Bayou La Batre...The Psychological Scars Left by BP

Bayou La Batre Fishing Fleet

The psychological scars related to the BP oil spill are evident along the Gulf coast of Alabama, but none so severe as for those people whose only livelihood depends upon the fishing industry. 

Bayou La Batre, Alabama (pronounced BYE-yoo luh-BAH-tre) is a fishing village outside of Mobile, Alabama founded in 1786 and named the seafood capital of Alabama. It gained its notoriety from the 1994 film, "Forrest Gump", and Winston Groom’s book of the same name. Its economy is predominately dependent upon the Gulf of Mexico and its bounty. There is an old saying that Bayou La Batre has four seasons; shrimp, oysters, crab and fish. For the people who live there, it’s not just a job, it’s a way of life and one which they are proud to hand down from generation to generation. Most employment comes from commercial fishing and seafood processing plants; all shut down after the spill.

Shrimp

Bayou La Batre appeared to be slowly recovering from hurricanes Katrina and Ivan when the Deep Water Horizon explosion occurred.  After the BP Oil spill, not only did the economy tank, the people of Bayou La Batre suffered psychological scaring most of us will never know or understand. I read an account of a 27-year old, fourth-generation shrimper and Iraq war veteran who said if it were not for his children, he would have committed suicide. He found himself on top of an eighth story building one day sitting there contemplating whether to leap.  You see, without a job and income to feed his family, he said he felt he had failed. This is a young man who survived the perils of war but came close to not surviving the BP Oil spill.  

In the heart of the cleanup process, BP’s CEO recused himself from the stressful rigors of dealing with the day-to-day clean up operations because he needed some “time off” for a vacation.  He left his post to travel back to England to hob knob with the rich and famous at a yacht race.  His and BP’s insensitivity is reprehensible. Mr. CEO, try justifying your need for relaxation to the fishermen now trying to find work to feed their families and pay their bills. Explain to them why their only means of providing for their families has been placed on hold, indefinitely, while you and BP try and figure things out.  I assume, Mr. CEO , you also failed to mention the fact that the tab for your yachting junket far exceeded Bayou La Batre’s median annual household income of $25,000.  BP defended their CEO’s actions ad nauseum.  BP, still not willing to take social responsibility and with spin doctors hard at work, attempted to place blame on everyone short of the Pope; first on Transocean and then Halliburton.

In an effort to restore their image and to maintain just an inkling of human decency, BP decides to offer employment to out of work fishermen deploying boom to shield the marshes and spray dispersants under the “Vessels of Opportunity Program”.  Now there's an oxymoron for you.  As uncovered by a few whistle blowers, there was a catch.  BP began disbursing “relief payments” for lost pay; a mediocre attempt to pacify and to save face in the eyes of the public. To summarize, BP issued a statement saying that the company was authorized to deduct money from individual payments for lost income if the claimant refused to work assisting in the oil spill response. You talk about adding insult to injury; one word, unconscionable. 

It wasn’t long before fishermen on these "Vessels of Opportunity" began falling ill due to high toxicity levels, and BP’s CEO confirms his idiocy, yet again, with the explanation that it wasn’t the toxic vapors from the dispersants and the oil itself making these fishermen ill, but rather seasickness.  Perhaps, he would like to don his nifty Thurston Powell, III attire and share a long, hard day’s work out in the Gulf on one of these boats and see how he fares.  Seasickness?  These folks are commercial fisherman, they don’t get seasick.  After many missteps and derisory statements by its CEO, BP finally gave him the heave ho in the form of a permanent hiatus to pursue his yachting adventures.

Fisherman laying boom

What cannot be ignored is the heartbreaking psychological toll on the people of Bayou La Batre that BP and the oil spill left behind in its wake.  According to Steven Picou, an environmental sociologist at the University of South Alabama, the BP Oil Spill is “ almost like Exxon Valdez fast-forward.”  Picou has spent the past 20 years tracking the mental health fallout around Prince William Sound. "In Alaska, the communities were blindsided," he says. "They did not realize what was happening to them until the suicides started and the divorces started and the domestic violence became acute in the communities." Picou said he is seeing the same problems now on the Gulf Coast, but sooner than they surfaced after the Exxon Valdez spill.

