Monthly Archive

Port Fourchon is a city of heliports and ship sheds, the underbelly of an industry that literally fuels the nation. In a large Fourchon cafeteria, dock workers chow down with truckers who deliver piping. One is named Bedrock, a jacked former rig-worker with a grudge against Obama. After downing a plate of fried fish and sausage, he tells me his story.

Customers in the Subway sandwich shop were about a mile away from where President Obama was speaking in Grand Isle, LA. Photo by Kim Hubbard/Audubon Magazine

Gretna, LA
11:07pm

President Obama came to Louisiana today to speak about the oil spill.

Kemp's ridley, courtesy of the National Park Service

Among the plumes, tar balls, and ribbons of oil floating in the Gulf of Mexico swim sea and marsh turtles largely dependent on the region’s rich waters. Already officials have counted more dead turtles than they recover in a typical year, possible victims of the crude gushing into the Gulf. Some of the most vulnerable species are the Kemp’s ridley turtle, which breeds on the Gulf’s shores, and a subspecies of the diamondback terrapin turtle, a variety native to the area that’s just hanging on.

Lousiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologists untangle an oiled pelican from fishing wire and take it to be cleaned. Photo by Kim Hubbard/Audubon magazine.

It’s been 37 days since the first explosion hit the Deepwater Horizon oilrig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20. After a month of waiting for the slick to hit land, in the last week oil has begun washing up on more and more of the coast, claiming a growing number of wildlife victims and taxing response efforts. This morning S. Elizabeth Birnbaum, head of the MMS, resigned under pressure. Here’s the latest news on the Gulf oil spill:

The pair and chick, with a view of the outskirts of Bergen, from http://tjeld.uib.no/
...is playing out on the rooftop of the science building at the University of Bergen in Norway, where a group of biologists and computer wizards have installed an HD webcam not far from a roof-nesting European oystercatcher.

Oil reached Pass a Loutre marshes early this week. Photo by Kim Hubbard/Audubon Magazine

Gretna, LA
3:15pm

We went to Pass a Loutre on 5/21/10, just as the oil was beginning to enter the area. Here's what it looked like.

A blue crab. Courtesy of Richard Condrey/LSU

The United States is the world’s most important blue crab fishery, and its top- producing state is—you guessed it—Louisiana. In 2008, it landed 41.6 million pounds of the blue-tinged crustaceans—approximately 26 percent of the nation’s total haul—with a dockside value of $32 million, according to NOAA. the Gulf oil spill’s timing is also bad for blue crab, which are currently spawning offshore.

Forensic engineer Frank Willis chartered a plane and visited the Chandeleur Islands in the Gulf Coast once oil began spewing from the wrecked Deepwater Horizon rig. Here are his photos and account of the oil, up close and personal.