Walking With the Ghost of Exxon
By Jeanne Devon
It’s 5am on the fourth of July, and the alarm goes off. I open one eye and think surely I must have set it for the wrong time, but then I remember. Today I’m heading to Prince William Sound with Shannyn Moore and Zach Roberts. Our goal is to document the lingering effects of oil, still present in the Sound after the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in the spring of 1989.
I was not in Alaska back then. I, like the rest of the country, watched the news footage in horror at images of oil-soaked otters and birds, and people hosing off the rocky shoreline, and aerial photos of a tanker surrounded by boats and thin ribbons of ineffectual orange boom. I didn’t know that people I would some day know and love were working on the cleanup effort even as I watched the pictures on the news from thousands of miles away. I never imagined I’d live anywhere near Prince William Sound, but I felt the loss of this far away place, and I was sad and angry. I had a wild notion that I’d go to Alaska to see if there was anything I could do to help, but warnings came across the TV that oil spill responders were there in droves and people who wanted to come scrub otters were becoming a burden, and people shouldn’t go to Alaska expecting to be able to help. So I stayed on the East Coast and left it to the experts.
But I did find myself in Alaska about a year and a half later. And almost as soon as I arrived, my relationship with Prince William Sound began - sailing past Columbia Glacier amid crackling icebergs; the city of Valdez; camping in a sandstorm in Jeanie Cove on Montague Island; my first sperm whale sighting from the air; the anxious drive through the newly blasted tunnel to Whittier; hiking on the alpine flower-covered high ground of Perry Island, Bering glacier with its endless swaths of lupine; the sculpted rock formations on Kayak Island, the biggest tree I’d ever seen hidden in the forest of Little Johnstone Bay, beach combing, campfires, sailing trips, fishing… Over the years, the Sound became a very real and beautiful place, no longer a distant abstraction.
And yet, the oil spill and this place I visited in my real life remained strangely disconnected. I knew there had been a tragedy here, but it remained out of my experience, out of my sight, out of my touch, and smell. I was always a degree of separation from those who were there. And that was OK with me, because even imagining the kind of environmental disaster thad had happened in this place brought such overwhelming sadness it was simpler and less painful to leave the disconnect in place.
But with the recent events in the Gulf, where oil in the amounts of the Exxon Valdez spill pours into the Gulf of Mexico in a matter of days, and where no end is in sight, people have turned new attention to those remote shores in Alaska, looking for answers, looking for lessons and seeking some kind of crystal ball that will reveal to them the future of the Gulf.
And so this morning, Shannyn Moore, Zach Roberts and I head out to go find some answers. We arrive as the tunnel to Whittier opens to automobile traffic. The tunnel is shared alternately through the day by cars in to Whittier, then cars out, and then trains. After far too long driving in the claustrophobic dark tunnel, we pop out the other side and in to the sunlight of the city of Whittier. I say that I think the slogan for the city should be ”We’re Whittier Than You” and I make my sleepy companions laugh. Zach says that the slogan obviously isn’t true, or they would have thought of it before I did.
We drive along the waterfront and find our destination – Lazy Otter Charters.
We meet Mike Bender, our captain, and first mate daughter Morgan. We grab our gear, walk down the wooden dock, and load everything on to the 30-foot aluminum boat The Explorer. Our first stop will be to visit well-known naturalist and charter operator David Janka on his boat The Auklet. He’ll know where we can go to find oil. As we pull out of Whittier harbor, It feels a bit like we’re traveling to receive directions from the Oracle.
The day is overcast, but dry, and calm flat seas assure us a quick and easy trip. We see a lone humpback whale identifiable by it distinctive blow, and we see the large flukes of his massive tail as he does a deep dive. We pass between small rocky islands where kittiwakes roost.
We eventually spot the Auklet and pull along side. David Janka welcomes us aboard with a friendly hand up. He knew that there were many places one could go to find oil in its various forms, and offered to let me download some pictures he’d recently taken of fouled beaches.
We decide that we’ll head to Knight Island, about half way between where we’d started our trip in Whittier, and where the Valdez had slammed into Bligh Reef twenty one years ago. I wish we could stay longer and talk, but it’s time to bid the Auklet and its captain farewell, and head out.
After a few minutes, we spot a school of Dall’s porpoises riding the wake of a large blue fishing boat. These critters are friendly, and curious about boats. Much to our great luck, the porpoises abandon the fishing boat to come check us out – a new playmate in the water. They arrive one by one, and like hyper pygmy orcas they zoom back and forth across the bow, leaping this way and that. I sit on the very tip of the bow with my camera pointed down, trying to get still shots of these amazing speed demons weaving in and out. One leaps and comes within inches of touching the bottom of my foot. They have such energy and playfulness, it’s hard to imagine that these creatures aren’t experiencing joy.
