In keeping with my usual predilection for oil spill-related coverage, I have opted for a Gulf Coast column today — if my editorials can even be described as “reporting,” since these rhapsodies on ruination and oil greed are usually about as objective as some of the infamous BP blog postings describing skimming boat operations as “a ballet at sea as mesmerizing as any performance in a concert hall” — except my mutineer ramblings tend to fall on the opposite end of the political spectrum of discourse.To clarify my expertise in Gulf surveying, I am seasonally employed by a Colorado-based research company — a consulting firm ultimately passing along its collected data to a federal agency, NOAA.It is a queer experience issuing these surveys: an incongruous kid shuffling up to a crew of fishermen with an official-looking clipboard in hand and the same nervous smile and professional credibility of a used car salesman.Then there is the honorific stigma of identifying oneself as a representative of “NOAA,” a name that conjures up the same gut feelings of fear and loathing for charter fishermen as the corollary white-collar terror of a strange man in suit and tie confronting you at work and formally introducing himself as an IRS agent.It was NOAA, after all, who instated hardline regulations on red snapper to prevent “overfishing” of the species in 2008.When I spoke with the deckhand Pete of the Pat-Al charter boat docked in Delta Marina in Empire, my mention of NOAA’s red snapper-season arbitration gave him serious pause.”That’s another joke, right there,” he said, going on to describe the actual abundance of red snapper in the Gulf. “The captains and deckhands, they’re not allowed to keep any red snapper. The [guests] are allowed two each.”Conversely, commercial fishermen are allowed to catch 300 pounds of red snapper — per 12 hour period.Pete went on to explain what happens to a fish swimming at a depth of 80 feet that is suddenly reeled up to the surface.”They puff up,” he said, gesturing an inflating balloon motion with his hands. Pete explained that deckhands are instructed to pop the red snapper’s grossly inflated “swim bladder” with a fish hook or special tool.”But even with that, when you throw ‘em back, you’re only talkin’ about a 50% chance of survival,” he said. “I mean, you can throw ’em back in and watch the sharks eat ’em, but you can’t keep ’em. It’s stupid.”These sorts of anecdotes serve as a grim reminder of the frequent discord between career fishermen and the bureaucratic entities that regulate the high seas on which those same fishermen toil to earn their daily bread.And while their livelihoods might not be as directly and irrevocably compromised by April 20th’s Deepwater Horizon blowout, recreational fishermen are similarly irate and no less critical of the man-made calamity and its perceived inadequate response efforts by both federal agencies and BP.”Of all the people – British Petroleum,” said Mike, a local fisherman who permanently docks his boat in the wet slips of Cochiara’s Marina in Jean Lafitte.”If it were Chevron, or Exxon, or even Shell — although Shell was originally a foreign company too, Royal Dutch Shell — the other companies wouldn’t handle it like this.”Mike explained the scheme of “improvident avarice,” to borrow a phrase from the American slave and writer Olaudah Equiano, which was employed by BP as a normative measure and as a matter of company policy in response to the spill.”British Petroleum, they’re tight — they don’t like to spend a lot of money so they can keep  profits high — just like Texaco did in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.”The sagely knowledge of just a handful of the thousands of people afflicted by this spill is enough to give one a certain humbling perspective on the uniqueness of our unusual state’s culture — and embolden all of us to help preserve it in whatever small way, in the cosmic scheme of things, we possibly can.–
Contact Trevor Fanning at [email protected]