Voices from the Gulf

Showing stories 541 through 550 of 818 total stories.

My name is Baley Martinez. I am from the community of Grand Caillou, in Dulac, Louisiana (south of Houma). I am a part of the 17,000 member tribe United Houma Nation. I was born and raised in this community and I am currently 18 yrs old.  Already in my lifetime, I have seen the drastic changes in the bayou region of South Louisiana.

A diverse coalition of 154 groups, including Waterkeeper Alliance, United Houma Nation, Greenpeace and 69 different Waterkeepers organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of community members around the country, Mexico and China, sent a letter to EPA Administrator Jackson and HHS Secretary Sebelius demanding action on the growing public health crisis on the Gulf Coast.

On a beautiful late afternoon in early May, Dedrick Benison and Michael Calvin are quietly surveying the house that came crashing down around them just a week before.  On April 27th they were watching a movie here, a neighbor’s house on the catfish farm where the men live and work, near Forkland, Alabama.  Moments later a tornado collapsed the roof and ripped off the kitchen wall, sending furniture and splintered wood flying.

“I hate disasters,” Derrick Evans has said grumpily and repeatedly over the past several days.  As a resident of coastal Mississippi and a Gulf Coast advocate, Evans has been through situations like this before – Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike, BP, to name a few. 

More than a month after returning home from her walk to Washington, D.C., Gulf Coast mom and advocate Cherri Foytlin thanks all of the people who made the trip possible. She walked to D.C. from New Orleans to call for action to end the BP oil disaster.

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