to evaluate the use
of government approved dispersants.

00:15:06.116 --> 00:15:07.888
Our response was built around

00:15:08.055 --> 00:15:11.583
how to manage and mitigate
the consequences of that oil

00:15:11.710 --> 00:15:13.576
on our fish and our wildlife.

00:15:14.268 --> 00:15:15.928
If you\'ve ever made spaghetti,

00:15:16.326 --> 00:15:20.040
and you put that bowl
of spaghetti sauce in your sink,

00:15:20.251 --> 00:15:24.921
immediately you get this reflection
of oil on the surface of the water.

00:15:25.328 --> 00:15:30.154
When you take your friendly,
dishwashing detergent

00:15:30.328 --> 00:15:33.008
and you drop a drop in there,
what happens to that oil?

00:15:33.176 --> 00:15:34.455
It actually breaks up.

00:15:34.669 --> 00:15:36.469
Dispersant is exactly that.

00:15:36.649 --> 00:15:40.287
It\'s nothing more than
a soap-like product that separates

00:15:40.455 --> 00:15:43.666
the sheet of oil
into individual droplets

00:15:44.199 --> 00:15:46.492
and causes those individual droplets

00:15:46.660 --> 00:15:48.310
to suspend themselves in water

00:15:48.478 --> 00:15:50.768
and being available then
to be consumed

00:15:50.936 --> 00:15:54.505
by the ecosystem,
as opposed to setting on the surface.

00:15:54.743 --> 00:15:57.991
-Louisiana\'s shrimpers worry
the dispersant is not good for them

00:15:58.159 --> 00:16:01.428
or their catch,
and they want BP to stop using it.

00:16:01.674 --> 00:16:06.813
-We\'re adding this toxic cocktail
to the ocean with no knowledge

00:16:06.989 --> 00:16:09.833
of whether or not it even
is going to make a difference.

00:16:10.001 --> 00:16:14.411
-BP says that it cannot find
a less toxic substance

00:16:14.579 --> 00:16:17.125
than the one it\'s using
in the quantities it needs.

00:16:17.293 --> 00:16:19.561
-This product was
independently tested.

00:16:19.820 --> 00:16:22.750
It is a product
that is found in household goods.

00:16:22.909 --> 00:16:26.229
Most importantly,
it was an effective product.

00:16:27.558 --> 00:16:30.291
-The problem is these
are toxic compounds.

00:16:30.459 --> 00:16:34.793
They contain hundreds
of chemicals, including solvents.

00:16:35.132 --> 00:16:38.544
The research that needs
to be done has not been done,

00:16:38.686 --> 00:16:42.532
so it\'s very hard to find out
what those chemicals effects were.

00:16:43.349 --> 00:16:46.684
-Our issue was we were one team
with one purpose

00:16:46.851 --> 00:16:49.311
and that was to prevent
to the best of our abilities,

00:16:49.589 --> 00:16:52.829
and stop the flow of that oil
coming from that well,

00:16:52.997 --> 00:16:56.356
and its impact to our environment
and to our shorelines.

00:16:57.740 --> 00:17:00.619
[music]

00:17:07.979 --> 00:17:10.826
-When I went down
to the Gulf of Mexico,

00:17:10.994 --> 00:17:13.750
the first time my primary mission

00:17:13.918 --> 00:17:17.601
was to look into the question
of the dispersants.

00:17:19.132 --> 00:17:22.960
[music]

00:17:29.192 --> 00:17:32.009
-Today, we\'re going out
into Barataria Bay

00:17:32.177 --> 00:17:34.359
where we have been sampling.

00:17:34.849 --> 00:17:36.699
We\'re going to visit
the sample sites,

00:17:37.262 --> 00:17:38.558
collect some samples

00:17:39.228 --> 00:17:42.807
and generally look
at the conditions there.

00:17:42.964 --> 00:17:44.357
-We\'re going to nose
this boat in the marsh

00:17:44.525 --> 00:17:45.856
and then we\'ll get samples here.

00:17:46.452 --> 00:17:48.752
-Until some
of these studies are done,

00:17:49.198 --> 00:17:51.326
we won\'t have hard data on it.

00:17:51.730 --> 00:17:53.730
We\'re still collecting samples.

00:17:55.070 --> 00:17:59.015
What we have here
are two red fish from Barataria Bay.

00:17:59.801 --> 00:18:02.326
We\'re going to dissect the fish,

00:18:02.494 --> 00:18:06.271
and I\'m going to take certain tissues
for contaminant analysis.

00:18:06.731 --> 00:18:08.512
The liver is the organ

00:18:08.652 --> 00:18:12.702
where the hydrocarbons
are metabolized and concentrated.

00:18:12.844 --> 00:18:17.615
That\'s the target organ
for this kind of analysis.

00:18:17.822 --> 00:18:21.872
The other thing
that I want to do is get the gills.

00:18:22.014 --> 00:18:25.509
When we get through
with the collection of samples,

00:18:25.636 --> 00:18:29.088
we\'ll start to analyze
all those samples

00:18:29.256 --> 00:18:33.216
for the toxic metals
that are components of the oil.

00:18:33.672 --> 00:18:34.794
I think the project

00:18:34.962 --> 00:18:37.582
will be one more solid
bit of evidence

00:18:37.731 --> 00:18:44.193
that dispersing oil in an oil spill
is risky and it does have impacts.

00:18:44.605 --> 00:18:48.088
I think we\'re going to be seeing
impacts for decades.

00:18:50.522 --> 00:18:52.823
-In the beginning when they start
using the dispersants,

00:18:52.991 --> 00:18:54.351
I was very upset.

00:18:54.646 --> 00:18:57.706
I didn\'t understand everything
about the dispersants.

00:18:58.515 --> 00:19:02.880
As we met with EPA, the FDA,
and the different agencies,

00:19:03.024 --> 00:19:05.284
we learned a lot about
the oil business,

00:19:06.362 --> 00:19:08.286
and we learned
a lot about dispersants.

00:19:08.781 --> 00:19:11.258
Dispersants did their job,
they broke the oil down,

00:19:11.362 --> 00:19:13.799
and then the microbials come in
and eat the oil.

00:19:14.037 --> 00:19:17.992
The dispersants have a life cycle
that\'s just isn\'t that long.

00:19:18.389 --> 00:19:20.817
They, dissolve or just go away.

00:19:21.825 --> 00:19:23.910
The seafood source
from the Gulf of Mexico

00:19:24.078 --> 00:19:26.479
is the most tested food source
there is in the world right now.

00:19:26.803 --> 00:19:29.569
We have to reprogram people,
educate people.

00:19:29.907 --> 00:19:31.857
BP put up $30 million for us.

00:19:32.378 --> 00:19:34.579
That gives us the
ability to truly do

00:19:34.747 --> 00:19:36.949
a national outreach
marketing campaign.

00:19:38.937 --> 00:19:40.926
I believe that they\'re
trying to make it right

00:19:41.094 --> 00:19:42.057
to the best of their abilities

00:19:42.225 --> 00:19:43.518
concerning the magnitude
of this thing.

00:19:43.749 --> 00:19:45.249
We needed those dollars

00:19:45.803 --> 00:19:47.403
to get our fishing communities
up and running,

00:19:47.569 --> 00:19:48.720
so we can continue to feed

00:19:48.888 --> 00:19:50.545
the people of Louisiana
and the nation.

00:19:51.570 --> 00:19:55.393
-There has been a strong coexistence
between the oil and gas industry

00:19:55.656 --> 00:19:57.934
and commercial
and recreational fishing

00:19:58.171 --> 00:19:59.715
for many, many, many years.

00:19:59.865 --> 00:20:02.448
In fact, as many
of the locals would say,

00:20:02.718 --> 00:20:05.568
if you don\'t work
in the oil industry, you\'re fishing.

00:20:05.760 --> 00:20:07.084
If you\'re not fishing,

00:20:07.252 --> 00:20:09.562
you\'re working in the
oil and gas industry.

00:20:12.432 --> 00:20:15.581
-Port Fourchon is actually
a natural resource

00:20:15.749 --> 00:20:17.502
that the people
in this community

00:20:17.670 --> 00:20:21.858
have taken the opportunity to develop
to support the oil and gas industry.

00:20:22.510 --> 00:20:27.237
Over the last 16 years,
we\'ve grown as a seaport

00:20:27.828 --> 00:20:31.981
from 14 companies
on about 200 acres of property

00:20:32.149 --> 00:20:36.945
to over 250 companies on over
1,700 acres of development property.

00:20:39.484 --> 00:20:44.674
[music]

00:20:48.739 --> 00:20:51.993
We actually had an economist
run a study for us.

00:20:52.161 --> 00:20:55.995
His findings were,
three weeks shutdown of Port Fourchon

00:20:56.153 --> 00:21:00.190
would cost $3.9 billion
to the nation,

00:21:00.833 --> 00:21:04.713
and I think the number was
79,000 jobs.

00:21:05.046 --> 00:21:07.704
We really need the drilling industry
to come back.

00:21:09.031 --> 00:21:11.949
-The Gulf of Mexico
produces mostly natural gas

00:21:12.116 --> 00:21:14.056
for homes and everything else,

00:21:14.739 --> 00:21:17.619
but as they talk about batteries
and electric cars,

00:21:17.787 --> 00:21:19.269
where do they generate
that energy from?

00:21:19.666 --> 00:21:22.745
They would\'ve create
the strength to charge a car up,

00:21:23.284 --> 00:21:24.816
something had to create that energy.

00:21:24.984 --> 00:21:26.876
-The simple reality
is the Gulf of Mexico

00:21:27.044 --> 00:21:30.464
is a very rich
fossil-fuel-potentialed environment.

00:21:30.632 --> 00:21:33.707
We need to continue
to develop those resources.

00:21:33.898 --> 00:21:36.528
It\'s one
of those essential commodities

00:21:36.661 --> 00:21:41.429
that each of us as human beings
need and want every day.

00:21:43.508 --> 00:21:46.709
-The moratorium itself,
we feel it was an overreaction.

00:21:47.309 --> 00:21:49.032
These communities
and these peoples

00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:51.881
and these workers
need the industry here.

00:21:52.210 --> 00:21:55.170
There were 30 something rigs
in the Deepwater Gulf

00:21:55.312 --> 00:21:56.924
by the time of the incident.

00:21:57.194 --> 00:22:00.970
Those 30 something rigs leave
and go elsewhere in the world.

00:22:01.312 --> 00:22:03.312
They sign five-year contracts.

00:22:03.947 --> 00:22:06.407
Even though we want
and have permits,

00:22:06.621 --> 00:22:10.235
there may not be any rigs to drill
those permitted areas.

00:22:10.938 --> 00:22:12.318
-You know what history
has taught us,

00:22:12.486 --> 00:22:15.698
that these oil companies will do
whatever they can get away with.

00:22:16.151 --> 00:22:19.972
In an RC, believe you me,
they\'re regulated.

00:22:20.139 --> 00:22:23.218
The fatality rate
is 1/4 what it is here.

00:22:23.393 --> 00:22:24.223
They don\'t have spills.

00:22:24.364 --> 00:22:29.893
These seas are as hostile
as you can get.

00:22:29.997 --> 00:22:31.225
30, 40-foot seas.

00:22:32.602 --> 00:22:33.642
You know why?

00:22:33.971 --> 00:22:37.280
An idea that, \"If you do that,
they won\'t come--\"

00:22:37.514 --> 00:22:38.845
They\'ll go anywhere the oil is.

00:22:38.940 --> 00:22:39.630
They don\'t care.

00:22:40.027 --> 00:22:40.875
I get it.

00:22:41.043 --> 00:22:42.369
They\'re motivated by something.

00:22:42.537 --> 00:22:43.842
Why are they in Norway?

00:22:46.495 --> 00:22:52.005
If we don\'t let them ravage and rape
and pollute us, they may leave us.

00:22:52.173 --> 00:22:53.973
They\'re not going anywhere.

00:22:56.444 --> 00:22:58.445
[music]

00:23:00.894 --> 00:23:02.709
-A moratorium on
drilling only accomplishes

00:23:02.876 --> 00:23:04.013
the loss of American jobs,

00:23:04.871 --> 00:23:08.021
the importing of more oil
from unfriendly nations,

00:23:08.538 --> 00:23:13.630
and makes America less competitive
in this global economy.

00:23:13.798 --> 00:23:15.776
Mr. President, this moratorium

00:23:15.943 --> 00:23:18.529
is not hurting
the stockholders of BP,

00:23:18.697 --> 00:23:21.277
this moratorium
is hurting the [?]

00:23:21.445 --> 00:23:24.120
and the [?]
and the Duprés in the government

00:23:28.770 --> 00:23:32.327
-We don\'t want a BP check,
we don\'t want an unemployment check.

00:23:32.468 --> 00:23:34.148
Let us go back to work.

00:23:34.286 --> 00:23:35.966
Let us go back to work.

00:23:36.276 --> 00:23:38.339
-Let us go back to work.

00:23:38.467 --> 00:23:39.867
Let us go back to work.

00:23:40.713 --> 00:23:42.192
-This is getting slimmer and slimmer.

00:23:42.516 --> 00:23:44.593
We see more boats leaving,
going overseas.

00:23:44.785 --> 00:23:46.226
We have more layoffs coming.

00:23:46.394 --> 00:23:48.262
We hear other companies
doing the same thing.

00:23:48.675 --> 00:23:51.537
It\'s a whole ripple effect
through the industry,

00:23:51.705 --> 00:23:54.804
not just from our point of view,
but from the community\'s.

00:23:55.256 --> 00:23:57.214
If there\'s not drilling,
the boats aren\'t working.

00:23:57.382 --> 00:23:59.159
The boats aren\'t working,
the truckers aren\'t driving.

00:23:59.327 --> 00:24:02.579
The truckers aren\'t driving,
the restaurants aren\'t selling.

00:24:05.410 --> 00:24:08.207
-The name of the restaurant
is called Sarah\'s Restaurant.

00:24:08.375 --> 00:24:09.226
That\'s me.

00:24:09.778 --> 00:24:11.758
I\'ve been here for 38 years.