I find myself getting lost in the day – the sea spray, the wildlife, the rhythmic pulse of the engine, the snow capped mountains, and the rocky islands covered with spruce and seaweed. It isn’t until we are only a few miles from our destination that my mind is tugged unwillingly back to our purpose – the oil. I find it hard to feel the usual happiness and calm I feel on these waters. Until yesterday, I didn’t know where the oil could still be found. I knew it was “out there” but the lack of a precise location made it easier, and gave this hard reality a sense of abstraction. Knowing makes it different.
I have the sense that I’m on the way to an appointment – a deposition – a confession – a forensic examination - and that I will hear a story I don’t want to hear. Like I’m about to speak to a dear sweet friend who has been the victim of a horrible crime, but has never been able to talk to me about it until today. You’d never think anything had ever happened here by looking out the window. But looks can be deceiving.
Zach is smiling and cleaning his lens from the salt spray after getting footage of the porpoises. Shannyn is talking with the captain about the boat. Morgan is sitting on the bow and suddenly turns around and laughs. A rufous hummingbird just flew up and investigated her red and pink hat hoping it was some kind of wonderful huge flower.
We are pulling into the shallows now, and the water has changed from dark steel grey to beautiful emerald green. I try to imagine this passage filled from shore to shore with oil, as it was after the spill, and I can’t do it.
We pull up to the beach and hop off the boat on to large grey boulders covered with barnacles and seaweed. We pick our way over the rocks about 100 feet to an open, flat marshy area where a small shallow stream trickles from between the hills on either side, feeding into the Sound. I will find out later that the place I’m standing is now known as “The Death Marsh,” and ”Diesel Beach.” But as I walk along the little spring and my boots begin to squish, and pop out of the spongy muck with a perfect mud-sucking sound effect noise, I have no idea.
Unsure where to go or what to do, I figure our time is limited, so I may as well just pick a spot and dig. so I unpack a small garden trowel from my pack, and I began digging in a spot covered with gravelly sand. About the third shovelful down, I realize that the sand has turned to a strange mud. It’s gloppy and sticky and clings together with a slimy looking texture. It’s hard to get it off my trowel. I smell something I can’t quite place. Water starts seeping in to the bottom of the hole – water with a sheen of pink, purple, green, yellow, orange… it’s clearly an oil sheen. I watch it for a moment, stunned. I didn’t know what to expect, but for some reason this hadn’t been it. I wonder now about the smell, and I pick up a plum-sized clump of mud with the trowel and draw it to my nose to see if I can smell any trace of oil in this marshy sediment. I recoil and gag as the unmistakable smell of petroleum fills my nose, my eyes, my lungs. It wasn’t just a swampy smell, I’d noticed – it was oil, and it was powerful.
“Smell this,” I call to Shannyn and Zach, not even thinking to check if they’re filming or recording. They sense my urgency, and come over to where I’m standing, holding the trowel full of mud, and they smell. We look at each other’s eyes, like we are bearing witness to a horror, which we are - even though we feel decades late.
My first hole has filled with oily seepage, and my second hole, and a hole that Shannyn has dug. And then I notice that we haven’t even needed to dig. The footprints left by our boots on the surface have also filled with oily soup.
We have half an hour left on this beach. I walk around in a daze, digging little test holes, squishing through the oily mud and watching my footprints turn into rainbow covered pools. There are small mussels, and seaweed all living here on top of this thin veneer – this fragile skin on the surface of this disaster that bleeds with a footprint. I take a few short videos, and forget what I’ve said by the time I’m done. It’s hard to speak, and I keep my voice low. It seems fitting to be gentle with this victim – at this crime scene – at this never-ending funeral.
I walk the creek like I am walking with a ghost. The enormity of the situation is hard to fathom. It’s been 21 years since the spill, and here is a place exposed to air, and wave action, and sun, and wind, and rain, and snow, and it still looks like the site of a horrible ecological disaster that could have happened yesterday. The victim holds its secret only skin deep. As I walk, I notice places where even footprints aren’t required to see a blue/pink opalescence on the surface. The oil just sits there, ready with the next rain or tide to trickle into the stream and out into the Sound.
