Mississippi

roberta avilaBy Roberta Avila
Originally published in the Sun Herald, August 24th, 2010

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina I became the director for the Mississippi Coast Interfaith Disaster Task Force and was thrown headlong into disaster recovery work.

Yesterday the journalist Dahr Jamail appeared on the news show Democracy Now! to discuss fishermen's ongoing concerns about oil and dispersants in the Gulf. 

Jamail discusses finding dispersants and oil in the Mississippi Sound with James "Catfish" Miller and Mark Stewart, the fishermen who took Bridge the Gulf out on a similar trip a couple weeks ago.

I visited coastal Mississippi for the first time ten years ago. A friend I knew in Boston, Derrick Evans, had invited me to visit Turkey Creek, where his ancestors had settled after the Civil War. Soon he was drawn into a new life in Mississippi, and I was drawn into making a film about the struggle to protect Turkey Creek against urban sprawl, industrial contamination and disaster.

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