00:24:12.449 --> 00:24:15.449
Now, I don\'t even barely make
enough to survive.

00:24:16.136 --> 00:24:19.790
All of the motels,
even the private homes

00:24:20.013 --> 00:24:24.365
that people owns that come down
on weekends was all rented out to BP.

00:24:24.883 --> 00:24:30.933
The outsiders that usually came
down had no place to stay,

00:24:32.142 --> 00:24:33.822
so they just didn\'t come.

00:24:34.343 --> 00:24:37.305
That knocked out all the
restaurants around here

00:24:37.530 --> 00:24:39.402
or anybody that served food.

00:24:39.953 --> 00:24:47.042
I don\'t know if we\'ll ever be able
to do what we did before the spill.

00:24:49.867 --> 00:24:52.198
-This is what BP still can\'t control,

00:24:52.366 --> 00:24:54.843
the oil leak roaring
at the bottom of the Gulf.

00:24:55.107 --> 00:24:57.753
Engineers
are now considering two options,

00:24:57.921 --> 00:25:01.103
the top hat containment dome
or an insertion tube.

00:25:01.181 --> 00:25:03.178
-These two techniques,
in theory, should work.

00:25:03.305 --> 00:25:06.025
We\'ve got the same challenge
we\'ve had since the beginning,

00:25:06.193 --> 00:25:08.383
which is this 5,000 feet of water.

00:25:08.519 --> 00:25:10.929
-The third option is the top kill.

00:25:11.097 --> 00:25:14.349
-Now, they hear
the top kill is not working.

00:25:14.520 --> 00:25:17.186
-It was very much waking up
every morning,

00:25:17.353 --> 00:25:19.670
having worked nearly
around the clock,

00:25:19.838 --> 00:25:21.982
knowing that a new spill
was happening every day.

00:25:22.647 --> 00:25:24.999
Representatives
from 13 different oil companies,

00:25:25.286 --> 00:25:27.143
from multiple universities

00:25:27.421 --> 00:25:31.716
from all over the world came together
to work on stopping that flow

00:25:31.884 --> 00:25:33.655
from that well at 5, 000 feet.

00:25:33.823 --> 00:25:35.423
-We now believe it\'s time to move on

00:25:35.591 --> 00:25:38.087
to the Lower Marine Riser
Package cap.

00:25:38.228 --> 00:25:42.016
-We had more than 123,000 ideas

00:25:42.184 --> 00:25:45.417
generated from a worldwide resource.

00:25:45.585 --> 00:25:49.126
That\'s the power of the media,
the internet, email.

00:25:49.294 --> 00:25:51.391
Then, of course, after 88 days,

00:25:51.559 --> 00:25:53.723
we were successful
in stopping the flow.

00:26:01.711 --> 00:26:07.282
-I\'m pleased to announce that BP has
agreed to set aside $20 billion

00:26:07.621 --> 00:26:10.885
to pay claims for damages resulting
from this spill.

00:26:11.169 --> 00:26:13.831
We\'ve mutually agreed
that Ken Feinberg

00:26:13.999 --> 00:26:16.302
will run
the independent claims process.

00:26:16.445 --> 00:26:18.853
Ken has long experience
in such matters,

00:26:18.988 --> 00:26:23.016
including running the fund
that compensated the victims of 9/11.

00:26:25.606 --> 00:26:27.184
[music]

00:26:33.406 --> 00:26:36.156
-How do you decide who to compensate?

00:26:36.842 --> 00:26:38.816
It\'s one thing to say,

00:26:39.085 --> 00:26:42.883
\"I will compensate the oyster harvester
who can\'t oyster,\"

00:26:44.157 --> 00:26:45.847
but how much documentation,

00:26:46.015 --> 00:26:49.298
how much do you ask
the oyster harvester to prove?

00:26:49.566 --> 00:26:51.987
-The services are closed right now,
and the oyster season,

00:26:52.155 --> 00:26:53.835
they\'re open and stuck.

00:26:54.448 --> 00:26:56.475
Can\'t fish oysters, can\'t do nothing.

00:26:56.968 --> 00:26:58.622
Waiting for BP
to take care of us

00:26:58.790 --> 00:27:01.366
because we ain\'t got
no income coming in.

00:27:01.804 --> 00:27:02.776
They\'re not paying me.

00:27:02.944 --> 00:27:05.166
They\'re paying my crew,
but not paying me nothing.

00:27:07.244 --> 00:27:10.054
-You were having a lot of trouble
getting your claim paid.

00:27:10.734 --> 00:27:12.538
-I haven\'t gotten a paycheck.

00:27:13.595 --> 00:27:18.004
We\'ve been interviewed
so many different times and nothing.

00:27:18.674 --> 00:27:19.964
Absolutely nothing.

00:27:20.514 --> 00:27:21.847
-I don\'t think Feinberg gets it.

00:27:22.015 --> 00:27:22.751
I\'ll give an example.

00:27:22.919 --> 00:27:24.843
One guy, he got a check for $1, 400,

00:27:25.010 --> 00:27:27.117
and they send him
something back, saying,

00:27:27.285 --> 00:27:31.431
\"Look, you\'re going to have to get
the captain of the boat to say

00:27:31.599 --> 00:27:33.915
that you\'re entitled to more money.\"

00:27:34.066 --> 00:27:37.095
The guy says, \"Hey, man,
I am the captain of boat.

00:27:37.361 --> 00:27:40.561
Who do I get to tell you
that I deserve more money?

00:27:40.679 --> 00:27:43.169
I am the guy.\"
-I gave him my licenses.

00:27:43.326 --> 00:27:44.871
I gave him my trip tickets.

00:27:45.559 --> 00:27:47.159
I gave him my taxes.

00:27:47.474 --> 00:27:51.107
I gave him my oyster lease\'s number,
the paper from [?] fishery.

00:27:51.273 --> 00:27:53.378
What more else he want than that?

00:27:53.546 --> 00:27:56.627
-They say that we\'re not giving them
all the information they need.

00:27:57.006 --> 00:28:00.072
My poor bookkeeper, he doesn\'t
even know what to do anymore.

00:28:00.176 --> 00:28:02.703
-We heard people in Walmart
deli were getting paid

00:28:02.878 --> 00:28:04.751
because they lost hours.
-Yes, that makes me angry.

00:28:04.919 --> 00:28:08.433
I\'ve been fishing all my life,
and he would tell me I got no proof,

00:28:08.601 --> 00:28:10.829
but you\'re giving it to barrooms
and everybody else.

00:28:10.938 --> 00:28:13.353
-It is a hard job.
It is a thankless job.

00:28:13.512 --> 00:28:14.642
You get a lot of criticism.

00:28:15.036 --> 00:28:19.994
I don\'t think it requires a specialty
other than sound judgment,

00:28:20.162 --> 00:28:21.986
strong backbone and a willingness

00:28:22.154 --> 00:28:25.592
to try and do the right thing,
which is what I\'m trying to do.

00:28:27.899 --> 00:28:29.019
-It\'s the freedom I get.

00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:31.027
You\'re on your own,
your own boss.

00:28:31.787 --> 00:28:34.908
Keep your rigging working
as long as you\'re making money.

00:28:35.527 --> 00:28:38.626
-For the claimants down in the gulf,
the shrimpers, the oyster people,

00:28:38.794 --> 00:28:41.373
the fishermen,
who aren\'t sure about the future,

00:28:41.493 --> 00:28:43.171
I offered an interim payment.

00:28:43.339 --> 00:28:45.564
\"Every three months,
document your damage,

00:28:45.732 --> 00:28:46.993
and we\'ll compensate you.\"

00:28:47.199 --> 00:28:49.422
If you\'ve already received
an emergency payment,

00:28:49.549 --> 00:28:51.304
and you have no more documentation,

00:28:51.472 --> 00:28:54.219
you can get $5,000
if you\'re an individual,

00:28:54.458 --> 00:28:56.608
$25,000 if you\'re a business.

00:28:57.416 --> 00:29:02.772
The quick payment in the last 6 weeks
has been paid out to 90,000 people.

00:29:03.090 --> 00:29:06.359
-I don\'t want a final payment
because once you settle

00:29:06.527 --> 00:29:09.517
with a final payment,
if the oysters don\'t come back,

00:29:10.195 --> 00:29:12.377
if they don\'t come back in three,
four years, you\'re screwed.

00:29:12.693 --> 00:29:15.347
-They\'re trying
to give us like $20,000.

00:29:15.634 --> 00:29:17.357
-$25,000.
-$25,000.

00:29:17.525 --> 00:29:18.426
It ain\'t nothing.

00:29:18.601 --> 00:29:19.679
That ain\'t no money.

00:29:20.078 --> 00:29:21.968
What you\'re going to do with $25,000?

00:29:22.582 --> 00:29:26.209
I just wanted to buy this motor here,
that\'s $13,000, just for that motor.

00:29:26.859 --> 00:29:28.861
They\'re saying that it\'s
going to be 10 years

00:29:29.029 --> 00:29:30.860
the oil is going to bother the crabs.

00:29:31.510 --> 00:29:34.036
$25,000 ain\'t going to last 10 years.

00:29:34.544 --> 00:29:38.488
-I had to go back to get food stamps
because it had got us suffering.

00:29:38.909 --> 00:29:43.422
-The idea that the quick payment
is some sort of incentive,

00:29:43.590 --> 00:29:45.727
people are economically deprived
and therefore,

00:29:45.895 --> 00:29:47.076
they better just take the money.

00:29:47.244 --> 00:29:49.280
That may be so in a very few cases.

00:29:49.496 --> 00:29:53.416
When you\'ve got 90,000 people
taking the quick payment.

00:29:53.557 --> 00:29:56.100
I suggest to you,
it\'s one of two reasons,

00:29:56.306 --> 00:29:58.398
they\'ve been adequately compensated

00:29:58.676 --> 00:30:03.024
or they simply cannot prove
any additional loss.

00:30:03.207 --> 00:30:05.475
-We\'re going to try
to survive through this,

00:30:06.476 --> 00:30:09.242
and we\'re hoping everything gets back
to normal where we can make a living.

00:30:09.410 --> 00:30:13.778
-If I could serve someone
and cook for someone, I\'ll stay open.

00:30:14.070 --> 00:30:17.040
-I ain\'t worried about the money,
they\'ve messed up our waters.

00:30:17.278 --> 00:30:19.269
They stopping me from doing
what I love to do.

00:30:19.499 --> 00:30:22.975
-I cannot compensate you
for the loss of lifestyle,

00:30:23.126 --> 00:30:25.666
the loss of culture,
the loss of heritage,

00:30:25.833 --> 00:30:27.506
no money can do that.

00:30:27.950 --> 00:30:30.948
I can just try and ease
the burden in one area

00:30:31.115 --> 00:30:33.429
and that is financial uncertainty.

00:30:38.277 --> 00:30:42.499
-In New Orleans
or Lake Charles or Lafayette,

00:30:43.119 --> 00:30:45.656
everything is centered around food.

00:30:46.165 --> 00:30:48.363
At breakfast, we talk
about what\'s for lunch, at lunch,

00:30:48.458 --> 00:30:49.558
we talk about what\'s for dinner.

00:30:50.125 --> 00:30:51.839
What\'s going to happen
to our fishing communities?

00:30:52.085 --> 00:30:53.952
That\'s a big concern for us.

00:30:55.398 --> 00:30:57.788
-Shrimp, onion,
bell pepper, tomato sauce.

00:30:58.126 --> 00:31:00.308
I usually make just brown gravy.

00:31:00.523 --> 00:31:02.065
I change over this time.

00:31:02.870 --> 00:31:05.708
change over this time.[French
Language] It\'s good.

00:31:06.272 --> 00:31:10.014
-I love eating this food
at conferences,

00:31:10.657 --> 00:31:14.309
but two weekends ago
was the first time that I ate crabs.

00:31:14.618 --> 00:31:17.946
As I\'m eating it I\'m wondering,
\"Is this really good?

00:31:18.113 --> 00:31:21.787
Am I going to get
some ailment from eating this?\"

00:31:21.955 --> 00:31:23.263
The studies say no,

00:31:23.430 --> 00:31:28.027
but there\'s still that apprehension
in putting that into our bodies.

00:31:28.416 --> 00:31:30.666
I think that upsets me the most.

00:31:31.016 --> 00:31:33.462
The fact that I\'m not comforted

00:31:33.763 --> 00:31:36.733
by the things
that have always comforted me.

00:31:36.971 --> 00:31:39.957
-The new generation of seafood,
the shrimp and the crab,

00:31:40.125 --> 00:31:41.943
I hope they can
handle the dispersants.

00:31:42.220 --> 00:31:45.349
I hope that they can metabolize,
and it can pass right on through.

00:31:45.868 --> 00:31:48.969
That\'s my main concern
is the far-reaching effects

00:31:49.137 --> 00:31:50.269
of the dispersants

00:31:50.436 --> 00:31:53.095
and what it\'s doing to the next
generation of marine life.

00:31:53.177 --> 00:31:56.820
-After the spill, my mother
didn\'t want nothing in the freezer,

00:31:56.988 --> 00:31:58.058
no shrimp, no nothing.

00:31:58.226 --> 00:31:59.290
She didn\'t want to put
nothing up in the freezer

00:31:59.458 --> 00:32:00.741
like we usually do every year.

00:32:01.115 --> 00:32:03.814
I usually get oysters,
and go around to my friends

00:32:03.982 --> 00:32:06.093
and open arches in the back
of the truck and drink beer.

00:32:06.597 --> 00:32:08.405
This year, I told them
we\'re going to drink beer,

00:32:08.675 --> 00:32:10.396
but I\'m not going to mess
with the oysters.

00:32:10.802 --> 00:32:13.347
I think the chemicals
that they put in the oil

00:32:13.490 --> 00:32:16.149
is going to do more damage
than the oil itself

00:32:16.990 --> 00:32:19.995
because I feel, like I said,
put pollution in pollution

00:32:20.163 --> 00:32:21.424
is not the solution.

00:32:23.328 --> 00:32:25.857
[music]

00:32:27.057 --> 00:32:29.738
-We are right at the opening
to the Mississippi Sound,

00:32:29.929 --> 00:32:33.037
and the Mississippi Sound
is connected to the Gulf of Mexico.

