Full Interview with Sassafras LA - 3

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OB: And I remember, it was in June, me and Noelle, went to Key West, Florida on vacation, I went with her family.   We’re flying over and you say, “Okay, look down.” I It was the oil line, and it was horrible.  You could see it from the plane. Then when we went to Alabama later in the summer, for like the Fourth of July, we couldn’t go in the water, but you could play in the sand.  And they just had the little tar balls all over in the sand and it was just not cool.

CG: I remember last summer though, we went to Grand Isle beach for his [Points to Jack] birthday.  The higher-ups were kind of saying, “No there’s not that much oil left.” It was over a year later. I got out of the water and on my ankle there was a yellow spot that I had gotten still a little tar ball, over a year later, on my ankle. It wouldn’t come off either, you know, I kept scrubbing and scrubbing, and it wouldn’t come off.

RC:  There always has been tar balls on the beach, just because naturally there is a flow of oil. And there is a bacteria down here in the warm water, I don’t think they have it in Alaska because the water’s too cold, it actually eats the oil. But the dispersant doesn’t allow the oil to eat it.

AN: And for me, I would go to visit friends a lot, to Grand Isle during the summer, and I planned on spending most of the summer there, but then it all changed because they started renting out camps to BP and all the workers and they wouldn’t actually let us, some of our parents.

CG: BP was hiring criminals to volunteer to clean-up, a few on America’s Most Wanted list.

AN: And that’s an issue that we hope for future things, that they don’t even look to that, because that’s dangerous, you know.  You didn’t know who was down there. You couldn’t go, it was exile.

CG: It was like that on the Bayou for a while.

AN: We had to be cautious everywhere because they would come to Walmart, right here.  And they’d just bring busses and stuff and you just had to be careful. Normally, it’s very quiet, you know, we’re just home.  It’s a small town, everybody knows everybody’s business. Usually, you didn’t have to worry at all.  It was a higher alert of just of being cautious on everything: spending or whether just going out to the public. 

CG: One thing I just remember, I hated seeing the oil boom, that, that orange boom that was used to contain it, because it was just another reminder of what was lost and what was going to be lost. I hate, I still, I hate seeing that boom. I just hate seeing it, I just hate it. 

AN: A few months ago, I don’t know if they still have it or not, in New Orleans in one of the public venues, they stored all of the boom.   Over the summer, they were still piles and piles and piles.  BP just left them. I don’t know whether it was the Coast Guard too. I don’t know what happened to them. I believe they may still be there.  But it seems like, don’t just pile them, keep them. They should be ready for next time.