It was a grim holiday weekend for some fishermen in Louisiana's Sportsman's Paradise. Fishermen returning to the Rigotlets Marina this morning brought back samples of tar balls they collected while out on Lake Pontchartrain according to the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation (ABC 26 Video Report).
Ann Rheams, Director of the Foundation, estimated to CNN that the amount of oil reaching the Eastern shore of Lake Pontchartrain near Slidell at under 100 barrels, with tar balls about the size of a silver dollar. Though hundreds of miles away, Hurricane Alex stalled Gulf Coast oil containment and the resulting storm systems have pushed the oil inwards.
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham announced precautionary closures to fishing in parts of Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Tammany and Plaquemines parishes because reports of oil, easterly winds and high tides. Closures of recreational and commercial fishing are based on information from field biologists, staff and trajectory models from NOAA. Once reports of oil are received, the Department initiates a field survey and seafood testing. LDWLF updates maps of closed fishing areas daily as the oil pushes inward.
Coming during a popular holiday fishing weekend, today's closures are a gut punch to parishes fighting to keep the BP Oil Spill at bay.
In late May, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis asked the U.S. Coast Guard to approve the building a series of earthen berms and rock dikes in Lake Borgne from Alligator Bend to the East Pearl River. The Alligator Bend and Seven Lagoons Shoreline Projection Projects were originally developed to restore the coast as part of the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act, but can also prevent oil from encroaching into the marshland along Lake Borgne and can protect the lower Pontchartrain Basin.
"I was out at Fort Pike earlier this morning and can attest that our assets are in place and crews are picking up tar balls as quickly as the weather conditions permit," Landrieu said yesterday. "We have always asserted that this is going to be a long, tough slog, but I remain confident that every asset we have available is being deployed to protect the Lake."
And finally, because 11 workers died in the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, it seems important to remember them on this weekend of national reflection.
Full Article and ABC 26 Video Clip Posted at NewOrleans.com.
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Karen Dalton-Beninato: No Gulf Seafood? Sign at Taste of Chicago in Bad Taste
Was it the late Doors front-man Jim Morrison who said New Orleans is one of the few places in the world which looks just like its photos? Whomever said it, it's so true. And it applies to the whole Lake Pontchartrain area.
That's just some of what we all stand to lose if we lose the lake and the gulf to this oil gusher.
It's time we all start accurately counting the costs of an out-of-control Free Market which values short-term gain and greed above all.
What good is life if we gain the world but lose our souls?
Big Lake P is now home to a (pre-BP Gusher) thriving, growing commercial shrimping and crabbing industry. I'll never forget the first time I saw a small fleet of shrimp boats, each one with its twin booms gracefully extended like angel wings, doing their thing at Pass Manchac during the daily tidal change. It brought tears to my eyes. After that I bought some CC Lockwood Christmas cards featuring Louisiana shrimp boats at work.
There are countless restaurants all along the shoreline, many up on stilts. A fine thing indeed is to sit down at a red-checkered table to a plate of crunchy-fried softshell crab, caught fresh from the very waters lapping at the pilings underneath your feet, watching sailboats on the horizon while sipping an Abita brewed on the Northshore and poured into an ice-cold mug.
And, finally, among many other values, New Orleanians and Northshore urbanites by the thousand beat the daily heat and traffic by making their way to the shoreline, casting about for Specs and reds, dropping wire basket crab nets off piers, sitting, enjoying the breeze, picnicking and grilling at the parks, and watching the passing pelicans and listening to the raucous gulls.
Perhaps best of all, since 2005, the lake's south shore (fronting New Orleans) has had clean enough water to be once again deemed "swimable". For thousands with no access to a swimming pool that's quite valuable.
(con't)
It's a vast inland brackish water sea where residents and visitors sail, jet ski, cruise, poker-run, swim, and sunbathe. There's even a large white sandbar just offshore in adjacent Lake Maurepas where a live music festival is held on a floating platform surrounded by a few thousand spectators on hundreds of pleasure craft.
Lake P has also in recent years, post-shell-dredging, become a prime recreational fishing spot known for its bull redfish, flounder and large Speckled Trout. "Specs" are one of the best-tasting fish in the world, highly prized not only by locals but by the finest restaurants. My husband and I have spent many hours fishing for them in the shade under the Causeway, several miles from shore. Earlier in the year I caught my biggest fish ever there---a 38 lb Black Drum. It was awe-inspiring.