Five months after the BP oil spill and the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, experts interviewed people in South Mobile County, Ala., and Cordova, Alaska, to find out how they were faring. They used the "impact of event" scale commonly used by psychologists and interviewed a random sample. "Severe" means the event was capable of altering your ability to function, "sub-clinical" means it was a powerful event and you were affected.  Here are the results:

Source: Duane A. Gill, J. Steven Picou, Liesel A. Ritchie; Oklahoma State University, University of South Alabama, University of Colorado

As this native Alabamian watched the day after day coverage by national news agencies reporting the plight of the people affected by the oil spill and on the clean up progress of the more heavily populated tourist areas along the Gulf coast from Louisiana to Mississippi to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Alabama, I was saddened that these reporters rarely mentioned Alabama’s little fishing village of Bayou La Batre.  On our local news stations, the Governor of Alabama pleaded to BP for assistance and more boom to protect our wetlands in our coastal towns such as Bayou La Batre.  It appeared to fall on deaf ears.  All I remember hearing was that there was a shortage of boom and all that remained was being sent to Louisiana.  Help came too late or not at all for some of the fishermen and workers employed directly or indirectly within the seafood industry. Some fisherman moved to other coastal fishing ports or gave up the business all together. Those that remained had no other alternative but to rely on BP's meager relief payments. What does a 60 year old fisherman do to make a living if all he has ever done is fish. I've heard of no offers from BP  to retrain them for another profession.  

What I can’t seem to grasp about this man-made catastrophe is how ill-prepared BP, an oil and gas supermajor, was to respond and control a disaster of this magnitude. Why after many failed attempts, did BP not have the expertise to cap the well but had to rely instead on a mystery “Joe the Plumber” to come up with the design for providing a containment cap.

Looking out in the Gulf from the shores of Dauphin Island, Alabama, I see oil well platforms that I barely gave a second glance prior to the spill other than to view them as a conduit for generating tax revenues to fund public education, etc.  Now, seeing them offshore, I feel an overwhelming sense of trepidation; wondering not if it will happen again but when it will happen. I also wonder if the State of Alabama sold its soul to the devil in welcoming the likes of BP to construct oil platforms in our waters; only to have them let us down and not live up to their promises. BP has just spent millions of dollars on a new series of TV ad campaigns to convince the public that things are back to normal on the Gulf coast.  “The beaches are open for business” states their catchy little slogan.  Yes, they are open, but workers still are being dispatched to clean up tar balls the size of grapefruits each time rough seas dislodge them from the Gulf floor and deposit them along the shoreline.  

BP, don’t patronize us or insult our intelligence with your cheesy TV commercials promoting Gulf coast tourism used, primarily, to improve  the ugly legacy you have left behind. We can handle our tourism trade.  It may behoove you to spend those millions more wisely; say perhaps on scientific exploration to ascertain just how much oil is still sitting on the Gulf floor or to develop tried and proven methods for capping and containing an oil rig flow.  Oh, and while you are in the neighborhood, take a look at the wildlife estuaries and marine life to see just how much harm you have done there as well.  

David Thier, a free lance writer, says "environmentalists worry that larval shrimp may have been impacted before adults, or that oil on the sea floor has yet to work its way into the ecosystem. Some oyster beds suffered 50 percent mortality from the fresh water that officials let out to push the oil out of the marshes. Consumers worry that positive reports are wishful thinking or industry spin. Fishermen, processors, and distributors worry that their BP money won't hold out until prices recover.   For everyone connected to Gulf seafood, the future is hazy".

Yes, the Gulf coast is "open for business" but we are waiting for the other shoe to drop with environmental repercussions related to the oil spill and the psychological scarring will always remain.

David Thier is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New Republic, AOLNews, Wired.com, IGN.com, and South Magazine.
Source: Duane A. Gill, J. Steven Picou, Liesel A. Ritchie; Oklahoma State University, University of South Alabama, University of Colorado