oil pollution

Darla Rooks is a bayou fisherman to the core. When she married Todd 20 years ago, she wore her white plastic fishing boots under her wedding dress. Todd and Darla love shrimping in the coastal waters of Louisiana the way cowboys love riding the west Texas range.  It's in their blood—a  calling passed down through the generations—a  lifestyle they hope to pass on to their grandkids.

Update: On Nov. 24, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration closed 4200 square miles of federal Gulf waters to fishing for royal red shrimp after oily tar balls were discovered in the nets of a commercial fisherman trawling for shrimp.

On Thursday, families of the Gulf coast will gather together to celebrate the holiday. But for many, it will be a bittersweet occasion. This is the first Thanksgiving since the BP oil disaster destroyed their coast and many of their businesses. Some will find it difficult to afford a turkey or ham to celebrate.

Down in the Louisiana bayou, the fall season is changing with the north winds. Millions of ducks, geese and migratory birds are arriving as they have throughout the millennia. Shrimp are slowly abandoning the nourishing coastal marshes as cooler water pushes them out to sea.

I first met JJ Creppel last summer while standing in the checkout line of the Buras Dollar Store. It’s one of the few places in this Louisiana fishing town deep down in the bayou where you can buy basic groceries and milk. Nearly all the other stores were destroyed five years ago in the monster storm that roared through here and leveled this community of 5,000 people.