Michael Roberts and Tracy Kuhns on the canal behind their house in Lafitte, LA. Photo: Ilene Perlman/Oxfam America

Last week I took a memorable ride in a very small boat. The flat-bottomed skiff belonged to Tracy Kuhns and Michael Roberts, leaders of Oxfam’s partner organization GO FISH, who keep it moored alongside their shrimping boat on the canal that borders their backyard.

In Lafitte, LA, where Kuhns and Roberts live, these canals are like streets, connecting families to one another and workers to their jobs. Neighbors waved to us as we cast off for a short trip from the nearby Mississippi River to the marsh-fringed Barataria Bay.

For generations, families in Lafitte and the surrounding communities have earned a living by harvesting fish, shrimp, and oysters from these waters. And until 2010—when the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill dumped millions of gallons into the Louisiana bayou—it seemed like the next generation would, too.

“My grandson has been going trawling since he was 18 months old. The boy can fish,” Kuhns told me proudly as Roberts steered the boat out under the wide, cloud-streaked sky. “Before the oil spill, he never even thought about doing anything else.”

Now, Kuhns and Roberts say, the spill has caused lasting, perhaps irreparable, damage to a resource already threatened by pollution and coastal erosion.

“Barataria Bay was ground zero for all of that oil,” said Kuhns, who witnessed layers of black sludge floating to the surface. Since then, she estimated, “our shrimp [harvest] is down by 60 to 70 percent. Fish and crabs, same thing.”

Last Thursday, BP pled guilty in a criminal case brought by the US Department of Justice. The company agreed to pay $4.5 billion in fines for its conduct leading up to the oil spill, the largest environmental disaster in US history. The verdict marks a step forward, but there is still much more to be done, including resolution of up to tens of billions more in civil penalties and damages from BP and potentially its business partners for violations of the Oil Pollution Act and Clean Water Act.

“We still have to repair the damage done to vital and fragile ecosystems, and to the thousands of families who live and work along the coastline,” said Oxfam’s Jeffrey Buchanan. (Read his latest post on BP here.) “We need to ensure the fines from this tragedy can be invested in strengthening their future.”

Read the rest of this entry »

People are trapped in this trailer park unless they want to walk in high water or have a canoe. They wait on a canoe to come by so that they can go to the store. Photo: Telley Madina / Oxfam America.

Telley Madina is a Coastal Communities Program Officer as part of Oxfam America’s US program. This is the second of two blogs.

Previously, I wrote about how Hurricane Isaac brought new levels of flooding to my state and my city, and how the loss of wetlands has exposed us to risk in new ways.

Bad news, for sure; but even worse is who’s getting hurt the most when extreme weather hits. Turns out it’s the most vulnerable – people who may be poor, elderly, disabled, unemployed. While I traveled through Louisiana in the wake of Isaac, I saw how people were able to cope with the impact of even a mild hurricane, which knocked out power for days.

The day after Isaac, not much was open around New Orleans. I stopped at the Burger King in Gretna, one of the few places open that was selling hot food and jam-packed with people. One guy, aware he would soon lose power, had pulled all the steak and shrimp out of his freezer the night before and hosted  a barbecue. The guy next to him barely had enough money for a sandwich. I had no worries about the guy who might have lost some frozen supplies — but I wondered what would happen to the guy who was likely to head home to a place that may have been under water, but certainly would be hotter than heck.

Oxfam and our partners work in the Gulf Coast

to defend the rights of the most vulnerable, and to help them build resilience. I’m lucky enough to have the resources to prepare for this type of event, and to cope with the aftermath. All around me, though, I see what it means not to have the money to invest in simple tools. Read the rest of this entry »

Telley Madina is a Coastal Communities Officer as part of Oxfam America’s US program. This is the first of two blogs.

Before Isaac hit shore and lumbered through Louisiana and Mississippi,  I relocated my family from New Orleans to the Baton Rouge area. As I struggled to make my way back to New Orleans, searching for roads that weren’t blocked by downed trees or water, I was stunned to see the extent of flooding—in  areas that had never seen it before.

While Isaac clocked in as a relatively mild Category 1 storm, with nowhere near the destructive power of Katrina, the swelling water sent shock waves through our communities. As all of us are scrambling to restore order, we’re also reaching out to our friends and family who are vulnerable and hurting; and wondering what we need to do to prevent the next big storm from washing away more of our homes, businesses, and the culture we love.

Men getting around in water right next to the road in St. John Parish, which has never seen flooding before. Photo by: Telley Madina / Oxfam America.

Isaac hit especially hard in poorer coastal parishes, where the federal government had not invested in flood protection the way it had in New Orleans. Our partners are still reaching out to their communities, with direct aid and with plans for a long road to recovery. Plaquemines Parish, where our good friend Rev. Edwards runs the Zion Travelers Cooperative Center, was deluged after the water topped the levees. Many of the roads are still closed, and the power is still out in many spots; we’ve managed to contact some folks who report the damage is so extensive, and so close on the heels of Katrina’s devastation, that they may not struggle to rebuild again. Read the rest of this entry »

Telley Madina, Oxfam America’s coastal communities program officer, just returned from Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, where he visited with Oxfam America’s partner organization Zion Travelers Cooperative Center (ZTCC).

Reverend Tyrone Edwards, Founding Executive Director of ZTCC, is a lifelong community organizer and a tireless advocate for coastal communities affected by hurricanes and last year’s BP oil spill. Edwards often says that if coastal erosion and the emission of gas and other toxins are allowed to continue, our children’s future will be robbed. That’s one reason that his organization started a program to educate and involve Louisiana youth in coastal restoration, hurricane protection, and the broader environmental movement.

Rose Butler of the Bayou Rebirth Wetlands Education Program shows children from Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana how to do water quality tests. Photo by: Rev. Tyrone Edwards / Zion Travelers Cooperative Center.

I saw firsthand how the kids ZTTC works with feel connected to the environment. Since most of them are teenagers, they remember what Katrina did to their lives. When I visited with them, they were preparing to plant seed grass on the side of levees. This work is vital to coastal restoration because the overall objective is to rebuild land, and their work is the starting block for that to happen. The kids seem to be conscious that by fighting to protect and rebuild this land, they are protecting their very futures.  As one of the kids jokingly said, “If we don’t fix this place then we won’t live here soon.”

Participating in this work seems to build up their self-esteem as well.  One said, “Rev. Edwards is the man because he listens to us.  Our opinions are important, and he wants us to back them up with work.  If we think of something to do, he’ll say let’s go do it and see what happens.”

Edwards has been doing community organizing and youth empowerment for 41 years.  He makes sure these young people have a place at the table for whatever he’s working on because he realizes that coastal restoration may not be completed in his lifetime, so he wants to make sure he can hand the mantle off to the next generation to make sure the work gets done.

These kids’ energy and capacity to understand the magnitude of what’s happening in Plaquemines Parish continues to inspire me.  Edwards would assert that he could fix Plaquemines with enough money and the kids in his program.