Change your water ...
FROM PAGE 8 sounding anything but convinced. “I want to stay positive. Negative attracts negative. But we’re doing OK. Each day gets better. Today wasn’t a good day, but ...” The uncertainties facing the Barneses are very different from the ones occupying minds down the coast at The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport. Inside a white vinyl Quonset hut, workers huddle over tanks, tending to 50 sea turtles hooked accidentally in Mississippi Sound last spring and summer. Another 300 turtles washed up dead. In a normal year, the institute might take in two or three. But after months of observation, the institute’s staff can only guess about possible connections between the strandings and spill, theorizing that the turtles swam in to escape the oil, or were chasing fish that were trying to escape. “It’s a little tricky. You see changes. You make observations. But sometimes you don’t necessarily know what caused it,” research assistant Megan Broadway says. “It’s really a long-term process. It’s not like next week you’ll have answers.” By afternoon, we’re heading down twolane highway 88 to Bayou La Batre, “the seafood capital of Alabama.” Stan Wright has been mayor of this community of fishermen, shipbuilders, and shrimp and oyster processors for 11 years. Once, he split his time between the elected post and running his family’s oyster business. But it’s been closed since last May, when the spill choked off supply. “What happens with a hurricane is when the wind stops blowing, we start rebuilding,” says Wright, who wears blue mechanic’s clothes to city hall and owns a pickup with an “OYSTERS” license plate. “But we don’t know when the wind’s going to quit blowing with the oil spill.” This confounds Wright, who used to consider himself expert at marshaling forces and working the system for aid. After Katrina, he turned his house into a command center. The town used aid dollars to buy 74 acres on high land and build 100 houses for residents who lost theirs to the storm. Since the spill, Bayou La Batre — which has a population of 2,800 — has filmed its own television commercial, promising its seafood is safe. But mayor and town remain hamstrung. Wright turns his pickup on to Shell Belt Road, pointing out the seafood plants shut by the spill. His spirits are buoyed when he pulls up alongside Dominick Ficarino, who tells how his shrimp processing business is up and thriving, promising customers its product can pass any test. “Boy, I need you to get you some pompoms. You could be my cheerleader,” the mayor tells him. But the feeling doesn’t last. Wright, who
CHANGE YOUR LIFE
9
has been oystering for 48 of his 54 years, misses getting up at 4 a.m. to go to the family plant on Faith Street. And while he’s financially secure, he’s doesn’t know how long many of his town’s people can stay sidelined. “People live here because they’ve got a job here. It’s not because they love it here. It’s because they work here and this is their life,” he says. “It’s hard to know what to tell them.” The sign proclaims our arrival at the “world’s whitest beaches.” And a year after Pensacola Beach, Fla., was licked by the oil, the sand looks like sugar under a crystal sky. At the Paradise Inn, a 55-room, tangerine-and-coral-hued motel, manager John Turk is busy sorting through reservations, but hasn’t forgotten last year. “Boy, it just killed us to see that oil,” Turk says. “You could open the patio door of the house and smell it.” Two years ago, he and his wife shelved their lives in Chicago to follow a dream and move down for a life of beach walks and kayaking. At the height of the spill, Turk’s wife worried the school where she teaches might be closed to protect children from the fumes. In the hotel, with most rooms going begging, Turk watched endless news of the oil on the TV in the lobby. Now, he marvels at how quickly the spill was capped, although he remains disappointed in the federal government’s supervision of oil exploration. “I can’t believe they let somebody go down that deep, 5,000 feet, and there weren’t five or six backups,” he says. “Mother Nature was very forgiving. But one of these days, she’s not going to be.” On this sun-filled afternoon, though, the allure that has drawn people to Florida’s waters since the days of Ponce De Leon remains intact. Down U.S. 98, it has made a believer of Steve DeNeef, unpacking supplies for his new scuba diving shop. Late last year, DeNeef learned his scuba store in Oceanside, Calif., was losing its lease. About that time, his wife, Amy, flew east to see their son, an Army helicopter pilot soon to leave for Afghanistan. She drove down to walk the beaches and called to report water so clear she could see the bottom. DeNeef was intrigued. He remembered how, on a trip to New Orleans months after Katrina, he’d been amazed to find Bourbon Street rollicking. So he visited Florida, too, taking note of crews in Hazmat suits “trying to find oil,” although he didn’t see any. “That didn’t scare us. It’s like stuff comes, stuff goes,” he says. Now, a year after the spill’s start, DeNeef ’s 27-foot Sea Ray is parked out back, testament to faith in the Gulf ’s resilience. Soon, the first customers will come in with questions about the waters that are this region’s greatest treasure. And DeNeef knows just what to tell them. “Hey, I just got here,” he’ll say. “Let’s go experience it together.”
with “Beyond O2” Alkaline Water The Tiffany of Alkaline Water! Alkaline Water reverses the effects of illness and leads to:
• increased energy • anti-aging • positive mood • stabilized blood sugars • weight loss
• better digestion • lower cholesterol • clear skin • disease reversal (gout, diabetes, etc.)
(310) 664-8880 Beyond O2 Water House 2209 Main St., Santa Monica, CA 90405 www.cleanme.tv/category/101 (Segment Mar. 20) www.beyondo2water.com
Home and Office Delivery NOW AVAILABLE!
FREE
M
5 gallons of “Beyond O2” Alkaline Water
Beyond O2 Water (310) 664-8880
With this coupon. Not valid with other offers or prior purchases. *Please bring an empty container for your water or you may purchase a container at the store
RECYCLE NOW! Aluminum Cans .80 $1
per pound with this coupon expires 4-30-11
Aluminum Plastic Glass Bi-Metal Newspaper CardboardWhite/Color/Computer Paper Copper & Brass
Santa Monica Recycling Center 2411 Delaware Avenue in Santa Monica
(310) 453-9677
MICHIGAN 24TH
SPILL
MONDAY, APRIL 18, 2011
CLOVERFIELD
Visit us online at smdp.com
X
DELAWARE AVE. 10 WEST