A Sea in Flames - Carl Safina [127]
On August 16, Louisiana shrimpers go back to work—their real work, not dragging useless booms. Seventy-eight percent of federal waters—up from 63 percent—are open. On August 18, wildlife rehabbers release the first turtles back into the Gulf. And on August 20, the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission reopens recreational fishing in all state waters that had been closed.
If that doesn’t help people’s mental health a little bit, BP announces that it’s going to give $52 million to five behavioral health-support and outreach programs. “We appreciate that there is a great deal of stress and anxiety across the region, and as part of our determination to make things right for the people of the region, we are providing this assistance now to help make sure individuals who need help know where to turn,” says a BP spokesman.
BP’s $52 million for mental-health care doesn’t by itself solve the material basis of problems like sleeplessness, anxiety, depresssion, anger, substance abuse, and domestic violence. To put it plainly, money will be the only anxiety cure for people like Margaret Carruth, who lost her hairstyling business and then her house when tourists stopped coming and locals cut back on luxuries like haircuts. Now she sleeps on friends’ couches or on the front seat of her blue pickup. For people like her, the blowout continues to wreak its damage full-force.
In fact, people’s mental health may get worse as the financial strains persist. A Louisiana husband and wife who both work in the seafood business and have seven children say they’ve received only $5,000 in claims payments since May. One single mother of four who worked as a sorter on a shrimp boat used to earn about $4,000 a month. Her BP payments: less than $1,700 monthly. “I worry about my kids seeing me this way,” she says, “and them getting sad or it affecting their schoolwork.”
At a day-care center in Grand Bay, Alabama, preschoolers whose parents were left jobless by the blowout are lashing out, their caregiver reports, by “throwing desks, kicking chairs. It’s sad. With this,” she continues, “people do not have hope. They cannot see a better time.”
Top kill. Bottom kill. Junk shot. Dome. Riser. Skimmer. Annular. Cap. Relief well. Negative test. Blind shear ram. Centralizer. Drilling mud. Spacer. Blowout preventer.
None of those words refer to a woman sleeping in her truck or a child throwing a desk. And yet, of course they do.
For the rest of us, here’s a new reason to seek mental help: the Thadmiral says he’s no longer giving timetables for the final plugging of the now-quiescent well. He says he’ll give the order to complete the relief well operation when he is ready. He doesn’t want to give timelines anymore because, he says, if he has to change them—it could cause a credibility problem.
On August 27 NOAA reopens to commercial and recreational fishing over 4,000 square miles off of western Louisiana. Ten times more than that remains closed, about 20 percent of the federal waters in the Gulf. At the disaster’s height, 37 percent of Gulf federal waters—88,000 square miles—were closed.
Meanwhile, with much fanfare, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper announces a new protected area for beluga whales at the mouth of the Mackenzie River, in the Beaufort Sea. The Beaufort Sea region is home to one of the world’s largest summer populations of belugas, which go there to feed, socialize, and raise their calves. In the remote town of Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, Harper proclaims, “Today we are ensuring these Arctic treasures are preserved for generations to come.” But the government