THIS SMALL community of 2,000 fishermen has become one of the main staging grounds for containment of the BP oil spill, a watery waiting place at the tip of the finger that Louisiana thrusts into the Gulf of Mexico.
Here grounded fishermen, US coast guards, men from the Wildlife and Fisheries department and journalists peer through pelting rain and fog so liquid that air and water are virtually indistinguishable.
With a mixture of dread, resignation and impatience, they are waiting for what may turn out to be the worst oil spill in US history to come to them. But two weeks after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank 50 miles away, storms blowing eastward have so far kept the oil at bay.
Shane Granier, a wildlife biologist, was dispatched by the state’s wildlife and fisheries department to Venice nine days ago. “The mood is apprehension,” Granier said as we sheltered with oil spill responders and fishermen under a metal awning on the marina. “Always being on standby, ready to go, and never going.”
When President Barack Obama visited on Sunday, he surveyed the coastline from a helicopter, but he didn’t see the oil spill either. That didn’t stop him adopting an indignant tone when he said: “BP is responsible for this leak. BP will pay the bill.”
Tony Hayward, head of BP, replied to the president on television, acknowledging his company is “absolutely responsible” for the spill and will bear the full cost of the clean-up.
Hayward said his company is preparing for the worst-case scenario: that the spill will take up to three months to contain.
In the meantime, the invisible oil spill is very present. Sometimes, when the wind shifts, you smell its pungent odour. “This is the closest area to the spill, but so far it hasn’t come on shore,” explains Granier.
He has deployed boats on search missions, but has been unable to confirm media reports of oil coming ashore. His unit has found only one oil-covered bird, a gannet, whose photograph appeared on newspaper front pages across America.
On the two-hour drive from New Orleans, down this narrow corridor of land, we pass three oil refineries, a US military unit deployed for the clean-up effort, bivouacked in an abandoned warehouse. Trailer homes perch on piles of cement blocks. A house on stilts flies a Confederate flag.
In some places, the road is higher than the surrounding land; in others, the marshes are held back with earthen barriers.
Three hurricanes in four years have left rusted and dilapidated structures. There is the awkward beauty of a crane taking flight, a lone figure fishing beside the highway. We pass Breton Sound, home to the oyster seed beds, and Grand Bayou Village. Nature is stronger than man here, but man keeps digging in, eking out a living, hanging on.
In Venice, like its Italian namesake, boatmen ply natural canals, tributaries of the Mississippi River known as passes.
“You can drive 20 minutes before you reach the Gulf,” says a salesman of fire protection and safety equipment who does a third of his business by boat.
Cypress trees grow out of the water. The names, parish system and Napoleonic law are the legacy of French Acadians who were chased out of Canada by the British in the 18th century.
“South Plaquemines: Home of the Hurricanes”, says a sign hailing the local football team.
At the Fill-a-Sack grocery store in Boothville, just north of Venice, store-owner Bruce Gasquet fears the oil spill will put him out of business. “If it’s as bad as the Exxon Valdez , the damage won’t be repaired in my lifetime,” he sighs. Gasquet’s family has lived in this small town for seven generations, and he’s run the shop for 39 years.
The catastrophic Hurricane Katrina of 2005 is never far removed from any conversation in Louisiana. After showing me photographs of his shop and home under water, Gasquet predicts, “this is going to be worse because it will take so long for the fisheries to come back”.
In New Orleans, BP’s name is mud. But here, on the frontline of the oil spill, residents are surprisingly understanding.
“I don’t blame anybody,” says Gasquet.
“The blowout was an accident. We need to continue offshore drilling; you got to have oil.”
Louisiana has had a run of bad luck. Gasquet shrugs: “Some places have floods. Some have tornados or other types of calamities. It’s just living. It’s not a perfect world.” As I discuss the spill with a sheriff’s deputy by the roadside, an African-American from New Orleans jumps out of a car. “Where are they hiring for the clean-up?” he asks. The officer directs him to the commercial marina.
At the marina, Ross Barkhurst, a charter captain, tells me he has already lost more than $5,000 in cancellations from tourists. “It’s not just the lost economic potential. It’s the estuary,” he says. “The Mississippi Delta is the richest estuary in the world. It’s a mixture of fresh and salt water; you have species that live in both. I feel sad about the animals and birds that are going to die.”
Barkhurst is particularly worried about the tarpon, a “prehistoric fish” that migrates from South America to Florida via Venice. They weigh up to 230lbs , have lungs and gills. “They are very special, with scales as big as my hand . . . and giant eyes. A month from now, they’re going to swim into the oil spill.”