00:32:37.599 --> 00:32:42.059
[music]

00:32:44.325 --> 00:32:46.349
-From here to the mouth of the river,

00:32:46.531 --> 00:32:49.035
we have what 3,000 to 5,000 dolphins.

00:32:50.904 --> 00:32:52.837
There\'s one right back here.

00:32:53.337 --> 00:32:55.135
It\'s a very large population.

00:32:55.835 --> 00:32:58.440
Many of them come
to these shallow waters

00:32:58.607 --> 00:33:00.137
and bays to give birth.

00:33:00.962 --> 00:33:02.990
We\'ve been studying them
for about 30 years now.

00:33:03.410 --> 00:33:05.578
We are able to get a lot of database.

00:33:05.746 --> 00:33:09.080
Anything that happens,
like an oil spill or a hurricane,

00:33:09.600 --> 00:33:12.724
we are able to go back
to the basic data

00:33:12.924 --> 00:33:14.668
and see what change has occurred.

00:33:15.105 --> 00:33:18.565
We have been following
these changes after the BP oil spill.

00:33:18.740 --> 00:33:21.978
As time goes by, we\'ll be able
to get a composite picture.

00:33:22.154 --> 00:33:23.949
There\'s the bird.
There you go.

00:33:24.338 --> 00:33:26.683
The reasons dolphins
are a valuable resource,

00:33:26.851 --> 00:33:28.426
they are on top of the food chain.

00:33:28.594 --> 00:33:30.236
They are the sentinels
of the environment.

00:33:30.603 --> 00:33:33.066
Anything that happens to them
will ultimately happen to us.

00:33:33.585 --> 00:33:35.937
It\'s going to take time
for the answers.

00:33:40.546 --> 00:33:44.386
We also saw a large number
of turtles after the BP oil spill.

00:33:44.680 --> 00:33:45.748
On a normal basis,

00:33:45.915 --> 00:33:48.635
we would respond
to 10 to 12 dead turtles,

00:33:48.802 --> 00:33:50.156
1 to 3 sick turtles.

00:33:50.552 --> 00:33:53.854
This year we handled
about 57 sick turtles.

00:33:54.022 --> 00:33:57.186
By studying them, we will be able
to find out if indeed,

00:33:57.448 --> 00:33:59.028
the oil spill had a direct

00:33:59.195 --> 00:34:02.164
or indirect effect
on the mortality of these animals.

00:34:02.498 --> 00:34:06.021
-This turtle came in oiled
from Alabama during the oil spill

00:34:06.180 --> 00:34:10.129
and we decontaminated,
and it\'s been here for a while.

00:34:11.209 --> 00:34:13.278
She\'s got two little ulcers,
one right there

00:34:13.492 --> 00:34:15.232
and one on the very tip
of her tongue.

00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:18.144
I\'m going to have her collect
a swab for me,

00:34:18.333 --> 00:34:19.412
and we\'ll send it to a lab

00:34:19.580 --> 00:34:21.458
and do a culture
and see what we find on it.

00:34:21.720 --> 00:34:23.188
The oil can be very dangerous.

00:34:23.363 --> 00:34:26.960
Initially, when the first contact
with the oil with the hydrocarbons,

00:34:27.110 --> 00:34:30.245
you have to worry about irritation
to the mucous membranes,

00:34:30.396 --> 00:34:32.929
breathing it,
just the toxicity of oil.

00:34:33.097 --> 00:34:35.263
Now let\'s get
a blood sample from her.

00:34:37.374 --> 00:34:39.344
Many turtles came
in with pneumonias.

00:34:39.854 --> 00:34:41.240
That was one of the things

00:34:41.407 --> 00:34:43.726
that we were saying it might
be related to the oil.

00:34:43.917 --> 00:34:45.155
I can\'t say for sure.

00:34:45.323 --> 00:34:47.396
All right, we\'re done with him.

00:34:47.564 --> 00:34:49.100
We got all the blood we need.

00:34:58.165 --> 00:35:00.385
-I\'ve never been
on a cruise in the Gulf

00:35:00.553 --> 00:35:02.761
where I didn\'t learn something new,

00:35:03.009 --> 00:35:04.625
where I wasn\'t just shocked

00:35:04.758 --> 00:35:07.097
by something
that I saw in a good way.

00:35:07.431 --> 00:35:10.218
I\'ve learned so much
from working in that system,

00:35:10.410 --> 00:35:13.078
it\'s helped me grow
so much as a scientist.

00:35:13.276 --> 00:35:15.456
-[?] Checks are good.

00:35:15.800 --> 00:35:18.346
You have permission
to dive as soon as we\'re clear.

00:35:23.733 --> 00:35:25.722
-Natural seepage over these carbon

00:35:25.890 --> 00:35:28.043
from the sea floor occurs
across the globe.

00:35:29.491 --> 00:35:34.563
Under natural seepage conditions,
you take a submarine to the bottom,

00:35:34.754 --> 00:35:36.798
and what you see is typically,

00:35:37.024 --> 00:35:39.693
these structures
called methane hydrates.

00:35:39.942 --> 00:35:42.877
The best analogy I can give you
is a mogul on a ski slope,

00:35:43.045 --> 00:35:45.646
it\'s a big mound, except
its frozen gas

00:35:45.814 --> 00:35:46.983
instead of frozen snow.

00:35:47.216 --> 00:35:48.290
On the side of this man,

00:35:48.457 --> 00:35:49.923
you\'ll have a little trickle of gas

00:35:50.090 --> 00:35:51.830
just seeping out
into the water column,

00:35:52.129 --> 00:35:55.469
and it\'s literally bubbles
the size of your fingernail.

00:35:57.445 --> 00:35:58.852
Oil is the same way.

00:35:58.978 --> 00:36:01.191
It seeps slowly out of the bottom.

00:36:01.359 --> 00:36:05.146
It doesn\'t gush, it\'s just
trickling up out of the bottom.

00:36:06.008 --> 00:36:10.450
What that slow supply
of reducing material does

00:36:10.593 --> 00:36:13.395
is it allows microorganisms
to keep pace

00:36:13.563 --> 00:36:16.383
with the flux of the material
that\'s coming out of the bottom.

00:36:16.525 --> 00:36:20.715
A lot of the oil and gas is basically
eaten by microorganisms

00:36:20.883 --> 00:36:25.061
that are very well adapted to chewing
and digesting this oil and gas.

00:36:25.579 --> 00:36:27.277
Then there are these
foraging organisms

00:36:27.445 --> 00:36:28.308
that come into the seeps

00:36:28.476 --> 00:36:30.037
because there\'s just
a lot of food there.

00:36:30.371 --> 00:36:33.341
The diversity
that you see around a seep

00:36:33.578 --> 00:36:35.862
is like you would
see on a coral reef,

00:36:36.029 --> 00:36:37.354
it\'s just tremendous.

00:36:43.136 --> 00:36:47.743
These organisms can handle
the natural background flux,

00:36:47.924 --> 00:36:50.899
what they can\'t handle
is having buckets

00:36:51.138 --> 00:36:53.648
of material dumped
on their head essentially.

00:36:53.816 --> 00:36:54.816
That\'s what happened

00:36:55.095 --> 00:36:58.426
when oil sedimented out
of the surface water to the bottom.

00:36:59.006 --> 00:37:02.147
It essentially suffocated
the filter-feeding organism.

00:37:10.897 --> 00:37:13.497
We are now heading
to the wellhead area.

00:37:13.969 --> 00:37:16.140
It\'s going to be amazing.

00:37:16.308 --> 00:37:19.362
We\'re the first people to see
the bottom around the wellhead.

00:37:20.403 --> 00:37:21.850
I always try to be optimistic.

00:37:21.992 --> 00:37:25.405
I went down there thinking
that I wanted it to be the site

00:37:25.573 --> 00:37:28.392
that I had gone to before,
beautiful natural sea.

00:37:30.683 --> 00:37:33.586
I\'ve never done a dive
in the Gulf of Mexico.

00:37:33.754 --> 00:37:36.469
When I didn\'t see a lot
of invertebrate fauna on the bottom.

00:37:36.596 --> 00:37:38.886
At that site, we saw a crab.

00:37:39.278 --> 00:37:41.674
One crap that was alive.

00:37:42.724 --> 00:37:47.612
We saw sea fans that were
just coated with oil and dead.

00:37:47.929 --> 00:37:50.545
These organisms,
maybe 2, 3 feet high,

00:37:50.713 --> 00:37:52.087
but they\'re 500 years old.

00:37:52.536 --> 00:37:54.469
They\'re not going
to recover in a week

00:37:54.704 --> 00:37:57.186
or a month or a year or a decade.

00:37:57.750 --> 00:37:59.480
They\'re 500 years old.

00:38:02.008 --> 00:38:06.158
Nothing like this has ever happened
in a deep-water habitat before.

00:38:06.808 --> 00:38:10.010
You\'ve taken a system that
was functioning very effectively,

00:38:10.178 --> 00:38:12.946
to cleanse itself
of the small amount of oil and gas

00:38:13.113 --> 00:38:14.764
that was introduced naturally,

00:38:15.082 --> 00:38:18.311
and you\'ve injected into it
in a very violent way.

00:38:18.568 --> 00:38:20.976
It\'s just a mind-boggling
amount of carbon

00:38:21.144 --> 00:38:23.105
that\'s been injected
into the system.

00:38:24.817 --> 00:38:27.094
-Today, there is no evidence of oil

00:38:27.262 --> 00:38:29.550
in the sediments from the deep water

00:38:29.718 --> 00:38:30.471
all the way through

00:38:30.639 --> 00:38:33.026
to the shoreline accepting
in and around,

00:38:33.194 --> 00:38:35.311
right around the wellbore
approximately two miles.

00:38:36.160 --> 00:38:39.160
There\'s still that perception
that it\'s there,

00:38:39.285 --> 00:38:42.408
it\'s waiting and the first big storm
is going to come

00:38:42.576 --> 00:38:44.437
and bring the sea of oil.

00:38:44.784 --> 00:38:47.130
BP saying it
or the federal government

00:38:47.298 --> 00:38:48.751
saying it isn\'t enough,

00:38:48.952 --> 00:38:51.327
we\'ve got to get
the local scientific communities

00:38:51.666 --> 00:38:56.254
and global academic communities
supporting as they are

00:38:56.422 --> 00:38:58.670
that scientific assessment evaluation

00:38:58.980 --> 00:39:00.713
and demonstrating with confidence

00:39:00.881 --> 00:39:04.383
there isn\'t a big sea
of oil coming our way.

00:39:08.147 --> 00:39:10.123
[music]

00:39:12.474 --> 00:39:15.374
-This week is nothing
like what it used to be.

00:39:15.752 --> 00:39:20.848
Christmas in New Orleans
since it\'s a really Catholic city,

00:39:21.587 --> 00:39:27.257
people have always abided
by eating seafood during that week.

00:39:27.923 --> 00:39:31.241
It’s the first time
in my 31 years here

00:39:31.495 --> 00:39:33.075
that we never sold oysters

00:39:33.242 --> 00:39:36.240
to anyone walking
in during the holidays.

00:39:39.637 --> 00:39:41.264
[music]

00:39:44.040 --> 00:39:47.022
-Our concern is that how long

00:39:47.213 --> 00:39:50.703
this crisis is going
to play itself out.

00:39:50.871 --> 00:39:51.728
Is it two years?

00:39:51.863 --> 00:39:52.676
Is it five years?

00:39:52.844 --> 00:39:53.922
Is it longer than that?

00:39:54.105 --> 00:39:58.988
-The oil spill has put us
in a topsy-turvy situation.

00:39:59.201 --> 00:40:04.378
Typically, the farmers plant oysters
from September and into January.

00:40:05.051 --> 00:40:07.614
This year,
we were not even able to plant,

00:40:07.845 --> 00:40:09.591
first time ever
since I\'ve been doing it.

00:40:09.750 --> 00:40:11.272
I\'ve been doing it 28 years.

00:40:11.424 --> 00:40:12.803
-What is long-term?

00:40:12.971 --> 00:40:14.525
I mean, when is the next-
-What\'s the projection?

00:40:14.693 --> 00:40:15.059
--crisis?

00:40:15.227 --> 00:40:16.805
-Our oysters will take

00:40:17.427 --> 00:40:20.085
from this point two
to three years to come back.

00:40:20.403 --> 00:40:24.190
There are producing areas outside
of the Louisiana marshes,

00:40:24.373 --> 00:40:28.066
and P&J\'s going to make sure
that you guys have product.

00:40:28.693 --> 00:40:31.633
If we have to draw from other states,
we\'re going to do what it takes.

00:40:32.401 --> 00:40:36.130
-If I don\'t have oysters here,
which probably is 60%

00:40:36.298 --> 00:40:38.384
of my appetizer sales, where do I go?

00:40:38.557 --> 00:40:39.909
What am I going
to substitute it with?

00:40:40.077 --> 00:40:46.210
-We cannot lose the opportunity
to continue this family tradition.

00:40:46.701 --> 00:40:48.198
Now, people do appreciate

00:40:48.878 --> 00:40:51.740
from something that has happened
without our control,

00:40:52.017 --> 00:40:54.924
from the oil company
that didn\'t do the right thing.

00:40:56.819 --> 00:40:58.747
[music]

00:41:01.649 --> 00:41:03.172
-My name is Henry Mayfield.

00:41:03.330 --> 00:41:04.936
I\'m from Lafitte, Louisiana.

00:41:05.140 --> 00:41:06.957
Commercial fisherman and trawler.

00:41:08.861 --> 00:41:10.774
I\'ve been working
on my vessel to raise it,

00:41:10.949 --> 00:41:12.989
so that I can put more product
on the boat

00:41:13.157 --> 00:41:14.600
and work a little rough
weather maybe.

00:41:14.768 --> 00:41:17.236
I may have to work
on the outside in the gulf.

00:41:17.790 --> 00:41:20.419
I\'m feeling what happened
with the oil spill is going

00:41:20.587 --> 00:41:22.553
to affect a lot
of the inshore fishing.

