A DISPATCH FROM ASHLEY HALL
TUESDAY, JULY 6, 2010
This morning I pulled together a handful of stories that I find relevant. I’ll be following up with some folks in Mississippi and Alabama this morning, and hope to have updates posted later today.
It looks like the fishing closures haven’t changed at all since I left the Gulf.
But the New Orleans Times-Picayune is reporting that the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has closed parts of Lake Pontchartrain to fishing because tar balls have made it up there. Read more here. Tarballs have also made it to Texas. The winds from Hurricane Alex have been pushing the oil northwest for more than a week. It’s arguable that these same winds have spared the Apalachicola Bay so far.
Renowned New Orleans Chef Susan Spicer has slapped BP, Transocean Limited, and Halliburton Energy Services with a personal injury law suit. Check out the conversation between Susan, Chef Jose Andreas and reporter Jacki Lyden that aired on NPR this weekend. The chefs offer up a powerful analysis on how the spew has affected the way we eat, but also how the safety of our food sources is a matter of national security.
Since my visit, it has become obvious to me that the only hope of saving some of these areas was to suck up the oil before it gets to the shores. They’re pulling out the big guns with this Taiwanese “Whale” that supposedly eats up to 21 million gallons of oil-tainted water each day. So far tests have been inconclusive.
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Ashley Hall is an SFA member and contributer to Gravy, the SFA’s foodletter. She is traveling along the Gulf Coast to capture stories relating to the oil spill as a traveling Gravy correspondent. We’ll be posting relevant entries here, but visit the blog she’s set up for the project, Third Coast Byways, for more
