Updates about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its impacts on the Mississippi Gulf Coast area are being periodically written by Executive Director Shari Prestemon and are posted below as dated journal entries.

May 25, 2010

What about that oil spill?

Many Back Bay Mission supporters and friends have written and called to inquire about the effects of the Gulf oil spill on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and those Back Bay Mission serves.  Some have even indicated their willingness to come at a moment’s notice and participate in clean-up efforts in our area.  Thank you  for keeping watch and standing at the ready.

Current landfall projections suggest that the beaches of the MS Coast may not be at risk.  Yet most here have long since stopped paying attention to these so-called projections, having learning that they drastically change from one day to the next and lack any real accuracy.  Whether the oil actually spills onto our MS Coast beaches almost seems irrelevant at this point, because this colossal environmental disaster is already having major impacts on our way of life and our economy…

On some days, the smell of oil permeates the air.  Though this is still relatively infrequent, it is a random reminder that we are being besieged by something we and others can no longer fully control.  Our local hotels --- in a region where tourism is key to the economy – are reporting 50% cancellation rates since the oil rig exploded.  While BP has recently granted $15 million to the state of Mississippi to fund efforts to boost our marketing aimed at assuring tourists that the MS Coast remains a beautiful place for them to visit, the public perception across the nation is obviously otherwise, and our vital tourism industry suffers.  Our shrimpers—and others who make their living off the sea-- are in major panic and turmoil.  The shrimping season is due to open in the next couple of weeks, and while many will soon gather for the MS Coast’s traditional ‘blessing of the fleet’ events, one has to wonder just where the fleet will go once blessed and what kind of shrimping season it will possibly be.  For these folk, the sea and its inhabitants are quite literally life.  We can only imagine what long-term impacts this oil spill may have on the habitats that have provided a way of life for generations of families along the Coast.

Our caseworkers at Back Bay Mission report that some clients seeking assistance are now telling us of the oil spill’s direct impact on their livelihoods, a truth that brings them to our doors for help.  The economic impact of the oil spill on our area will be unquestionably devastating, but the emotional toll is yet another major concern.  As we come upon the 5th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina  -- an event that experts say would already have triggered emotional trauma in and of itself – we worry about the compounding effects this oil spill may have on the fragile spirits of the Gulf Coast people.  The prospect of yet another disaster having such dire effect on our region and people seems too much to bear, too impossible to imagine.

At present, there is not yet need for oil spill cleanup efforts along our Mississippi beaches.  Our staff, however, are keeping vigil and will receive training regarding such cleanup when and if such efforts are needed.  If that happens, we’ll be in touch and let you know how you can help.  In the meantime, here’s what we would ask of you:

• Pray for the region, for the people whose livelihoods and ways of life are already directly impacted by this oil spill, and for the ecosystem that has already experienced devastating harm.
• Discuss the oil spill and its impacts in your congregations as a matter of faith, remembering that as God’s stewards of Creation we are charged with ensuring the sustainability of God’s Creation.
• Urge your members of Congress to keep their eyes focused on the Gulf oil spill and to do everything necessary to ensure a proper, thorough, timely, and effective response.
• Allow this disaster to be a catalyst for authentic discussion and action regarding energy usage and oil dependence in your household, your church, your community and our nation.
• Give a financial gift to Back Bay Mission, to assist us in serving others impacted by this disaster and those still recovering from Katrina & the economic downturn

We cherish your thoughts and prayers and remain grateful for your desire to be of help. 

Blessings,

Rev. Shari Prestemon, Executive Director

June 24, 2010

Day 58.  It had been 58 days since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig had malfunctioned, creating what we now know to be the largest technological disaster this country has ever seen.  We were clustered together  on an oppressively hot day near one of the docks along the Back Bay of Biloxi. Vietnamese American fishing families from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama had gathered us to hear their concerns. One woman rose from her seat to share her family’s story.  Her body shaking visibly with nervousness, she told us about the shrimping boat she and her husband owned, the money they had invested in it to prepare for the shrimp season, the debt they owe on it.  As she described what is for her family an absolute way of life now deeply threatened, her voice would occasionally give out in paralyzing fear, but the crowd urged her on with shouts of support, nodding their understanding of a disaster made personal.

Just behind me near the back of the crowd was another man straining to tell his story.  Dressed in a worn t-shirt and shorts, his feet clad in those tell-tale white boots of shrimpers everywhere, his body was taut with barely repressed anger and frustration.   As sweat poured down his forehead, he shouted out, “Let me get up there!  Let me tell my story!”  This was his disaster too, a man who’d made his life on the waters, a man helpless to change the devastating circumstances that turned his world inside out.