00:41:22.914 --> 00:41:24.932
Shrimp are a very delicate animal.

00:41:25.100 --> 00:41:26.932
They\'re not going
to sit there and die.

00:41:27.100 --> 00:41:27.821
They\'re going to move.

00:41:28.115 --> 00:41:30.015
Hopefully, if that does happen,

00:41:30.182 --> 00:41:31.851
the preparation that I\'m making now

00:41:32.019 --> 00:41:35.722
and the expenses and money
that we\'re spending into the vessel

00:41:35.802 --> 00:41:37.080
is going to keep me working

00:41:37.248 --> 00:41:39.471
and allow me to keep providing
for my family.

00:41:40.873 --> 00:41:43.501
[music]

00:41:48.391 --> 00:41:50.669
-Jean Lafitte is mostly
a fishing community.

00:41:51.017 --> 00:41:52.113
I say it\'s paradise.

00:41:52.288 --> 00:41:55.713
We\'ve had five major
disasters in the last five years

00:41:55.880 --> 00:41:57.281
and nobody\'s leaving,

00:41:57.449 --> 00:41:59.074
that will to tell you something.

00:42:00.037 --> 00:42:02.652
While I was a commercial fisherman
from when I was 18 years old.

00:42:02.820 --> 00:42:04.264
I\'ve done commercial fishing
for five years,

00:42:04.432 --> 00:42:06.157
I grew up with these guys.

00:42:06.325 --> 00:42:08.175
I played football with these guys.

00:42:08.276 --> 00:42:08.794
I bought shrimp.

00:42:08.962 --> 00:42:10.518
I had a seafood dock.

00:42:10.806 --> 00:42:13.319
I know all these guys,
their families personally.

00:42:13.685 --> 00:42:15.810
Right now, a lot
of fisher people are suffering

00:42:15.978 --> 00:42:18.654
because they didn\'t make anything
for the whole year.

00:42:19.118 --> 00:42:20.678
If they don\'t catch shrimp,
they don\'t catch crab,

00:42:20.846 --> 00:42:23.923
they don\'t catch oysters or fish,
they don\'t make any money.

00:42:26.418 --> 00:42:29.580
-Right now we ought to be catching
a lot more than we catching.

00:42:29.748 --> 00:42:31.615
-Ain\'t no more crab right now.

00:42:31.794 --> 00:42:33.335
-Not at all.
Not at all.

00:42:33.573 --> 00:42:35.966
-This is a crazy year.

00:42:36.134 --> 00:42:37.808
I ain\'t never saw nothing like this.

00:42:38.310 --> 00:42:40.256
I\'ve been doing this
since I was about five years old.

00:42:40.486 --> 00:42:41.756
-It\'s been bad right now.

00:42:42.212 --> 00:42:45.037
-Little crab,
barely makes amend, junk.

00:42:45.205 --> 00:42:47.969
They\'re 65¢ a pound,
you can\'t make no money on that.

00:42:48.800 --> 00:42:51.233
A lot of them die
before you even get in,

00:42:51.469 --> 00:42:54.458
you don\'t get paid for dead loss.
-Usually, we get to trawl,

00:42:54.626 --> 00:42:55.641
come up by the water.

00:42:55.809 --> 00:42:58.806
Overnight, you get a dozen,
dozen and a half you\'re lucky.

00:42:58.974 --> 00:43:02.694
After five days, you\'re lucky
if you\'ve got six crabs in the trap.

00:43:02.822 --> 00:43:04.262
-I\'m 27 years old.

00:43:04.644 --> 00:43:07.401
I fish with my daddy all my life.

00:43:07.569 --> 00:43:09.137
That\'s all I know.

00:43:10.331 --> 00:43:12.957
I know how to catch crabs,
and make babies that\'s it.

00:43:13.125 --> 00:43:14.686
I\'ve got three kids.
-Family, three kids.

00:43:14.854 --> 00:43:15.854
-Both of us.

00:43:16.187 --> 00:43:20.036
-Our children won\'t be taking up
the tradition in fishing.

00:43:26.120 --> 00:43:27.465
-I\'ve heard the same thing

00:43:27.632 --> 00:43:30.408
that they don\'t look healthy
they\'re very lethargic.

00:43:30.691 --> 00:43:35.080
They\'re way smaller
than usual suggesting mortality

00:43:35.248 --> 00:43:37.134
of the larger crabs, I don\'t know.

00:43:38.050 --> 00:43:43.047
This is a site, two nautical
miles from the wellhead.

00:43:43.355 --> 00:43:46.489
On this dive, we did catch one crab.

00:43:47.005 --> 00:43:49.133
He has barnacles
growing all over his body.

00:43:49.479 --> 00:43:52.488
It means it\'s not healthy because
typically they don\'t have barnacles

00:43:52.656 --> 00:43:53.735
growing on their shells.

00:43:54.163 --> 00:43:56.086
Part of his body is healthy

00:43:56.254 --> 00:43:58.527
and the other part has been
immunocompromised,

00:43:58.695 --> 00:44:01.157
and somehow he\'s not able
to keep these barnacles

00:44:01.325 --> 00:44:02.405
from settling on his body.

00:44:02.731 --> 00:44:05.035
The crabs in the deep sea
are being impacted,

00:44:05.162 --> 00:44:06.642
and if they\'re being impacted,

00:44:06.810 --> 00:44:11.141
then how can the ones near
shore not be impacted?

00:44:14.470 --> 00:44:17.635
-One of the key issues that
commercial fishing has faced

00:44:17.803 --> 00:44:20.623
from the Gulf of Mexico
has been the safety of the seafood.

00:44:20.851 --> 00:44:25.408
Working together with the FDA,
the EPA, and the five states,

00:44:25.576 --> 00:44:28.817
tremendous efforts
have been put in place to sample

00:44:28.985 --> 00:44:34.676
and test all seafood to ensure
that not only were they clean

00:44:34.844 --> 00:44:37.212
of hydrocarbon contamination,

00:44:37.380 --> 00:44:40.250
but also of dispersive impacts
and consequences.

00:44:41.165 --> 00:44:45.581
Thousands and thousands of species
tests have been completed

00:44:45.749 --> 00:44:51.088
and not a single fish has exhibited
a concern associated

00:44:51.256 --> 00:44:52.900
with human health risks

00:44:53.067 --> 00:44:56.179
for either oil toxicity
or for dispersive.

00:44:58.798 --> 00:45:02.376
[music]

00:45:05.426 --> 00:45:06.691
-These are all crab tanks.

00:45:06.859 --> 00:45:07.699
If you see there,

00:45:08.030 --> 00:45:10.428
I don\'t have them ready
because there\'s no crabs.

00:45:10.732 --> 00:45:13.683
Box holds about eight dozen live,
and they\'re swimming in here,

00:45:13.851 --> 00:45:15.103
so the people get to see their crabs.

00:45:15.683 --> 00:45:17.471
I got nine crabs
today in the trap.

00:45:17.630 --> 00:45:18.686
I had 10 traps out.

00:45:19.147 --> 00:45:22.352
Nine crabs in two days,
that\'s what I had today.

00:45:27.264 --> 00:45:30.092
My father wanted a grandson to be
a commercial fisherman,

00:45:30.346 --> 00:45:32.093
because, like I said,
we some of these oyster business,

00:45:32.261 --> 00:45:33.773
been in the family
over a hundred years.

00:45:34.010 --> 00:45:35.711
-I\'ve been trawling
since I was a kid.

00:45:36.557 --> 00:45:40.077
Got my own boat when I was 15,
been doing it ever since.

00:45:40.245 --> 00:45:40.999
I love it.

00:45:41.285 --> 00:45:42.463
It\'s the only way of life.

00:45:42.631 --> 00:45:44.237
That\'s I know how to make a life.

00:45:44.405 --> 00:45:46.597
-This is really the only
fifth-generation we have left.

00:45:46.765 --> 00:45:49.675
My father would like to see
the generation go on and on.

00:45:50.227 --> 00:45:51.627
-I didn\'t finish school.

00:45:51.795 --> 00:45:53.795
I like doing what I was doing.

00:45:54.617 --> 00:45:58.114
I tried going to work on other jobs,
but just kept on coming back.

00:45:58.282 --> 00:46:00.216
I wanted to go back trawling.

00:46:01.212 --> 00:46:04.670
I hope for sure I can keep on
doing what I\'m doing.

00:46:05.880 --> 00:46:07.509
-When I finish my livelihood,

00:46:07.676 --> 00:46:10.488
there\'s going to be more
more generation in life.

00:46:10.881 --> 00:46:12.333
The family going [?] go,

00:46:12.500 --> 00:46:14.404
and it\'s going to
be a dying industry,

00:46:14.532 --> 00:46:15.609
and we don\'t want that.

00:46:15.893 --> 00:46:17.710
Mom and dad bought
the property years ago.

00:46:17.878 --> 00:46:20.125
That way, we wanted all our kids
in the same neighborhood.

00:46:20.293 --> 00:46:22.085
That way the grandkids
just go walk across the street.

00:46:22.253 --> 00:46:23.384
When we didn\'t want
them, they move,

00:46:23.551 --> 00:46:24.890
we can send them
back across the street.

00:46:25.149 --> 00:46:26.013
We love each other.

00:46:26.181 --> 00:46:27.056
We love all of us.

00:46:27.224 --> 00:46:31.947
That\'s just the way we are, and just
that\'s the way of life in Grand Isle.

00:46:44.986 --> 00:46:49.694
-What you do when you don\'t have
funds coming in, you reduce.

00:46:50.545 --> 00:46:52.331
As much as I love the people

00:46:52.498 --> 00:46:54.683
that I grew up with
here in the business,

00:46:55.307 --> 00:46:56.587
we had to let them go.

00:46:56.755 --> 00:46:57.857
We weren\'t getting
any of the product

00:46:58.025 --> 00:47:00.128
that we normally would get.

00:47:01.226 --> 00:47:03.829
One of the guys
that we had to lay off,

00:47:03.997 --> 00:47:07.369
I got him to go start picking up
a few oysters in Texas

00:47:07.536 --> 00:47:09.158
from a friend of
ours over there.

00:47:09.967 --> 00:47:13.301
I feel confident that
they can come close

00:47:13.468 --> 00:47:16.546
to what we don\'t
have for them here.

00:47:18.602 --> 00:47:22.212
We have to set ourselves apart since
we\'re not processing oysters again,

00:47:22.380 --> 00:47:23.684
make sure that the oysters

00:47:23.851 --> 00:47:26.278
that we are getting
are of the highest quality,

00:47:26.524 --> 00:47:28.591
even if it\'s in limited supply.

00:47:28.759 --> 00:47:32.487
Wayne, let\'s cut this open
and see what we got here.

00:47:34.230 --> 00:47:36.642
If you look at these oysters
right here,

00:47:36.809 --> 00:47:38.518
they\'re nice round oysters.

00:47:38.919 --> 00:47:40.852
They\'re all single and clean.

00:47:42.498 --> 00:47:44.178
You see this is nice.

00:47:44.313 --> 00:47:46.349
It\'s got a nice eye

00:47:46.517 --> 00:47:51.137
and fabulous.

00:47:51.700 --> 00:47:55.741
-We laid off 12 people,
and the people that are working here

00:47:55.909 --> 00:47:58.186
that are left is very part-time.

00:47:58.766 --> 00:48:02.826
-I\'ve been here 23 years,
man, it never got this bad.

00:48:04.517 --> 00:48:06.033
When you get to that age,

00:48:06.470 --> 00:48:08.163
ain\'t nothing
you know how to do but this.

00:48:08.639 --> 00:48:11.409
They ain\'t going to hire
a guy 50-something years old

00:48:11.949 --> 00:48:13.163
on any kind of job.

00:48:13.331 --> 00:48:14.853
You know what I\'m saying?

00:48:14.981 --> 00:48:17.488
Hopefully, I hope they get better,
you know what I mean?

00:48:18.097 --> 00:48:21.765
Because I still got bills
and I got young kids to care of.

00:48:23.099 --> 00:48:25.189
I never thought
it was going to get this bad,

00:48:25.357 --> 00:48:28.224
but that\'s just something
that just happens.

00:48:38.068 --> 00:48:40.402
-It\'s the next best thing basically.

00:48:41.206 --> 00:48:43.285
It\'s not our oysters,
it\'s not Louisiana.

00:48:43.453 --> 00:48:44.573
-Good morning.

00:48:44.825 --> 00:48:48.017
How are doing--
People enjoying the oysters?

00:48:48.429 --> 00:48:49.429
-Yes.

00:48:49.597 --> 00:48:50.914
-It\'s going to happen.

00:48:51.086 --> 00:48:52.538
I\'m optimistic.

00:48:52.986 --> 00:48:54.666
-How are you all doing?

00:48:55.871 --> 00:48:57.772
Yes, I got you oysters today.

00:49:00.584 --> 00:49:02.423
-I\'ve got what we call a trinity.

00:49:02.852 --> 00:49:05.672
That\'s some celery,
onions, bell pepper,

00:49:06.120 --> 00:49:09.300
and I got some
of Sal\'s beautiful oysters over here.

00:49:09.890 --> 00:49:12.020
All I can do is put my faith in P&J.

00:49:12.370 --> 00:49:14.590
I take their word that
it\'s a great product.

00:49:14.758 --> 00:49:17.433
If they\'re going to put
their name behind that product,

00:49:17.601 --> 00:49:19.401
I got all my faith in them.

00:49:20.719 --> 00:49:22.894
-This
is the worst environmental disaster

00:49:23.062 --> 00:49:23.902
in the history of our country,

00:49:24.070 --> 00:49:26.710
and we have launched
the largest response,

00:49:26.878 --> 00:49:29.654
almost 7,000 vessels,
more than 40,000 people.

00:49:29.822 --> 00:49:31.942
I think what the scientists
are telling us today

00:49:32.110 --> 00:49:32.958
is that made a difference.

00:49:33.062 --> 00:49:34.333
That almost 3/4 of the oil

00:49:34.500 --> 00:49:36.710
was actually captured,
cleaned, and skimmed.