Suddenly, thoughts of the Gulf of Mexico flood my mind. I think of BP telling everyone not to worry – that BP “does business right.” I thought of Exxon, 21 years ago telling the residents of coastal communities in the Sound “We will make you whole.” This place is not whole. The people of the Sound are not whole. I think of BP covering up the thick layers of oil washing up on the Gulf coast with dump trucks of clean sand so everything will look fine. They spend their energy trying to create another skin, another mask to hide the crime done to another place. They hope that the place will forget, but it won’t. I look down into my oily hole. I wouldn’t want my children digging on this beach.
I find myself feeling my throat getting tight from the ever-increasing petroleum stench, and from the feeling you get right before you cry. Here I was at my appointment, and the place I loved still held the scars of abuse, of violent crime, of life stolen so long ago. This wound was raw, and toxic and there was nothing left to be done. There were no cleanup crews here, there was nobody doing anything, and nobody would do anything ever, because it’s done. Exxon said so.
I touch the surface of the pool with my fingers, which are now safely in rubber gloves. The colors dance and swirl. I hadn’t realized I was going to cry, but two tears fall at the same time – not down my cheeks, but because I am bent over the hole, they fall right in the oily puddle. Two more drops of salt water to dilute this toxic mess. That was my contribution today, and it was nothing.
“It’s time to go,” says Morgan, noting that this oil has been here longer than she’s been alive. We quickly scoop up some oily water and mud into mason jars that we bought this morning, and we head back to the boat, picking our way over the barnacle-covered rocks. We rinse our boots before boarding, and they leave a sheen in the water. I’m glad it’s time to go. Not only am I feeling more than a bit helpless and overwhelmed, but the smell has given me a headache, and I’m beginning to feel nauseated. I cannot imagine the spill responders back then, and the ones today, working in a far more toxic environment than this, with no respirators, and without adequate protection, day after day, for months at a time. The people who send them to do this work and sign their paychecks don’t care if they get sick. And they don’t care if they die.
Back on board we sit, each of us trying to process what we’ve just seen. We don’t say much as we pull out. A few minutes later we see the porpoises again, a few hundred yards off the starboard bow, and for a moment we smile as they break the surface, leaping and disappearing again and again. I grab my camera out of reflex and then decide I won’t use it. We each sit at the table below deck with our arms folded in silence, and we look far away, each pair of eyes at a different point on the watery horizon.
I’m thinking of the ghosts of those people who are gone – from the passage of time, from the sickness that came cleaning up this mess, and some by their own hand, in despair years after the spill. I think of the ghosts of the hundreds of thousands of seabirds we don’t hear, and the pod of orcas that dwell in the Sound that will be extinct in 25 years according to estimates. They are the living ghosts of the Exxon spill. They don’t know they have 25 years left, but I do.
The silence is punctuated by short bursts of conversation, free flowing thoughts that pop out of our heads. We remember how Rush Limbaugh called Prince William Sound “pristine.” We think of how there used to be more birds and more sound here than there is today. We talk about the Exxon Valdez itself, and how the vessel got renamed and how we think it’s in the Mediterranean somewhere. Shannyn tells me I have red bumps on my neck, like hives, that were not there earlier. The smell of petroleum is still in the air. I smell it on my hands even though I don’t think I touched it. Zach says he kneeled down and got oil on the knee of his pants, so maybe that’s it. There is probably still oil on my boots. I don’t want to smell it any more. The inside of my mouth tastes funny. I ask if anyone else has a strange taste in their mouth. Shannyn and Zach both nod. Shannyn says the inside of her mouth tastes like pennies. I eat a chocolate chip cookie hoping it will help. Now my mouth tastes like chocolate chip cookie and diesel fuel.
We wonder what we’re going to do with the samples of oily water and mud that we scooped into jars before we left. We don’t know. I don’t even really know why we took them, except for proof tomorrow when we wake up. It’s all surreal. I suddenly feel like I want every candidate for office to take a deep whiff of what’s in the jar.
Our boat stops on East Flank to pick up some kayakers, and a happy boxer dog and take them back to Whittier. I try not to talk too much because I know that my experience in the Sound today was so different than theirs. One of them is a Kindergarten teacher, which gets me thinking about the future. I wonder if any of the kids in his class next year will find oil on these beaches when they’re Morgan’s age, or my age, or her dad’s age.
Zach comments again about the smell we can’t get rid of, as he rubs Purell on his hands. His eyes flash almost angrily as he says he’d rather smell alcohol than this oil. Shannyn is sitting outside, her back against the cabin looking out across the water. She’s been there a long time. I sit here and type because I feel like I have to be doing something, and I don’t know what else to do.
