It’s normal for Charlie Robin III to start thinking about shrimp
and oysters this time of year. But as the stakes of a still-growing
oil spill ratcheted up Wednesday on the shores of Southeast Louisiana,
the St. Bernard Parish native and lifelong fisherman was worried about
having something to catch this year in the fertile seafood grounds to
the east of the mouth of the Mississippi river.
“If you lose your crop, you don’t have anything else to fall back on,”
he said of oysters Wednesday, as, simultaneously, cleanup teams were
readying a controlled burn operation to stymie an expanding sheen, and
forecasters predicted the oil would hit land by as a result of a shift
in the Gulf of Mexico winds.
“This is a serious deal,” he said. “They need to plug that leak.”
          The leak he’s referring to was triggered April 22 when an
explosion sank the TransOcean-owned oil rig Deepwater Horizon 50 miles
south of Venice. TransOcean operates the rig, which holds the record
for deepest drill at more than 6 miles, for British Petroleum.  Eleven
workers have yet to be accounted for after the blast, and three more
were critically injured, according to information provided by the
emergency response team.
      Despite the involvement of more than 1,000 people in the cleanup and a state of emergency declaration by Governor Bobby Jindal Thursday, the
rig is still leaking at a rate of about 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons
of oil a day, Coast Guard Petty Officer Cory Mendehal said Wednesday.
Since it’s been six days since the spill began, that means about 30,000
barrels, or more than 1.4 million gallons of oil have entered the Gulf of
Mexico.
      Recovery teams twice failed to remotely activate a relief valve that
would plug three leaks in the broken well pipe sitting with the sunken rig at the bottom of the Gulf with robots. Things only got more space age as they began work on other remedies including building large domes
to contain the spill,
according to information provided by the recovery team. A relief well would then have to be drilled to siphon out the rest of the oil.
      Work could begin Friday on the relief well Friday, but would put the relief effort which initially looked like it could be over within a week to several months.
      Since the spill began, the giant sheen has been expanding toward
shore in a fashion only Steve McQueen would truly recognize.
      The winds are going to shift Southeast Friday, pushing the 600 square
mile mass of oil toward shore, according to information made available
by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Assocation (NOAA).
      And this isn’t an average coastline. Maps indicate the oil is heading
straight for the southern tip of Plaquemines Parish, where lies the
Pass a Loutre Wildlife Management Area, and, just to the north, the
Delta National Wildlife Refuge. Countless species of birds, marine
life, always-iconic alligators and other furbearing animals are
supposed to be protected there.
      To the east, the Breton Sound and Chandeleur Sound hold the most
fertile stock of shrimp, oysters, and other seafood in the state.
      Mendehal said floating barriers, or booms, were being constructed to
protect that coastline. He added that EPA officials monitoring the
scene hadn’t recorded any damage to wildlife thus far.
      This isn’t the first spill Louisiana has encountered in the last five
years – or even the last five weeks. A pipeline operated by Chevron
spilled 18,000 gallons into a canal in the Delta refuge April 6.
Hurricane Katrina is also noted as a major oil spill event, as 6.5
million gallons of oil were estimated to have been dispersed into various area
waterways following the levee breeches.
      The oil’s creep toward the coastline comes awkwardly on the heels of
a plan by President Barack Obama to increase domestic offshore
drilling. The timing rather neatly recalls a 1969 spill off the coast
of Santa Barbara, Calif., that thrust environmental concerns into the
national consciousness.
      As 3 million gallons of oil spewed into the Pacific, and some of it
washed up onto the idyllic California beaches, public outrage boiled.
The feds declared a moratorium on offshore drilling in Florida and
California. The hubbub also helped lead to the National Environmental
Protection Act, which created the EPA.
      No matter what impact the tide washes in, the spill has already
illustrated the divergent interests that butt up directly against each
other in coastal Southeast Louisiana. Oil drillers with Star
Trek-styled mantras, local fishermen with inherited family vessels,
and protected marshlands with, well, really pretty egrets, all occupy
the same real estate. And despite the diversity, what effects one
interest is certain to have repercussions for the others.
      Robin said oyster beds were reseeded after Katrina, in the hopes of
respawning a full crop after three years. The three year mark is
approaching, he said.
      “If you get that oil spill, you’re back to square one again,” he
said. “You’re back to where you were after Katrina.”
      Still, Robin, who gets by on carpentry and boat repair in the
offseason, wasn’t completely out of ideas.
      “We suggested to put the booms on the shrimp boats, and cover it all
up,” he said of the commercial fishermen around St. Bernard Parish.
      Mendehall said he was unaware if any of the 50 boats deployed in the
recovery were indeed fishing vessels.
      The state is willing to give the shrimpers one crack at a catch before everything gets mucked up. The state department of wildlife and fisheries opened an 11th-hour shrimping season Wednesday night in portions of the Breton and Chandeleur Sounds, according to information provided by the state. The variety of shrimp available are large white shrimp, the information states.
      Meanwhile, TransOcean spokesman Guy Cantwell  said TransOcean didn’t
slow operations on other rigs in light of the explosion. He said an
investigation that is still ongoing would determine if any protective
measures were in place to prevent the spill.