00:49:37.028 --> 00:49:39.186
-Everybody is just
a little too anxious

00:49:39.330 --> 00:49:41.460
to pat themselves on the back

00:49:41.768 --> 00:49:43.017
and talk about a job well done.

00:49:43.184 --> 00:49:46.300
If 70% of it is gone,
which there\'s still 30% left,

00:49:46.467 --> 00:49:47.728
that\'s a lot of oil.

00:49:48.525 --> 00:49:51.358
Did you watch that thing spewing
that junk out throughout

00:49:51.526 --> 00:49:52.615
that period of time?

00:49:55.641 --> 00:49:59.219
[music]

00:50:01.327 --> 00:50:04.398
-What we\'re looking at here
is an area called Chaland Beach,

00:50:04.533 --> 00:50:07.583
which is on the western side
of the Mississippi Delta,

00:50:07.733 --> 00:50:11.381
where the Mississippi River
pours into the Gulf of Mexico.

00:50:11.663 --> 00:50:14.825
This section serves
as an important barrier to protect

00:50:14.993 --> 00:50:17.534
the sensitive marshes and wetlands.

00:50:20.105 --> 00:50:21.999
This beach is actually now clean.

00:50:22.167 --> 00:50:25.677
This has been completed in terms
of its restoration and recovery,

00:50:25.882 --> 00:50:29.946
and you can see it looks like
any normal beach covered with shells.

00:50:30.114 --> 00:50:31.838
You can see the tide zones on it.

00:50:32.925 --> 00:50:36.370
Out of 11,000 miles
of Gulf Coast shoreline,

00:50:36.538 --> 00:50:39.676
we ultimately only had 1,000 miles
that were impacted,

00:50:39.844 --> 00:50:43.595
and 400 of those miles actually
requiring mechanical cleanup.

00:50:44.812 --> 00:50:48.346
At the same time, oil was being
deposited on these beaches,

00:50:48.514 --> 00:50:52.751
sand is moving from offshore
to onshore, which was burying it.

00:50:54.012 --> 00:50:57.120
You\'ve got this challenge
that it leaves all of this material.

00:50:57.850 --> 00:51:00.906
What we would like to do
is to mechanically clean

00:51:01.136 --> 00:51:04.964
down to the depth necessary
to recover that buried oil.

00:51:05.280 --> 00:51:06.060
In some cases,

00:51:06.227 --> 00:51:09.752
there are environmental
and-or ownership reasons

00:51:09.920 --> 00:51:13.145
that have limited our abilities
to only do that manually.

00:51:16.052 --> 00:51:22.795
[music]

00:51:36.481 --> 00:51:39.436
-This is all of the cleanup effort,
the workers are coming in now.

00:51:39.604 --> 00:51:41.079
It\'s time for them
to break for lunch.

00:51:41.246 --> 00:51:45.978
They\'ll go up to the staging area
where BP contractors feed them,

00:51:46.160 --> 00:51:47.343
and then they\'ll come back out

00:51:47.511 --> 00:51:49.979
and they\'ll start doing
that work all over again.

00:51:53.012 --> 00:51:54.994
That\'s a tar ball.

00:51:56.531 --> 00:51:57.982
Now, that\'s a small one.

00:51:58.150 --> 00:51:59.211
It come in various sizes.

00:51:59.362 --> 00:52:02.382
If you break it open
you bring it up to your nose,

00:52:02.636 --> 00:52:05.614
you have that very distinct
bouquet of hydrocarbon.

00:52:06.744 --> 00:52:08.326
It\'s unmistakable.

00:52:15.644 --> 00:52:18.865
-This is an example
of what we\'re finding,

00:52:19.033 --> 00:52:22.997
and this is an area that we were told
that needed no further treatment.

00:52:23.646 --> 00:52:25.796
This is oil, as you can see.

00:52:26.700 --> 00:52:31.757
It\'s been exposed
by constant changes on this beach.

00:52:31.940 --> 00:52:33.674
-It needs to be recovered.

00:52:34.164 --> 00:52:35.742
All of it needs to be recovered.

00:52:37.523 --> 00:52:39.429
See that dark line?
That\'s oil.

00:52:40.238 --> 00:52:41.448
See how thick it is there?

00:52:41.616 --> 00:52:43.302
About an inch and a half,
2 inches thick.

00:52:43.443 --> 00:52:46.712
The only way to retrieve it?

00:52:47.127 --> 00:52:50.443
Scrape down your topsoil
to get at the oil,

00:52:50.998 --> 00:52:53.971
then scrape off the oil
to get the clean sand.

00:52:54.771 --> 00:52:56.392
Laborious?
Absolutely.

00:52:56.560 --> 00:52:58.255
Time consuming?
Absolutely.

00:52:58.788 --> 00:53:01.241
Necessary?
Absolutely.

00:53:01.822 --> 00:53:04.422
It\'s almost a battleground,
if you will.

00:53:05.075 --> 00:53:10.249
You don\'t send your troops out
into battle with a possible maybe,

00:53:10.417 --> 00:53:13.611
a trial and error, if you will,
but we have here.

00:53:14.274 --> 00:53:17.712
-This beach was holding on
by its fingernails,

00:53:17.965 --> 00:53:20.334
rapidly eroding
into the Gulf of Mexico,

00:53:20.502 --> 00:53:23.247
and having maybe a quarter
of the sand on our beach removed,

00:53:23.564 --> 00:53:25.244
it\'s devastating to us.

00:53:27.976 --> 00:53:32.174
-This was a very beautiful,
pristine, eco environment,

00:53:32.460 --> 00:53:33.772
that\'s forever changing.

00:53:34.944 --> 00:53:41.184
Unfortunately, what it is now,
we\'ll never be what it once was,

00:53:41.564 --> 00:53:43.780
because there is copious
amounts of oil left.

00:53:44.454 --> 00:53:48.153
BP has done an awful lot,
but my goodness gracious,

00:53:48.488 --> 00:53:50.816
there\'s an awful lot more
that needs to be done.

00:53:51.251 --> 00:53:57.091
-We\'ve had to scream loudly and often
to get the attention we need to try

00:53:57.259 --> 00:54:00.932
and maintain the pressure
to get this done properly.

00:54:01.463 --> 00:54:03.525
-You want my very
personal opinion?

00:54:04.348 --> 00:54:08.247
As you take the dadgum checkbook,
you set it aside, you start thinking

00:54:08.938 --> 00:54:11.864
about the human factor
and I think we\'ll find a solution.

00:54:12.615 --> 00:54:14.600
If we put it into perspective,

00:54:14.767 --> 00:54:16.754
it could be your son or daughter

00:54:16.922 --> 00:54:18.080
that\'s going to be affected,

00:54:18.248 --> 00:54:20.836
because we failed
to do what we needed to do.

00:54:32.235 --> 00:54:33.255
-This is Bay Jimmy.

00:54:33.423 --> 00:54:35.373
As you can see,
they\'re still all along the bank.

00:54:35.937 --> 00:54:38.020
Bay Jimmy is one
of the best fishing areas.

00:54:38.310 --> 00:54:41.195
This is where the shrimp
will lay eggs offshore,

00:54:41.363 --> 00:54:42.325
and they\'ll come in

00:54:42.492 --> 00:54:44.445
and this is where they actually grow.

00:54:46.560 --> 00:54:47.971
Without this marshland,

00:54:48.353 --> 00:54:50.701
you wouldn\'t have
a brown shrimp season

00:54:50.868 --> 00:54:52.336
or a white shrimp season.

00:54:53.371 --> 00:54:56.307
For the last four or five months
all you\'d have heard on TV

00:54:56.459 --> 00:55:00.009
is that everything\'s great,
comeback, the oil\'s gone.

00:55:00.951 --> 00:55:02.788
I hate to say it, but all that’s BS.

00:55:07.058 --> 00:55:08.482
The minute the media left,

00:55:08.926 --> 00:55:11.077
they didn\'t care
if they still had oil out there.

00:55:11.245 --> 00:55:14.570
What they did, they just
started laying people off

00:55:14.848 --> 00:55:15.926
and getting people out of the area.

00:55:16.241 --> 00:55:18.325
I think they did
it way too fast.

00:55:19.413 --> 00:55:20.466
It just tells me

00:55:20.634 --> 00:55:25.553
that a lot of what they did
at the beginning was PR,

00:55:26.791 --> 00:55:31.499
and now that the cameras are gone,
they\'re not showing

00:55:31.667 --> 00:55:33.478
that they really care a whole lot.

00:55:35.902 --> 00:55:38.981
-One of the real challenges we\'ve had
from a public perspective

00:55:39.149 --> 00:55:42.038
is why is it taking us so long
to clean these marshes?

00:55:42.206 --> 00:55:45.121
What we\'ve learned through
our scientific evaluations

00:55:45.289 --> 00:55:47.432
is that your most successful

00:55:47.599 --> 00:55:50.199
in your abilities
to help them recover

00:55:50.367 --> 00:55:51.770
by working when they\'re dormant.

00:55:51.961 --> 00:55:54.533
It\'s only been since late fall,
early winter,

00:55:54.975 --> 00:55:56.595
that we\'ve actually been
in a position

00:55:56.763 --> 00:55:59.193
to begin to work
on the cleanup of the marshes.

00:55:59.708 --> 00:56:01.597
One of the things
that we know is that

00:56:01.764 --> 00:56:07.541
if the oil bakes onto
the Roseau Cane\'s stalk,

00:56:07.771 --> 00:56:10.714
that the stalk will shuck
its outside layer

00:56:11.119 --> 00:56:14.030
and it will continue
to grow and regenerate.

00:56:14.581 --> 00:56:19.211
If you actually try to come in
and clean that stalk of that oil,

00:56:19.379 --> 00:56:22.121
you can actually again
do more damage to the plant,

00:56:22.289 --> 00:56:24.158
because of its delicate nature.

00:56:24.356 --> 00:56:28.483
We have to be very careful
in our efforts to try to not disturb

00:56:28.762 --> 00:56:31.899
the root systems
of these Roseau Canes

00:56:32.193 --> 00:56:34.958
that are so critical
to this ecosystem.

00:56:41.157 --> 00:56:45.585
[music]

00:56:55.233 --> 00:56:58.280
-This is a major event
in terms of deaths

00:56:58.448 --> 00:57:00.167
of a particular class of animals.

00:57:00.638 --> 00:57:03.247
We\'re seeing a large number
of baby dolphins dying.

00:57:04.175 --> 00:57:06.578
Usually in the month
of January and February,

00:57:06.745 --> 00:57:08.377
we see about one or two animals.

00:57:08.758 --> 00:57:12.938
This year so far,
we\'ve seen 36 baby dolphins

00:57:14.427 --> 00:57:15.807
-We\'re heading out to Long Beach

00:57:15.978 --> 00:57:20.178
to pick up a dolphin that was called
in this morning at about 7:30.

00:57:20.548 --> 00:57:22.322
-The BP oil spill cannot be
ruled out,

00:57:22.490 --> 00:57:24.024
because it was a major event.

00:57:24.587 --> 00:57:27.784
The oil spill covered tens
of thousands of square miles

00:57:27.994 --> 00:57:30.621
of their habitat for several months.

00:57:31.099 --> 00:57:34.672
Apparently, these animals
were conceived in March, April,

00:57:34.840 --> 00:57:37.040
May of last year
prior to the oil spill.

00:57:37.711 --> 00:57:39.897
Gestation period being 12 months,

00:57:40.257 --> 00:57:43.413
this is the first
offspring of animals

00:57:43.580 --> 00:57:46.737
that has come
through the oil spill.

00:57:46.975 --> 00:57:50.438
-We have coordinates, we have
landmarks that we usually go by.

00:57:50.606 --> 00:57:52.463
If it\'s on the beach,
and it\'s a day like this,

00:57:52.637 --> 00:57:54.065
we should be able to see it.

00:57:55.367 --> 00:57:57.696
[music]

00:58:09.750 --> 00:58:13.757
-We have different teams of folks,
and they go out there

00:58:13.925 --> 00:58:16.363
and they take whatever
measurements readings,

00:58:16.561 --> 00:58:20.109
samples they can do, and they are
sent to various laboratories.

00:58:22.842 --> 00:58:24.296
-It does get a little bit draining,

00:58:24.464 --> 00:58:26.173
especially when you\'re dealing
with the babies.

00:58:27.318 --> 00:58:28.956
All of us obviously,
are animal lovers.

00:58:29.124 --> 00:58:30.218
Nobody wants to see that.

00:58:30.845 --> 00:58:33.505
It\'s part of what happens
and it\'s what we do.

00:58:38.353 --> 00:58:39.952
-We\'re about five minutes away

00:58:40.119 --> 00:58:44.616
from my friend\'s company
called Motivatit Seafoods.

00:58:45.926 --> 00:58:48.999
It\'s owned by Mike and Steve Voisin.

00:58:50.316 --> 00:58:55.151
They\'re seventh generation oyster
and seafood people.

00:58:56.741 --> 00:59:01.487
Mike and I have traveled all over
the country protecting the interests

00:59:01.655 --> 00:59:03.550
of the Gulf oyster industry.

00:59:05.680 --> 00:59:10.750
-We have a farming operation,
but we were down 60% this summer.

00:59:10.940 --> 00:59:12.729
We chose to stay open,

00:59:12.897 --> 00:59:16.069
because we were able
to move our harvesting.

00:59:16.237 --> 00:59:19.812
We were one of four
out of 44 in the State

00:59:20.050 --> 00:59:23.186
that decided to keep going,
but it was a struggle.

00:59:24.345 --> 00:59:27.123
The different sizes come off
of those four different belts.

00:59:27.466 --> 00:59:31.242
Then at the very end, what\'s left
is what we shuck in there.

00:59:32.873 --> 00:59:35.551
Al is in the harvesting companies,
a processing company.

00:59:36.001 --> 00:59:40.033
The areas that Al gets
the predominant amount of his product

00:59:40.201 --> 00:59:43.396
got hit the hardest.
It\'s the prime oyster grounds.

00:59:43.764 --> 00:59:46.031
P&J is known for that prime oyster.

