Rocky Kistner's blog

There’s a parallel universe in the Gulf these days. In one, the water’s clear, the beaches clean and the seafood's as sublime as ever. The other is the one I witnessed last month, a world many fear may be closer to the truth.

Just a week after the anniversary of the nation’s greatest oil disaster, Congress is set to vote on legislation to open up virtually all federal waters to drilling, while cutting governmental oversight and safety measures at the same time.

That’s sort of like telling the designer of the Titanic to forget about the icebergs and just build more ships. Full speed ahead!

On the day before Easter, Shirley Tillman and her husband were driving on the beach road of Pass Christian, MS, when she spotted something odd. There by the shoreline was a small wooden cross, a lone monument someone had planted in the sand. She told her husband to pull over so she could get a closer look, grabbed her camera and headed to the beach.

More than 60 miles north of the flashy beach casinos of Biloxi, MS, you come to a place where the earth turns to reddish clay and the lush green fields are stripped of their timber. It’s a place where locals struggle with high unemployment in the most poverty stricken state in the country. The lifespan of an African American born today in Mississippi is the same as an average American in 1960.

The anniversary of the country’s worst oil disaster came and went last week. There was a brief frenzy of media attention, a litany of speeches and promises by politicians, and emotional memorials  in honor of the 11 men who died in the Deepwater Horizon’s fiery explosion a year ago.

But for many in the Gulf struggling to regain their livelihoods, life is far from normal, the future far from certain. Even though one-year anniversaries are great for bringing people together to share their stories, their grieving and their hopes, it hasn’t stopped the dying.

The one-year mark of the BP oil disaster finds may Gulf coast residents are still struggling with the impacts and unanswered questions left in the wake of the country’s worst oil spill.

This weekend, the Woodstock of the environmental movement is on full display, not in a remote farm in New York, but deep in the heart of the nation's Capitol.

On a picture perfect spring day, Cherri Foytlin and an entourage of friends and associates from the Gulf marched across the Memorial Bridge into Washington, completing a 1200 mile journey to raise awareness about the health impacts of the BP oil disaster.

Laurel Lockamy was upset that a dolphin had been lying dead in the sand near Pass Christian, MS, for more than five days. It had been painted orange after being counted by the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and tagged as counted. But it still was not moved and was decomposing in the sand.

Kindra Arnesen and Ryan Lambert live only a few miles from each other deep in the bayou of Plaquemines Parish, LA.

Rocky Kistner

Apr 12 2011

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