A Sea in Flames - Carl Safina [77]
There’s no one here to watch the sunset, stroll hand in hand, look for shells, or take an evening dip as the day releases its hot irons of heat. One woman leads her small son along the sand. Having a hard time negotiating the corrugated ridges and dips of tire tracks in soft substrate but trying to make a go of it, he follows like a toddling bear cub. She tells me she can last a year like this; after that they don’t know. Says we can be here, but can’t go past the berm to the water. It’s patrolled. I see one distant vehicle moving on the sand. When she leaves, I walk over the berm anyway; I need a closer look. Nearer the water the entire beach is oiled. Long, dark band of stain. Fresh blobs and splatters.
Rather surprisingly, the water seems like water. Where the waves lap, there’s some clarity to it. And I can see some crabs, alive. The Oil comes and goes in great waves. Unpredictable foe.
A few days ago, oil slurped the shore so thickly here that pelicans looked cast in bronze. Horrible. That massive murk has moved. The water from the shore outward remains slicked and splatter-dappled, but it’s not a black lapping mat right now.
Two middle-aged women get out of their car. Just drove sixty miles. “I never thought I’d see anything like this! It used to be a sand beach. You could come out and have parties and picnics and swim. This is really—”
“You think God would do something about this.”
“The hurricane season, it could pick up all that oil out there and put it all over everything.”
A small band of souls come out to set up their volleyball net in the tire tracks. Resolute, jaws set for fun.
Outside a cottage, a sign: “BP Headquarters.” Its arrow points directly down into an actual toilet bowl.
Closer to the east end of the island and on the north side, mullet jump. Gulls loaf. They look okay. Terns fishing along the bridge offer cheer that even here life continues. Overhead, those pelicans are all soiled. But still flying, at least. At least for now.
Speckled Trout Lane. Bayside Circle. Redfish Lane. Pete’s Wharf Lane. Sunset Lane. A place for sun and fun. Was. News networks, their trucks parked at cottages, provide some owners with summer rental income. At other cottages, camouflaged fat-wheeled trucks. Varied contractors and the National Guard.
Overhead, a frigatebird. Really brown pelicans. Distinctly dingy, they skim over the slick surface. I fear for them.
On a lawn, a graveyard of white crosses memorializes these departed: “Beach Sunsets,” “Sand Between My Toes,” “Marlin,” “Sand Castles,” “Dolphins,” “Bluefin Tuna,” “Crabbing,” “Shrimp,” “Sailing,” “Beach Sunrises,” “Summer Fun,” “Sea Turtles,” “Picnics on the Beach,” “Floundering,” “Flying a Kite,” “Sand Dollars,” “Oysters on the Half Shell,” “Boogie-Boarding”; there’re about four dozen more.
Nearby, a much larger cross says, “In Memory of All That Was Lost; Courtesy of BP and Our Federal Government.” Another cross marks the passing of “Our Soul.” Another roadside sign: “BP—Cannot Fish or Swim. How the Hell Are We Suppose to Feed Our Kids Now?” Signed by the owner. A hurting, hurting place.
Based on the latest flow rate estimates of up to 60,000 barrels per day, the fine for the escaping oil alone could be $260 million per day. Anyone still doubt that BP has been trying to hide the body? Criminal penalties, if fully imposed, could cause the costs to balloon to more than $60 billion, dwarfing an escrow account the White House wants BP to establish for paying claims of economic loss.
The government will likely use BP’s prior criminal record, such as BP’s guilty plea in the 2005 refinery explosion that killed fifteen people in Texas City, to argue that the Deepwater Horizon disaster resulted from a corporate culture that lets hurrying and cost-consciousness jeopardize safety.
BP’s carefully crafted public image of friendliness belied its egregious record for serious safety