00:59:46.701 --> 00:59:48.250
Once the oysters are shucked,

00:59:48.418 --> 00:59:52.259
they\'re brought in here
and then put into small containers

00:59:52.427 --> 00:59:55.598
either for retail, sale
or go to a restaurant

00:59:55.766 --> 00:59:57.116
in the larger gallon containers.

00:59:57.466 --> 00:59:58.623
-It\'s exciting.

00:59:58.791 --> 01:00:01.062
It really is a nice feeling
to see that.

01:00:01.553 --> 01:00:03.687
That kind of thing
gives me hope.

01:00:05.386 --> 01:00:09.044
All that sound in there,
it\'s a nice sound.

01:00:09.394 --> 01:00:13.874
I look forward to the day where we\'re
back up and running and doing it.

01:00:16.594 --> 01:00:23.168
[music]

01:00:31.386 --> 01:00:33.603
-Earlier today we\'ll be meeting

01:00:33.770 --> 01:00:37.324
with a number
of administrative groups, commerce,

01:00:37.776 --> 01:00:39.980
and then we\'ll be meeting

01:00:40.148 --> 01:00:43.156
with the Food
and Drug Administration officials.

01:00:43.661 --> 01:00:47.341
-We\'re up here trying to allay
the fears that have been developed

01:00:47.509 --> 01:00:49.985
relating to seafood
in the Gulf of Mexico

01:00:50.152 --> 01:00:53.548
as a result of the oil spill.

01:00:53.993 --> 01:00:54.830
Come on, team.

01:00:54.998 --> 01:00:57.009
Yesterday, we met
with mostly House members,

01:00:57.177 --> 01:00:58.421
and we\'re talking to them

01:00:58.589 --> 01:01:00.950
about the challenges
of our market, our brand.

01:01:01.148 --> 01:01:03.168
We talked about some
regulatory issues.

01:01:03.336 --> 01:01:04.781
They asked what they
could do to help.

01:01:04.949 --> 01:01:08.238
-They\'re going to work with us
to help promote Gulf seafoods,

01:01:08.406 --> 01:01:10.138
especially oysters.
-We got to run.

01:01:10.306 --> 01:01:10.746
We really do.

01:01:10.914 --> 01:01:12.174
We got to get
to that next meeting.

01:01:13.564 --> 01:01:18.092
-We\'re going to NOAA right now
and meeting with Dr. Jim Turner.

01:01:18.433 --> 01:01:19.289
-Jim Turner.

01:01:19.457 --> 01:01:19.980
-Morning.

01:01:20.148 --> 01:01:22.122
Al Sunseri -Jim Turner,
how you doing?

01:01:22.500 --> 01:01:23.778
Thank you very much for coming.

01:01:23.946 --> 01:01:25.397
We have a person from Brussels

01:01:25.565 --> 01:01:27.250
and a person from Tokyo
who are calling in.

01:01:27.479 --> 01:01:28.256
-Good.

01:01:28.424 --> 01:01:31.003
-He\'s got these international
attachés all over the world

01:01:31.171 --> 01:01:33.235
that educate buyers
in those countries

01:01:33.403 --> 01:01:35.323
about the United
States products.

01:01:35.928 --> 01:01:36.997
-I\'m here.

01:01:37.251 --> 01:01:39.467
I\'m calling from Tokyo.

01:01:39.650 --> 01:01:41.412
-Kobanwa, genki desu ka?

01:01:41.580 --> 01:01:42.377
-All right.

01:01:47.089 --> 01:01:49.220
-Well, here,
how can we help you?

01:01:49.718 --> 01:01:54.391
-Early on, the administration did
a great job of messaging, NOAA, FDA,

01:01:54.559 --> 01:01:58.658
EPA, getting the message out
and it helped us to calm the storm.

01:01:58.998 --> 01:02:02.690
But with the major medias
all moved out of the communities,

01:02:02.858 --> 01:02:04.595
we need the agencies,

01:02:04.762 --> 01:02:07.150
the administration
to step up once again,

01:02:07.356 --> 01:02:09.085
and send that message out

01:02:09.253 --> 01:02:11.986
that Gulf seafood
and Gulf oysters are safe.

01:02:13.066 --> 01:02:15.298
-I think it was
a very important, one,

01:02:15.466 --> 01:02:21.534
for us to hear them talk about

01:02:21.788 --> 01:02:24.168
the things that we can do to help.

01:02:24.605 --> 01:02:27.619
Again, we want to make sure
that we have the proper perspective

01:02:27.787 --> 01:02:30.657
and perception of where we are.

01:02:31.545 --> 01:02:36.460
-We\'re meeting with Ken Feinberg,
the Gulf Coast Claims Facility,

01:02:37.150 --> 01:02:38.750
the $20 Billion man.

01:02:39.027 --> 01:02:41.930
We\'ll be discussing with him
the challenges that we\'re feeling

01:02:42.098 --> 01:02:45.477
relating to the efforts
that he\'s put forward.

01:02:52.485 --> 01:02:55.058
-I\'m meeting with some
of those in the Gulf who deal

01:02:55.226 --> 01:02:59.663
with oysters and the uncertainty
surrounding oyster harvesting.

01:03:00.443 --> 01:03:02.691
I think I\'ll learn more
about the unique problems

01:03:02.859 --> 01:03:05.510
governing the oyster harvesting
and at the same time,

01:03:05.678 --> 01:03:07.130
they\'ll get some information from me

01:03:07.298 --> 01:03:09.855
about the future of the program
and how we\'ll process the claims

01:03:10.263 --> 01:03:11.459
and how to deal with it.

01:03:11.831 --> 01:03:18.147
-I think that he still doesn\'t really
understand the impacts

01:03:18.743 --> 01:03:21.975
that there has been
on the people

01:03:22.143 --> 01:03:25.260
in the oyster business
in the state of Louisiana,

01:03:25.668 --> 01:03:29.431
and how our market\'s going to be
impacted for some time to come.

01:03:29.540 --> 01:03:32.868
-By the end of 2012,
it is reasonable to anticipate

01:03:33.036 --> 01:03:35.834
a return to normalcy in the Gulf.

01:03:36.520 --> 01:03:37.678
I don\'t know for sure.

01:03:37.846 --> 01:03:39.041
Nobody knows for sure.

01:03:39.273 --> 01:03:43.001
My goal is to compensate people,
try and make them whole.

01:03:43.948 --> 01:03:49.204
Try and work with people
in the Gulf so that eventually,

01:03:49.815 --> 01:03:52.627
whether it be six months,
a year, two years or longer,

01:03:52.834 --> 01:03:55.778
the Gulf will be returned
to its former luster.

01:03:56.093 --> 01:04:01.159
-Hopefully things will work out
for us and the people we represent,

01:04:01.327 --> 01:04:04.677
and make sure that
the Gulf oyster people are

01:04:04.845 --> 01:04:07.244
taken care of and made whole.

01:04:10.009 --> 01:04:14.572
[music]

01:04:19.700 --> 01:04:21.862
-This is our annual
Let The World Be Your Oyster event.

01:04:22.030 --> 01:04:24.565
This is a chance for the East Coast
growers, the West Coast growers,

01:04:24.725 --> 01:04:27.875
and the Gulf Coast oyster growers
around the nation to come together

01:04:28.043 --> 01:04:30.753
and showcase the oyster industry
for the nation.

01:04:34.741 --> 01:04:36.790
-We brought up some
of the best chefs from Louisiana too.

01:04:36.958 --> 01:04:38.407
We have good chef John Besh here.

01:04:38.789 --> 01:04:40.843
-This is
the Louisiana oyster pot roast.

01:04:41.518 --> 01:04:43.367
It\'s a real traditional recipe.

01:04:43.518 --> 01:04:46.318
We\'ve taken it
and put a modern spin on it.

01:04:46.510 --> 01:04:48.490
Oysters and bacon right on top.

01:04:48.680 --> 01:04:50.549
-We also have
our famous oyster shuckers

01:04:50.717 --> 01:04:51.793
from ACME Oyster House.

01:04:52.083 --> 01:04:54.123
-The key to shucking oysters is
not cutting your hands.

01:04:54.417 --> 01:04:56.759
The most important part about
is it\'s all about presentation.

01:04:57.105 --> 01:05:00.177
Cut it, crack it, slide it,
Make sure it\'s clean.

01:05:00.768 --> 01:05:03.144
Cut it on both sides,
and take it to the top.

01:05:05.401 --> 01:05:06.968
Hate this job, hate this job.

01:05:07.194 --> 01:05:10.157
-The importance of tonight is really
get out there and tell people that

01:05:10.325 --> 01:05:14.252
not only is our seafood safe to eat,
not only does it taste good,

01:05:14.420 --> 01:05:18.481
but it\'s the most highly scrutinized
foodstuff in the marketplace today.

01:05:18.870 --> 01:05:21.892
What makes it to the
marketplace is unbelievably good

01:05:22.059 --> 01:05:23.350
and it\'s good for you.

01:05:37.360 --> 01:05:39.960
-I was invited to give
a topical lecture

01:05:40.552 --> 01:05:42.751
at the American Association
for the Advancement

01:05:42.919 --> 01:05:44.449
of Science Meeting
in Washington.

01:05:44.758 --> 01:05:47.946
We\'re about to go in for a press
briefing on the oil spill.

01:05:48.145 --> 01:05:50.855
It\'ll be myself
and three other scientists.

01:05:51.097 --> 01:05:52.885
It should be really interesting.

01:05:53.685 --> 01:05:57.355
I go into these things
with one goal, not losing my cool.

01:05:58.708 --> 01:06:00.676
Good morning,
and thanks to everybody for coming.

01:06:01.644 --> 01:06:04.350
I\'m going to just touch
on three basic topics

01:06:04.525 --> 01:06:06.154
and I\'m going to show you
a couple of videos

01:06:06.322 --> 01:06:09.841
that we took on the seafloor
in December from the Alvin.

01:06:09.985 --> 01:06:11.345
I\'m going to show you the first clip,

01:06:11.678 --> 01:06:13.927
it\'s from a natural oil seep.

01:06:14.090 --> 01:06:18.632
The second clip is from
a site about 10 miles north

01:06:18.800 --> 01:06:20.454
of the Deepwater Horizon.

01:06:20.616 --> 01:06:24.437
It\'s a place where Macondo oil
ended up on the bottom

01:06:24.605 --> 01:06:26.852
and we fingerprinted it to Macondo.

01:06:27.020 --> 01:06:29.339
I felt like it was
really important

01:06:29.507 --> 01:06:33.302
to tell the story
of the deep-sea ecosystem,

01:06:33.470 --> 01:06:37.738
in particular, because of this sense
that\'s being pushed

01:06:37.906 --> 01:06:39.701
that everything\'s fine out there.

01:06:39.869 --> 01:06:42.911
When it in actuality,
isn\'t fine at all.

01:06:43.079 --> 01:06:45.016
The fate of this material
on the bottom,

01:06:45.233 --> 01:06:48.531
once it gets to the bottom
on the beaches,

01:06:49.011 --> 01:06:52.975
you\'re talking years
or decades to get rid of it.

01:06:53.143 --> 01:06:55.555
Some of it like
the asphaltene fraction,

01:06:56.015 --> 01:06:57.276
does not biodegrade.

01:06:57.554 --> 01:07:00.033
-Well, the asphaltene
does biodegrade.

01:07:00.335 --> 01:07:02.144
It just does it very, very slowly.

01:07:03.812 --> 01:07:08.154
There\'s no compound on demand
that bacteria can\'t degrade,

01:07:08.576 --> 01:07:11.137
but you have to have
the right conditions.

01:07:12.427 --> 01:07:17.387
We can\'t detect anything in
the water column or at the surface,

01:07:17.988 --> 01:07:21.076
and that\'s both chemically
and with instruments.

01:07:21.750 --> 01:07:27.533
-I think scientists disagree a lot
and it\'s just never usually public.

01:07:28.083 --> 01:07:31.555
You have disagreements
on the telephone

01:07:31.711 --> 01:07:33.419
or you walk down the hallway

01:07:33.586 --> 01:07:36.831
and have a conversation
disagreeing about something.

01:07:36.939 --> 01:07:42.152
-Now you have to remember that
400,000 to a Million barrels of oil

01:07:42.320 --> 01:07:46.637
go into the Gulf of Mexico
for natural seeps every year.

01:07:46.805 --> 01:07:48.434
The bugs are adapted to it.

01:07:49.287 --> 01:07:52.901
If I had to look for bacteria
that could degrade oil,

01:07:53.069 --> 01:07:54.219
this would have been the place.

01:07:54.361 --> 01:07:57.521
-I think in this case,
the Million barrels of oil a year

01:07:57.689 --> 01:08:00.037
being released
into the Gulf of Mexico,

01:08:00.204 --> 01:08:01.887
that\'s not in the NRC.

01:08:02.055 --> 01:08:03.475
That\'s not in any report.

01:08:03.643 --> 01:08:05.786
That\'s a big number,
and it\'s just not right.

01:08:05.954 --> 01:08:08.806
I disagree with you a little bit
on the natural seepage rate.

01:08:08.984 --> 01:08:14.755
The low-end estimate is 400 barrels
per day over the entire ecosystem.

01:08:15.154 --> 01:08:19.516
If you compare Macondo to that,
it\'s seven orders of magnitude higher

01:08:19.684 --> 01:08:20.688
on an areal basis.

01:08:20.895 --> 01:08:27.713
While these organisms do experience
exposure to oil and gas, naturally,

01:08:27.866 --> 01:08:31.075
to suddenly ramp up seven
orders of magnitude,

01:08:31.243 --> 01:08:34.176
that\'s just physiologically,
in my opinion, impossible.

01:08:34.379 --> 01:08:37.716
Points like that,
I did get my dander up,

01:08:37.884 --> 01:08:41.527
because I think it\'s a really
critical thing to clarify.

01:08:41.695 --> 01:08:45.727
-There\'s that feeling in you
especially pushed by the NOAA,

01:08:45.881 --> 01:08:48.018
that everything\'s going
to be just fine.

01:08:49.089 --> 01:08:50.389
-I don\'t share that.

01:08:50.557 --> 01:08:51.365
-Why is that?

01:08:51.541 --> 01:08:53.281
Why do you think
they\'re pushing that?