My thoughts go back again to the Gulf as they have been doing all day, like a moth returning to the same light bulb over and over even though it gets burned. There is no end in sight for their disaster, which now dwarfs the Exxon Valdez. The ghosts of the Deepwater Horizon and BP have begun with the 11 men lost in the explosion, and the sea life, and the birds – but there are also ghosts of their future that still walk and swim.
And I don’t know how we are going to do it, but I know we must change. We play with poison pretending it’s safe, and we risk our own lives, the lives of our children, and the planet as we know it. Fossil fuels are our death sentence – one that we are imposing on ourselves. And we don’t want to stop killing ourselves and our planet because – it’s hard. We’ll have to change. We won’t be able to do things like we used to. It will be inconvenient. It’ll cost a lot of money.
Right now, with my throat still tight and the smell of petroleum still burning my nose, skimming across the waves of this beautiful place that hides its brokenness, and having just gazed into that crystal ball for the Gulf, I don’t care what it costs to change. The price of not changing is too high.
What to say, Congress should read this. The President should read this. The Governors of the Gulf Coast should read this, and weep.
Bones AK yes they should along with BP CEO’S and all the people in the world.Too much has been hidden.It all needs to see the light of day so people can see that even ater a clean up what is left is about as bad and still there even after 21 years.
A beautifully written (though sad) post, Ms. Devon. Thank you for the on site testimonial.
It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English — up to fifty words used in correct context — no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese. ~ Carl Sagan
I came across that in an article about cetaceans in Spirituality & Health that also pointed out that dolphins and porpoises are among the few species that engage in play (behavior that is not directly related to feeding, survival or procreation). It’s possible that you’re not anthropomorphizing regarding the sense of joy.
AKM,
This was as powerfully written as your post about your dad and the war last year.
The sad thing is the Valdez had a finite amount of oil that it spilled and this fiasco is essentially infinite. Tragedy for so many.
On a hopeful note, the Santa Barbara platform blowout that gave rise to Earth Day some 40 years ago did not leave the remnants like this, but still we haven’t learned the conservation we need from it, the Valdez or even this current spill. I think we all need to smell that oily water sample to wake up, but there will still be oil company shills chanting “Drill, Baby, Drill,” correcting “O’Biden” during the VP debates. (I hope McCain loses in the general election to the Democrat for his role in this disaster.)
Since I distrust Hayworth even more than McCain (I didn’t know that was possible
), I want McCain to win the primary but lose big time in the general election. That would hurt him even worse I’m thinking.
AKM, wonderful – and powerful – writing as usual. I could feel the pain shared on that oily beach. It makes me want to cry.
We do need to change our habits, no matter the cost. Close down the MIC and the wars and the bases all over the world and we will have enough money to make this change to truly clean energy and for health care for all.
“I want McCain to win the primary but lose big time in the general election” is what I want, also.
Ditto! (Although losing the primary would still be pretty cool. Presidential candidate to abject loser/reject in less than 2 short years has a certain appeal, don’cha think?)
THAT’S what’cha get for ‘vetting’ Palin, J.McGrumpy!
Poignant and well written, AKM your words and pictures strike the note of sadness, downright horror that so many of us have been feeling.
I think what struck me most was several weeks ago, watching a youtube of a boat captain showing the camera news crew some marshy looking area. He started crying. Said that what hit him was the TOTAL SILENCE. That there were always scads of birds as they fed or nested before but now there was complete silence. Yes, once he said that, I realized the only sounds to be heard were the voices of the humans.
This is so indescribable, I can’t understand why people refused to learn the lessons of Exxon Valdez. No amount of money will ever replace or repair the damage inflicted.
Chilling piece, AKM. Love your writing.
OMG~what a powerful article you have written. Didn’t expect to have tears welling up in my eyes, but there they are while I type. When will we learn that we, as a people, cannot keep doing damage to our home. I live in NW Louisiana and while we are not directly affected by this disaster yet, we will be in so many ways. I am at a loss of what individuals can do.
just sad
Heartwrenching…just simply heartwrenching…..wouldn’t it be wonderful if the entire Congress took a field trip to Prince William Sound, and spent an entire day there…truly the sights and sounds would have a profound effect on them…..and perhaps some meaningful laws would be passed……
This should be mandatory reading for so many people. I hope it is read by many millions.
It should not just be mandatory reading, but mandatory watching. The public is so hardwired visually now, that your pictures and video will have a greater impact, perhaps.
Congress, both parties, should be forced to watch and read over and over and over…and all talk show hosts who deny the catastrophic effects of drilling, too. also.