Day after day now, it is these faces and these stories that characterize this disaster.  And it is not just shrimpers and oystermen and crabbers, but also the fishing boat captains and deckhands, the seafood restaurant owners and workers, the hotel maids, and bait suppliers.  The impact of the oil gush on the economy of the Coast is being felt far and wide.  According to a study done by the University of South Mississippi:

• Recreational fishing is down over 90% since the oil spill
• Sales of those who supply boats, bait, ice, fuel and other supplies fell 70%
• Non-casino hotels have seen a 50% drop
• Seafood restaurant sales are down 30%; prices are up 30%
• The tourism industry in the three Coast counties lost $26.9 million in May

Yesterday brought the unwelcome news that oil was washing for the first time into the Mississippi Sound, that narrow strip of water between our barrier islands and the white sand beaches.  The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality now predicts that this oil will likely make landfall on mainland beaches within the next few days.  Hundreds of workers trained to perform beach cleanup now do “maneuvers” on our beaches, ‘practicing’ the tasks that they’ll soon be required to perform as virtual armies on our sands.

The rest of the community makes ready too.  Meetings of all kinds can easily consume one’s time as multiple federal, state, and local agencies try to get a handle on a disaster that in many ways still eludes them all.  There is, after all, little we can actually do.  The oil is still spewing.  The full impact is still unfolding.  The timeline on recovery is completely unknown.  As terrible as Hurricane Katrina was ---and it was awful --- at least after it was over we knew, basically, what to do:  dry out, clean up the debris, rebuild.  This disaster devastates and yet remains somehow out of reach.  Day after day it continues to do more damage, seemingly unstoppable, moving and taunting with the currents and the winds. 

Please pray for those for whom this disaster is very personal.  Pray for those who are striving each day to stop the oil from spewing.  Pray for those who are crafting strategies for recovery, and those, like Back Bay Mission, who will simply care for those who’ve been harmed.  Your prayers and your support are precious to us.

Grace and peace,

Rev. Shari Prestemon, Executive Director

July 1, 2010

Now it all has changed.  Last weekend -- over two months in to this disaster -- oil washed up on Mississippi’s mainland for the first time.  Tar balls, tar mats, and thick gooey globs were spotted in several places along our coastline, and the rhetoric of our elected officials immediately became more heated and more adamant.  The disaster that had in some sense been “out there”  was now undeniably right here with us.

Now the platoons of beach cleanup workers are everywhere, battling this major technological disaster with nothing more than simple rakes and garbage bags.  Wearing neon orange and yellow vests, they canvas our beaches in huge numbers, painstakingly collecting what they can, knowing more will likely  replace what they’ve just removed.  Yesterday our local newspaper, the Sun Herald, reported the oil waste was being collected literally by the ton.  Today that same newspaper asks in front page headlines, “Where will oil waste go?” 

As the disaster’s impact on our neighbors and friends and wildlife grows, our feelings of helplessness loom large.  We have somehow been here before, all too recently… this place where disaster consumes completely, overwhelming us with its total demand upon our lives.  We do not want to be in that place again, but here we are even so.
In faith, we trust again that God will work us through this. The national setting of the United Church of Christ has already responded by providing $5000 from the One Great Hour of Sharing special fund, Emergency USA.  These funds will help us provide direct assistance to those struggling to get by due to loss of income caused by the oil spill.  We are grateful for this sign of partnership and support, and ask for your special prayers and support as this disaster continues to unfold.

Blessings,

Shari

July 13, 2010

Click ot view Video from NBC station in Columbus, OH

July 17, 2010

So now it’s capped. The new 75-ton cap placed onto the spewing oil well appears to be doing the job it was intended to do as the test period draws to a close. Although some bubbles escaping from the valve are current cause for concern, indications for the moment are positive. For the first time since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20 out in the Gulf of Mexico, no oil is gushing into the waters of the Gulf. This news is cause for thanksgiving, to be sure, but as I make my way back to the Gulf Coast today from points north, I am forced to tell those who ask me that this disaster is far from being over  After all, somewhere between 94 million and 184 million gallons had already been released into the Gulf these last three months. The surface slick from the oil covered 2,700 square miles a couple of days ago, an area slightly larger than Delaware. One expert has said that 44,000 square miles of the Gulf have seen a significant amount of oil pass through. Now it’s got to somehow all be cleaned up.  No one knows how long it  will take, or just what the long-term impacts will be on the wildlife and Gulf Coast economies already damaged so profoundly. And meanwhile, the “permanent fix” to the ruptured well ---pumping mud and cement into the broken well deep underground – is still another month away. I cannot help but think of Mr. Le and his son Nate. I met them several weeks ago at one of the Biloxi harbors where shrimp boats dock. They were busy making minor repairs to their shrimp boat, painting its hull a shiny new black. The boat was the only source of income for their family, the only employees of the boat Mr. Le and his two sons. Nate had quit high school a few years back because his father needed help on the boat. And that boat, the way of life that is shrimping for so many families along the Gulf Coast, is everything to the Le family.  “This time last year,” Nate said, “we were doing so well. The [shrimping] season was great.”  But this year is a different story. Prevented from shrimping in much of the federal waters, and lacking the size of boat or financial resources to travel out beyond the oil slicked waters to areas still open for commercial fishing, they sit and wait.  And they worry.  Without shrimping, they say, they have nothing. Their family’s survival hangs in the balance. So they paint their boat, and fix things up, hoping that one day soon they can take her out on the Gulf’s waters and return to the life they know and on which they depend. Yes, the cap is on the well, and the oil is contained.  I thank God for these facts. But what difference will that make for the Le family now, and for thousands of others whose livelihoods have already been destroyed?  And what irreparable harm has already been done to God’s Creation? Please pray for the Le family and for all those whose lives have been upended by this ongoing disaster. And pray too for those who are now tasked with healing the wounds, fostering survival, and solving the massive problems of economy and ecology with which we are left. 