01:08:53.449 --> 01:08:55.544
-Everybody wants it to be fine.

01:08:55.712 --> 01:08:56.824
I want it to be fine.

01:08:56.992 --> 01:08:58.349
I wish I could sit here
and stand

01:08:58.517 --> 01:09:00.879
and tell you that I thought
everything was going to be wonderful,

01:09:01.047 --> 01:09:02.912
fine by 2012.

01:09:03.460 --> 01:09:04.666
I\'ve been to the bottom,

01:09:04.834 --> 01:09:06.824
I\'ve seen what it looks
like with my own eyes.

01:09:07.063 --> 01:09:09.141
It\'s not going to be fine by 2012.

01:09:09.441 --> 01:09:11.413
-Do you find yourself more
comfortable with things like

01:09:11.581 --> 01:09:16.133
what Wes Tunnel said when he goes,
things will be okay in about a year?

01:09:16.301 --> 01:09:19.140
-Based upon our experience
with the Ixtoc I blowout,

01:09:19.308 --> 01:09:20.934
which was actually
in the Gulf of Mexico

01:09:21.102 --> 01:09:22.464
and were quite similar,

01:09:22.689 --> 01:09:24.571
we couldn\'t see any effects
after two years.

01:09:25.160 --> 01:09:29.947
I was saying this right
from the very beginning that, well,

01:09:30.122 --> 01:09:35.788
it may not be as devastating
as some people are thinking.

01:09:35.956 --> 01:09:38.957
-Is it fair to say those who are
optimistic things are getting better

01:09:39.125 --> 01:09:42.822
and things will be fine by 2012
are looking in the wrong places?

01:09:43.433 --> 01:09:45.150
-Well, they\'re either
looking at the wrong places

01:09:45.318 --> 01:09:48.912
or they\'re not considering
the entire available dataset.

01:09:49.127 --> 01:09:51.354
-Now, I have to ask this,
because others have raised this.

01:09:51.808 --> 01:09:56.761
You\'re working on grants from
pre-Macondo still that are BP grants?

01:09:56.929 --> 01:09:57.848
-That\'s right.

01:09:58.016 --> 01:10:00.563
We are at the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory,

01:10:00.731 --> 01:10:03.769
which is the US Department
of Energy National Laboratory.

01:10:04.353 --> 01:10:08.585
Very strict requirements, conflicts
of interest, and that sort of thing.

01:10:08.753 --> 01:10:10.590
-It doesn\'t mean that
you shouldn\'t be optimistic.

01:10:10.758 --> 01:10:12.890
I think you should be optimistic
the Gulf is resilient.

01:10:13.058 --> 01:10:15.880
But just because it\'s a system
that\'s rich in hydrocarbons

01:10:16.048 --> 01:10:21.147
doesn\'t mean it can digest,
if you will, this amount of carbon

01:10:21.315 --> 01:10:24.177
on the timescale
that we\'re talking about.

01:10:24.370 --> 01:10:27.536
We don\'t know all the answers,
and that\'s going to be my conclusion.

01:10:27.704 --> 01:10:29.782
We need to do
a lot more research.

01:10:30.020 --> 01:10:35.100
I think the $500 Million that BP
has put on the table is a good start

01:10:35.268 --> 01:10:39.658
for getting the kinds of information
that we need to answer the questions

01:10:39.826 --> 01:10:41.919
that need to be answered critically.

01:10:42.919 --> 01:10:46.397
-We\'re funding that research over
the next 10 years, to the tune

01:10:46.565 --> 01:10:49.082
of an additional $500 Billion
that we are funding.

01:10:49.271 --> 01:10:53.397
In addition to what independent
research is being done to support our

01:10:53.565 --> 01:10:55.529
long term understandings of yes,

01:10:55.696 --> 01:10:58.610
the ecosystem has
absorbed any suspended oils

01:10:58.778 --> 01:11:01.514
in the water to the best of our
scientific knowledge today,

01:11:01.698 --> 01:11:04.335
but what\'s the long term consequences
of that having occurred?

01:11:04.788 --> 01:11:07.785
I do remind you,
that ecosystem is there,

01:11:07.953 --> 01:11:09.789
because of the natural seepage

01:11:09.956 --> 01:11:12.881
that is occurring every day
of oils and gases.

01:11:13.136 --> 01:11:14.738
Whether it\'s naturally flowing,

01:11:14.945 --> 01:11:18.595
it\'s discharged from vessels
or it\'s from, unfortunately,

01:11:18.763 --> 01:11:20.443
this type of incident.

01:11:35.288 --> 01:11:38.638
-We\'re going to bring
the dolphin in here and take x-rays.

01:11:39.164 --> 01:11:41.312
Then once we get our x-rays,
we\'ll take our measurements

01:11:41.480 --> 01:11:43.441
or morphometrics, they call them.

01:11:44.453 --> 01:11:46.413
It\'s going to be lined up
with this line here.

01:11:46.581 --> 01:11:49.040
January, February,
we make it one to two a month,

01:11:49.208 --> 01:11:52.351
and right now we\'re up to 37.

01:11:53.801 --> 01:11:57.480
First time with any forensic study
is you try to make your list

01:11:57.648 --> 01:11:59.544
of any possibility that you may find.

01:12:00.326 --> 01:12:02.186
One could be the BP oil spill.

01:12:02.354 --> 01:12:04.487
Secondly, it could be dispersant.

01:12:05.036 --> 01:12:06.520
Then we start looking,
is it a virus?

01:12:06.688 --> 01:12:08.121
Is bacterial?
Is it fungal?

01:12:08.488 --> 01:12:11.861
Is it developmental?
Is it temperature-related?

01:12:12.099 --> 01:12:13.242
Population-related?

01:12:13.410 --> 01:12:15.948
Do we have more dolphins in this area
than we\'ve ever had before,

01:12:16.116 --> 01:12:17.591
and maybe they\'re having more babies?

01:12:17.759 --> 01:12:18.971
That looks like intestines.

01:12:19.146 --> 01:12:20.012
We\'ll see when we get in.

01:12:20.180 --> 01:12:24.468
It\'s also concerns us, because
if we\'re getting this many animals

01:12:24.616 --> 01:12:27.853
at this time period, what are
we going to get in March and April,

01:12:28.128 --> 01:12:30.226
which is our true stranding season?

01:12:30.394 --> 01:12:31.869
That\'s when it really gets busy.

01:12:32.226 --> 01:12:36.578
Right now, we\'re already 10 times,
15 times what we normally have.

01:12:37.977 --> 01:12:40.832
-We ask people to pay
attention to this issue,

01:12:41.000 --> 01:12:42.735
because it affects all of us.

01:12:43.936 --> 01:12:48.160
The changes in these animals also
reflect the possible changes

01:12:48.328 --> 01:12:51.272
that might be going on
in the entire ecosystem.

01:12:56.497 --> 01:13:00.913
-One of the biggest concerns
that we\'re facing today is the health

01:13:01.081 --> 01:13:03.022
and wellbeing of the workforce

01:13:03.189 --> 01:13:06.009
who was in support
of the response efforts,

01:13:06.177 --> 01:13:08.812
but also in the communities
that are along the coast.

01:13:09.400 --> 01:13:12.679
Their safety, and the understanding
of the risks that we expose them to

01:13:12.847 --> 01:13:15.227
were paramount in our
everyday decision making.

01:13:15.742 --> 01:13:19.981
We gathered more than
40,000 individual air monitors

01:13:20.188 --> 01:13:22.716
on individual workers to ascertain

01:13:22.884 --> 01:13:26.224
were they being exposed
to potential harmful vapors

01:13:26.566 --> 01:13:29.877
from the oil
or from the use of dispersants.

01:13:30.186 --> 01:13:33.642
Not a single individual
out of those 40,000 plus

01:13:33.810 --> 01:13:35.928
were exposed to harmful levels.

01:13:37.864 --> 01:13:42.882
[music]

01:13:48.627 --> 01:13:50.219
-The reason we\'re here today

01:13:50.759 --> 01:13:54.497
is that we\'re talking to people
here who are sick.

01:13:54.863 --> 01:13:59.215
Most of these people live in really
close proximity to the beach,

01:13:59.573 --> 01:14:01.207
and during the hot months,

01:14:01.375 --> 01:14:03.898
the oil was volatilizing

01:14:04.278 --> 01:14:07.021
and there was a lot of vapor
insolvent in the air.

01:14:07.174 --> 01:14:09.974
I was here in July,
and I could smell that.

01:14:10.523 --> 01:14:12.695
-Hi, Jessica.
-Hello.

01:14:14.182 --> 01:14:18.319
-I just want to talk to you about
how you\'re feeling,

01:14:18.495 --> 01:14:20.326
and as a resident here
in Grand Isle,

01:14:20.502 --> 01:14:23.450
when you first noticed
that you felt sick?

01:14:23.807 --> 01:14:28.773
-Well, right after the oil spill,
pretty much most of the students

01:14:28.941 --> 01:14:31.674
in the school got sick
after maybe a week.

01:14:32.154 --> 01:14:33.834
I had a horrible cough.

01:14:34.217 --> 01:14:35.989
Then I had high fevers.

01:14:36.141 --> 01:14:39.301
I had fevers up to
103.9 every night.

01:14:40.488 --> 01:14:44.264
-Once oil enters, the body
gets toxic to every organ system.

01:14:45.382 --> 01:14:49.459
The reproductive system,
the nervous system, the liver,

01:14:49.627 --> 01:14:51.788
kidneys, the skin.

01:14:52.046 --> 01:14:53.656
-I had severe bronchitis.

01:14:53.824 --> 01:14:55.370
I\'ve been having
breathing problems.

01:14:55.538 --> 01:14:57.727
The doctor thought I had asthma,
and I didn\'t

01:14:57.895 --> 01:15:01.031
-I ended up with two
really fierce ear infections.

01:15:01.199 --> 01:15:03.015
I\'ve never had ear infections before.

01:15:03.183 --> 01:15:06.993
-I\'ve been having a constant
cough, sinus problems.

01:15:07.517 --> 01:15:09.651
Bleeding out my nose, sometimes.

01:15:10.073 --> 01:15:13.502
-Oil readily enters the body
when it\'s dispersed.

01:15:13.908 --> 01:15:17.121
That\'s why it\'s more toxic
in a dispersed form.

01:15:17.400 --> 01:15:20.862
-I went to the doctor, and she
diagnosed me with pneumonitis,

01:15:21.030 --> 01:15:24.134
which is chemical burning
of the lining of my lungs.

01:15:24.302 --> 01:15:27.844
-I worked on the oil spill, and we
worked out there for two months

01:15:28.092 --> 01:15:30.159
when I first started coming in.

01:15:30.709 --> 01:15:33.838
I just got my test results yesterday,
the doctor called me up.

01:15:34.687 --> 01:15:37.888
I got all kinds of poisons
in my blood and them toxins and all.

01:15:38.056 --> 01:15:40.787
-In the same way
that the dispersant breaks down

01:15:40.954 --> 01:15:42.905
the lipid membrane of the oil,

01:15:43.493 --> 01:15:48.680
the dispersant also can break down
the lipid wall of cells and organs.

01:15:48.862 --> 01:15:51.855
-I know another girl in my class
whose ears bleed.

01:15:52.331 --> 01:15:54.761
You\'ll just be in class
and you\'ll see a trickle of blood.

01:15:54.989 --> 01:15:59.386
-As a scientist, I\'m of course,
skeptical of some of these stories

01:15:59.554 --> 01:16:01.582
of these high levels of chemicals,

01:16:01.749 --> 01:16:07.598
but I think certain people
now have gone

01:16:07.766 --> 01:16:12.185
and gotten tested, and
there are data that we can look at.

01:16:12.431 --> 01:16:13.828
It\'s not so anecdotal.

01:16:14.065 --> 01:16:17.395
-It\'s constant burn
in my chest, nervousness,

01:16:17.724 --> 01:16:20.384
and I got a glop
that\'s coming out on my eye.

01:16:21.186 --> 01:16:22.596
That started on the oil spill.

01:16:22.764 --> 01:16:24.898
-You just got your test results.

01:16:25.056 --> 01:16:27.115
Tell me what you remember of that?

01:16:27.274 --> 01:16:30.900
-I got an exime in my blood,
ethanol poisoning.

01:16:31.068 --> 01:16:33.347
-Essentially,
you have chemical poisoning?

01:16:33.515 --> 01:16:34.639
-Yes, ma\'a.
-Right.

01:16:34.813 --> 01:16:35.567
Chemical poisoning.

01:16:35.718 --> 01:16:38.518
-You have very high levels
of the chemical?

01:16:38.744 --> 01:16:40.243
This is heartbreaking.

01:16:40.814 --> 01:16:43.321
I am a scientist,
I came here as a scientist,

01:16:43.488 --> 01:16:45.230
I\'m working on a project here.

01:16:50.625 --> 01:16:52.850
It\'s just hard to hear

01:16:54.795 --> 01:16:58.745
the incredible sadness and suffering.

01:16:58.913 --> 01:17:02.680
There are people
that are not even on the edge,

01:17:02.894 --> 01:17:04.029
they\'re over the edge.

01:17:04.577 --> 01:17:07.505
There are animals out there
that are over the edge,

01:17:07.720 --> 01:17:11.496
there\'s baby dolphins that are dying
that are over the edge.

01:17:11.722 --> 01:17:13.681
There\'s only so much

01:17:14.722 --> 01:17:19.471
that we can pollute
and still maintain the planet.

01:17:19.777 --> 01:17:22.857
We are pushing ourselves
to the edge, I think.

01:17:24.145 --> 01:17:25.992
-We have continued to work

01:17:26.159 --> 01:17:29.864
and support the funding
through a $10 Million grant

01:17:30.031 --> 01:17:33.679
to actually study the long-term
exposures and consequences

01:17:33.847 --> 01:17:36.590
to the workforce
who was in response.

01:17:36.999 --> 01:17:40.414
They\'re undertaking that study
to ensure that factually,

01:17:40.582 --> 01:17:44.029
we can demonstrate that
that workforce was not exposed

01:17:44.374 --> 01:17:47.680
in a way that created harm
for their health and wellbeing.

