Oops

By: Beth Alexander

Published On: June 25, 2010

Few of us are without childhood memories of going to the beach. Georgians may go east to the Carolinas, but regular folks in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana head south, to Gulf Shores or Panama City Beach. We’ve taken our own kids to Destin, and still younger families prefer Rosemary Beach, Seaside or Grayton. We’ve stood on the shore as waves washed over our toes, burying feet with each caress more deeply in the cool sand. We’ve built sandcastles on summer afternoons and been disappointed to see them gone the next morning, in spite of knowing the cosmic laws of the moon and the tide. Who hasn’t sat sunburned on a breezy restaurant patio, waiting for an order of raw oysters with Saltines or fried shrimp with cocktail sauce?

The light wind that ruffled children’s hair carried the salty scent of the sea, blending the cycle of life in a bouquet that restores the spirit. A good friend embroidered a pillow for me once that read, “Salt water—whether ocean or tears—heals the soul.”

Like many, I am sick and angry about the oil spill that began on March 28. It boils down to two urgent issues: stop the gushing, and clean up the mess. The impact is not just on fisheries and tourism, though that is horrific enough, but entire layers of southern culture affecting not just our region, but our country.

The effect on wildlife is sad and sickening. The internet is full of images of sea turtles drenched in oil, dragging themselves down the beach, or pelicans whose wings are heavy with it—endangered species and plain old regular sea life, all threatened with death. As for the world under the sea, cold shelves of water teaming with swarming schools of fish and the large, graceful creatures we only see at Sea World—what will happen to them?

Just a few examples: Spiny lobsters begin their life at the surface—which means they may be swimming in an oil slick. Several species of endangered sea turtles live in Gulf waters and nest on its beaches. As air breathers, they can ingest oil, blocking airways, filling their stomachs, and damaging organs.

Many are about to start their nesting season. More than 25 species of whales and dolphins swim in the Gulf, including bottlenose dolphins and endangered North Atlantic sperm whales. Bottlenose dolphins are the most plentiful mammal in the Gulf, and they breed in the summer and give birth from March to May. Like sea turtles, they are air breathers.

The reaction from BP executives has been infuriating. Spokesman Randy Prescott said, “Louisiana isn’t the only place that has shrimp.” BP CEO Tony Heyward says he wants his life back. That too-cultured accent has become grating, one more sign of a disaffected dude, completely ineffectual and feeling victimized by his own company’s incompetence. His Little Lord Fauntleroy face, puckered and reddened now as if experiencing the sun for the first time, represents an effete and sheltered life. Have you ever held a wrench before, buddy? And those curls! Get a haircut, or get a hardhat.

I’m frustrated by Charlie Crist, who has asked BP to budget $100 million for monitoring, evaluating and responding to the changing conditions related to the spill. There aren’t enough action verbs in that plan for me. Let’s monitor and evaluate and file lawsuits after we stop the gushing and are getting the rapidly spreading oil out of our waters and off our sparkling sand.

Get the straw, the hair, whatever it takes! Call out the Coast Guard! Call the Saudis—who, it’s reported, cleaned up an oil spill in 1994 larger than this one by getting international tankers to the region to siphon the oil and water up and separate it later. Is it some sort of misplaced pride or the “not invented here” phenomenon that prevents our seeking international help? BP is making itself busy, I suppose, drilling a substitute oil well that should be complete in August. September, tops.

On the interstate lately, BP cashiers are as lonely as Maytag repairmen. Fury is wasted if it’s not deployed, and we have a rich history of deploying ours through ingenuity. What’s missing from the biggest parties involved is a sense of urgency.