Grace & peace, 

Shari Prestemon

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July 21, 2010

On July 8-9, Back Bay Mission hosted representatives of Odyssey Networks, the nation’s largest multi-faith media coalition dedicated to promoting tolerance, peace and social justice.  Their purpose in the area was to better understand the impacts of the oil spill on our community, and to think with local faith leaders about how faith plays a role in persevering through such difficult circumstances. The video link below features BBM Executive Director’s conversations with Odyssey Networks during their time in Biloxi.

http://www.odysseynetworks.org/Home/VideoPlayer/TabId/291/VideoId/171/Faith-At-The-Gulf-Part-1.aspx

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July 21, 2010

On July 8-9, Back Bay Mission hosted representatives of Odyssey Networks, the nation’s largest multi-faith media coalition dedicated to promoting tolerance, peace and social justice.  Their purpose in the area was to better understand the impacts of the oil spill on our community, and to think with local faith leaders about how faith plays a role in persevering through such difficult circumstances. The video link below features BBM Executive Director’s conversations with Odyssey Networks during their time in Biloxi.

http://www.odysseynetworks.org/Home/VideoPlayer/TabId/291/VideoId/171/Faith-At-The-Gulf-Part-1.aspx

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August 2, 2010

Over 100 days.  As much as 200 million gallons of crude oil.  Two million gallons more of chemical dispersant.  Oppressive heat and a random tropical depression.  These are the ingredients of an unprecedented oil spill and its aftermath three months after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico.

 Several nights ago I sat in an audience listening to a panel of seven scientists as they tried to explain what the ongoing impacts might be for our beloved Gulf and the wildlife that teems within it.  Some of the news seemed positive, as they explained that the bacteria in the water naturally degrade the oil and work to rid the water of the crude invader.  But as I picked my way through the scientific lingo searching for bits I could really understand, one phrase kept coming up that seemed the truest thing they could say:  “We just don’t know.”  

Scientists all over the country are saying the same thing. Robert Weisberg, a professor of oceanography at the University of South Florida, has said, “We are operating out of ignorance. It may be no threat whatsoever or it may be a serious threat.” The director of the Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University, Ron Kendall, has been quoted: “We’ve never dealt with this before, the complication of this much oil coming from the deep sea and being hit heavily with chemical dispersants.  We have conducted the largest environmental toxicology experiment in the history of this country in the Gulf of Mexico.”

This “experiment” has come at a very expensive price to thousands whose lives and livelihoods have been disrupted and destroyed since April 20. There are some glimmers of hope. Since the cap was placed on the spewing well and the oil was “contained” in July, tourism has picked up slightly. Over the weekend in Mississippi, the waters north of the barrier islands were re-opened for recreational and commercial fishing and shrimping (though crabbing and oystering are still prohibited). And it appears that the “top kill” procedure may now be in sight, the first step toward permanent stoppage of the leak.  These are all helpful and positive signs.

And yet I’m still stuck on that phrase:  “We just don’t know.”  We just don’t know what the long-term impacts of this massive disaster may be on the waters and wildlife.  We just don’t know how long it will be before the charter boat captains and shrimpers and seafood restaurants and their workers can recover from their income losses and return to life as they knew it “before” this thing happened.

But this I do know, a reminder I was given while listening to that line-up of scientists describe the mind-numbing complexity of the Gulf’s ecosystem:  God’s Creation is a wondrous thing. It is a finely woven tapestry of living creatures, interdependent and carefully balanced, resilient yet incredibly fragile. And God has given us this marvelous miracle of abundant life to nurture and protect. As I contemplate what may now be some closure on the first crisis stage of this environmental tragedy, I come full circle, back to those initial ponderings I shared in my very first update. Might this disaster serve as a launching point for a more authentic, impassioned discussion among people of faith regarding our roles as stewards of God’s Creation? Might it prompt a different kind of conversation about our dependence on oil, our insatiable consumption of energy and resources? Can the horror many of us have felt looking at oil-soaked birds and oil-drenched marshes be translated now into a powerful change in behavior?

The long-term effects of this oil spill tragedy are a mystery yet to be solved.  But of our responsibility as God’s faithful stewards there can be no doubt.  God’s dazzling Creation is ours to protect.  Two hundred million gallons of crude oil later, I hope we see that a bit more clearly.

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