01:17:48.285 --> 01:17:51.282
For anybody
who is experiencing health issues,

01:17:51.582 --> 01:17:54.828
we\'re working to ensure
that the local medical communities

01:17:54.996 --> 01:17:58.252
have the relevant
and specific information

01:17:58.698 --> 01:18:02.331
as it relates to hydrocarbons
and to the dispersants used

01:18:02.499 --> 01:18:04.800
so that those local doctors
and physicians

01:18:04.968 --> 01:18:09.180
can make appropriate
medical analysis

01:18:09.442 --> 01:18:12.000
and recommendations
for their patients.

01:18:13.580 --> 01:18:17.808
[music]

01:18:28.690 --> 01:18:34.060
-We\'re looking at approximately
a 7.5 to 9 mile facing stretch

01:18:34.228 --> 01:18:37.027
of marsh impact
that we\'re dealing with

01:18:37.195 --> 01:18:39.700
here in the Barataria Bay Area.

01:18:40.391 --> 01:18:42.668
These two crane devices
that you\'re seeing here

01:18:42.836 --> 01:18:44.627
were actually developed specifically

01:18:44.795 --> 01:18:47.366
with the devices
on the end of them to be used

01:18:47.534 --> 01:18:50.113
to help us reach into the marsh

01:18:50.425 --> 01:18:54.317
to be able to rake
and squeegee the oil

01:18:54.485 --> 01:18:57.161
that is been trapped
under the grass as

01:18:57.328 --> 01:19:00.004
it was laid down
during storm conditions.

01:19:01.218 --> 01:19:05.804
We\'re going in and removing
that oil affected vegetation

01:19:05.972 --> 01:19:11.230
to allow for the roots that
haven\'t been impacted to regenerate.

01:19:12.160 --> 01:19:16.320
You can see the new fresh green,
that\'s all new growth coming back

01:19:16.488 --> 01:19:18.688
through an area
that was impacted.

01:19:19.528 --> 01:19:23.906
-This vegetation is what\'s protecting
the shoreline here from eroding.

01:19:24.355 --> 01:19:28.846
As storms come in, the waves
beat against the shorelines.

01:19:29.014 --> 01:19:30.997
If there\'s no vegetation in place,

01:19:31.164 --> 01:19:33.711
then it just erodes away
at the landmass.

01:19:34.298 --> 01:19:35.673
Once you erode this away,

01:19:35.840 --> 01:19:38.925
you\'re losing your
estuaries for your fish.

01:19:39.323 --> 01:19:43.752
You\'re losing your hurricane
protection for what\'s behind this.

01:19:44.053 --> 01:19:46.732
This is a very, very critical area.

01:19:48.466 --> 01:19:50.905
-We\'re approximately 30% complete.

01:19:51.295 --> 01:19:54.001
We expect that we will be able
to complete this task

01:19:54.135 --> 01:19:55.372
by the end of June.

01:19:56.026 --> 01:19:57.226
It\'s very slow.

01:19:57.376 --> 01:19:59.654
It\'s very methodical work,
as you can see.

01:20:00.223 --> 01:20:03.107
We\'ll continue that until
we\'ve completed this process.

01:20:04.394 --> 01:20:06.885
[music]

01:20:07.330 --> 01:20:10.620
-I think they\'re just hanging out
right between those two birds.

01:20:10.772 --> 01:20:11.772
[music]

01:20:11.939 --> 01:20:15.962
We\'re very optimistic
that the region was very resilient

01:20:16.130 --> 01:20:17.287
and things would be coming back,

01:20:17.455 --> 01:20:21.227
until we hit
this recent mortality with dolphins.

01:20:22.686 --> 01:20:24.697
-Actually, before the spill occurred,

01:20:24.865 --> 01:20:28.961
marine biologists declared
an unusual mortality event

01:20:29.317 --> 01:20:31.517
in the Bottlenose Dolphin species.

01:20:31.797 --> 01:20:34.597
Then events of April 2010 occurred,

01:20:34.907 --> 01:20:37.581
and they\'re looking
at potential multiple causes.

01:20:37.756 --> 01:20:40.008
Is it an influx of cold water,

01:20:40.175 --> 01:20:43.128
because of the
extremely strong winters

01:20:43.256 --> 01:20:46.236
that we\'ve- cold winters that
we\'ve had over the last two years?

01:20:46.404 --> 01:20:50.572
Is it biological in nature in term
of some form of disease?

01:20:50.874 --> 01:20:55.211
Is it also a consequence
of this event creating a stressor

01:20:55.490 --> 01:20:57.757
to the dolphin community?

01:20:58.344 --> 01:20:59.816
-Starting January or February,

01:20:59.984 --> 01:21:03.169
we saw a huge spike
in the dolphin mortality,

01:21:03.337 --> 01:21:06.637
but the most unusual thing
was that majority of them

01:21:07.011 --> 01:21:08.451
were young calves.

01:21:10.254 --> 01:21:14.063
[music]

01:21:19.538 --> 01:21:22.324
-The dead baby dolphins
are the canary in the coal mine.

01:21:22.520 --> 01:21:27.798
They are telling us that we can\'t
forget about the Deepwater Horizon.

01:21:28.355 --> 01:21:29.494
It remains to be proven

01:21:29.661 --> 01:21:32.771
that there is a link between
the death of this baby dolphins

01:21:33.201 --> 01:21:35.598
and exposure
to oil-derived compounds.

01:21:35.766 --> 01:21:38.255
But the timing of the spill
and the timing

01:21:42.750 --> 01:21:45.918
of the fetuses washing
up on the beaches

01:21:46.086 --> 01:21:48.170
is very suspicious to me.

01:21:48.376 --> 01:21:51.266
-To really get to the point,
you have to do the testing.

01:21:51.434 --> 01:21:54.842
I believe it is
the responsibility now

01:21:55.010 --> 01:21:56.199
of the Federal government
to do that,

01:21:56.367 --> 01:21:58.631
because they have taken
over all the samples.

01:22:02.430 --> 01:22:04.533
[music]

01:22:08.346 --> 01:22:12.624
-Everybody\'s favorite thing to do
when you\'re at sea is to get up

01:22:12.775 --> 01:22:15.603
on the bow and watch the dolphins.

01:22:16.954 --> 01:22:19.192
The captain will announce
it on the loud speaker,

01:22:19.430 --> 01:22:23.440
\"There are dolphins on the bow.\"
Everybody stops what they\'re doing.

01:22:24.300 --> 01:22:27.720
They run up there,
and watch the dolphins.

01:22:30.758 --> 01:22:32.338
Every time I\'ve done it,

01:22:33.998 --> 01:22:39.390
there\'s always been
a few babies with the moms.

01:22:40.631 --> 01:22:42.670
It\'s just an amazing thing to see.

01:22:43.069 --> 01:22:46.406
The thought that
you might not see that anymore--

01:22:46.808 --> 01:22:48.777
I\'m sure they\'re not all
going to die,

01:22:49.264 --> 01:22:51.391
but the fact that any of them die,

01:22:53.648 --> 01:22:56.380
we have a long way to
go to really understand

01:22:56.547 --> 01:22:58.256
what\'s happening out there.

01:23:01.829 --> 01:23:04.258
[music]

01:23:07.717 --> 01:23:10.429
-You guys have been toiling
for a better of a year.

01:23:12.717 --> 01:23:16.109
Everybody\'s trying to put their hands
to it to fix the problem,

01:23:16.345 --> 01:23:17.773
and they grow weary.

01:23:18.005 --> 01:23:21.425
My encouragement to you is
do not let your hands grow weary.

01:23:21.567 --> 01:23:22.635
Let the Lord God--

01:23:22.802 --> 01:23:24.205
-You don\'t know
what\'s out there.

01:23:24.376 --> 01:23:28.984
You don\'t know if the catch is going
to be the same as in previous years.

01:23:29.113 --> 01:23:31.065
We don\'t know if we\'ll be
pulling up tar balls.

01:23:31.372 --> 01:23:32.241
-I talked to the guy yesterday.

01:23:32.409 --> 01:23:34.680
He said, \"I don\'t want to eat
no shrimp for another three years.\"

01:23:34.884 --> 01:23:37.121
I make sure that gulf is clean.

01:23:38.020 --> 01:23:41.221
-This is more than
just my livelihood.

01:23:41.407 --> 01:23:46.452
This is what I am, who
I am, what our family is,

01:23:48.096 --> 01:23:49.782
what we\'ve done for generations.

01:23:51.095 --> 01:23:52.437
-There\'s not in many places

01:23:52.605 --> 01:23:55.704
that can be considered
a 135-year old business.

01:23:57.320 --> 01:24:01.101
It\'s actually an obligation
to the city of New Orleans

01:24:01.309 --> 01:24:06.414
and something that
if we can do it as a family,

01:24:06.581 --> 01:24:08.528
then let\'s do it.

01:24:09.767 --> 01:24:11.145
-This is the prize right here.

01:24:11.478 --> 01:24:13.611
Yes, I\'ve got this for 300 bucks.

01:24:13.797 --> 01:24:16.347
I used to get to change
the headlights and stuff on it.

01:24:16.513 --> 01:24:19.112
A couple of knickknacks,
I get about 2,500 bucks,

01:24:19.520 --> 01:24:21.727
but I got to keep the beans balling
since I can\'t work,

01:24:21.894 --> 01:24:23.229
it don\'t mean I\'m going to stop.

01:24:23.642 --> 01:24:25.706
It ain\'t what I want to do,
but it\'s what I got to do.

01:24:25.865 --> 01:24:30.294
-I\'m really hoping for a good summer,
because we really do need it.

01:24:30.742 --> 01:24:32.714
If the beaches are clear enough

01:24:32.881 --> 01:24:36.445
that people can go
and bring their children down there,

01:24:36.874 --> 01:24:38.874
maybe we can get a good summer.

01:24:40.302 --> 01:24:41.518
-Of course, it\'s all
in those marshes.

01:24:41.772 --> 01:24:43.358
We don\'t know what the impact

01:24:43.526 --> 01:24:45.231
if it\'s going to be over
a long period of time.

01:24:45.549 --> 01:24:47.055
We need a lot of research.

01:24:47.505 --> 01:24:50.160
Is it look like--
Is there\'s some evidence

01:24:50.328 --> 01:24:54.918
that it\'s not as catastrophic
as originally feared?

01:24:55.619 --> 01:24:57.961
Maybe, I\'m skeptical.

01:24:58.302 --> 01:24:58.929
-All right.

01:24:59.033 --> 01:25:00.300
What we\'re going to do here

01:25:00.467 --> 01:25:02.285
is we want to start
over on this side,

01:25:02.524 --> 01:25:06.294
bow past, pay our respects as we go.

01:25:06.532 --> 01:25:08.227
-When you affect the person\'s life

01:25:08.394 --> 01:25:12.957
in the way we did,
it\'s really gratifying.

01:25:13.245 --> 01:25:15.185
I\'m just wishing we could\'ve
done more about this.

01:25:15.885 --> 01:25:16.885
-Adam Wise.

01:25:19.690 --> 01:25:20.890
Stephen Curtis.

01:25:22.142 --> 01:25:23.662
Aaron Dale Burkeen.

01:25:24.618 --> 01:25:31.061
-But you could tell,
a lot of gratitude from those guys.

01:25:32.780 --> 01:25:34.892
I\'ll never forget
the look in their eyes.

01:25:35.755 --> 01:25:36.755
[music]

01:25:37.010 --> 01:25:38.037
-This was a tragedy.

01:25:38.205 --> 01:25:42.025
11 men lost their lives
as a result of this accident.

01:25:42.280 --> 01:25:45.068
It\'s something that always
must be remembered.

01:25:45.502 --> 01:25:49.530
It must be learned from
and it must not be forgotten.

01:25:50.618 --> 01:25:57.610
This year has been a reminder of just
how fragile and how fallible

01:25:57.748 --> 01:25:59.018
both the human beings

01:25:59.116 --> 01:26:01.670
and the technology
that we depend on really are.

01:26:01.930 --> 01:26:03.554
It\'s also been a year

01:26:03.722 --> 01:26:08.042
in which I\'ve had the opportunity
to see the very best of people

01:26:08.300 --> 01:26:12.990
and the best of our ingenuity
and creativity to tackle a problem,

01:26:13.229 --> 01:26:15.059
and together work solutions.

01:26:16.476 --> 01:26:20.482
What we\'re seeing out
of the coast of Grand Isle

01:26:20.929 --> 01:26:23.292
is the opening
of brown shrimping season,

01:26:23.460 --> 01:26:24.721
which opened May 2nd.

01:26:24.889 --> 01:26:26.730
We\'re only on day three
of that season.

01:26:26.905 --> 01:26:29.007
Early indications are
the catch is good,

01:26:29.657 --> 01:26:32.386
but it\'s still early stages
associated with that.

01:26:33.223 --> 01:26:35.605
-I would have probably
told you a year ago

01:26:35.772 --> 01:26:38.696
that one person couldn\'t
really make a difference

01:26:38.864 --> 01:26:40.850
in the course
of an event like an oil spill.

01:26:41.720 --> 01:26:45.413
But there are a lot of individuals
who took a lot of punches

01:26:45.581 --> 01:26:49.661
for speaking up and telling
the world what we saw.

01:26:52.351 --> 01:26:56.062
What I learned is that people
appreciated it and they listened.

01:26:56.400 --> 01:26:57.671
They want to know more.

01:26:58.084 --> 01:27:02.012
It\'s made me realize that one person
can make a difference.

01:27:02.653 --> 01:27:04.351
[music]

Citation

Main credits

Heyman, Jay (film producer)
Heyman, Jay (film director)
Berlinger, Joe (film director)

Other credits

Director of photography, Bob Richman; editor, Gabriel Rhodes; music, APM [and 7 others].

Distributor credits

Producer: Jay Heyman, Joe Berlinger, Jon Kamen, Robert Friedman, Justin Wilke

Director: Berlinger,Joe

Directed by 

Produced by 

Cinematography by 

Film Editing by 

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director 

Sound Department 

Editorial Department 

Additional Crew