Yes, but not everyone has vision. At least with someone reading it, or turning it into Braille it’s more accessible to more people.
But yeah, no one is Congress is blind, to the best of my knowledge. They should see it.
I agree along with Shannyn’s BP’s Invisible Damage Is Killing Us both very powerful.
Thank you for finding out what “pristine” can mean and sharing your experience so movingly. Absolutely chilling in light of the unfathomable death and destruction currently gushing with no end in sight.
AKM, I hope you are able to post this at Huffington Post. Because this happened in Alaska and many of us have never been there, it is likely out of sight out of mind for many. People need to know the legacy of such a spill and how the Gulf’s spill will not end with the relief wells.
I think Young, Murkowski and yes, even Begich, should take a little field trip.
Wow, just wow. Ditto to everyone’s comments. AKM wrote a powerful piece that every Governor in the Gulf states needs to read.
Today there is a townhall with Senator Begich, retired military officers, and Iraq vets at the Denai’na Center at 11 a.m.. Mission: Secure America with Clean Energy. If you go, be sure to bring your doubting Thomas friend.
http://www.operationfree.com
OOPs!!! Correction:
http://www.operationfree.net
Twitter Queen, drill baby, drill should read this.
Would she wear it? I doubt she’d “get it”, after all.
http://www.despair.com/somevedi.html
She would never ever get what this means. Her conscience has long been seared dead by greed and lies.
I know you didn’t mean too, but you have saddened my day.
Thank You.
21 years, how sad.
I still remember it like yesterday. I flew over PWS a few days after the grounding. It was a mess! One of the nicest places on earth was trashed mainly due to complacency.
The Gulf spill seems like a slow motion replay.
How very sad. Your pictures and video and words all come together to give us a seat on the boat, a bootprint sheened with residue, and a heart heavy with sadness of what is yet to come. Thank you.
“Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize that we can’t eat money.” ~ Cree Proverb
one of my favorite quotes …sometimes i feel like we are rapidly heading this way
Remember, JRR Tolkien felt the same way, almost a century ago.
That’s not to say that we (all) couldn’t do better, we can; we will.
I love Tolkien and his visionary story telling about industrial progress and its costs has always stayed with me.
I’m all for human progress and technology but I draw the line when we ravage and rampage our way thru everything that is beautiful and pristine so that we humans can be just that little more comfortable.
I agree. I also fail to understand why we don’t FULLY FUND and make a commitment to FULLY FUND engineers, etc. who WANT to figure out alternative energy sources, or how to make things more efficient. It’s going to take a certain amount of serious coin, for at least two or three administrations…
I’m going to beat this drum some more, but isn’t conservation a natural fit with conservatives and their values? If you use less, you have more of the resource AND your money after all! That should be a natural bridge between political differences.
I must be stupidly naive, or something.
One of the most powerful and perhaps prophetic messages from the past. We need to pause and let its truth well and truly fill us. Thanks, LA Brian.
We..in this family, extended family..know this all..from the first days..and we know it..to our core. May this ..find its way into so many extended forms of media..and..Soonest! Thank you.
Reading this gave me the “hard swallow”, if you know what I mean. I think it’s that same feeling you described just before you cry.
How about:
(1) Take your evidence to Congress!
(2) Post this article wherever you can!
I won’t ever forget the day I learned of the Exxon Valdez spill and the pain of the days, weeks, and years that followed. I’m feeling that way about the Gulf as well. As a youngster, I spent many a warm summer day on Dauphin Island near Mobile — this wonderful, beautiful area is now feeling the effects of the oil. So much to think about and wish you could just simply hit the Delete button!
By the way, I am currently reading “1 in Attic” by Chris Rose, a journalist from New Orleans. This is a collection of articles that he wrote after Katrina. If you have wondered what it feels like after a disaster in your own community, this may be a worthwhile read. I’m reading it now in the context of IF HE ONLY KNEW WHAT WAS AHEAD for New Orleans and the Gulf.
Digg it, facebook it, twitter it, get this story out there!
http://digg.com/environment/The_Mudflats_Walking_With_the_Ghost_of_Exxon
A most revealing, yet powerful piece of writing Ms. Devon. Thank you for sharing.
As painful as this was to read, I can only imagine how painful it was to experience and share with us. Thank you, Jeanne (this one just seems too serious to use ‘AKM’), for your haunting words and images.
It is difficult for those of us who have not witnessed the devastation of Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Mexico to truly understand the horror. This should be required reading for all members of Congress, all Gulf Coast leaders, members of the media and every employee of every oil company drilling in and near the United States.
Thank you.
Oh, AKM, you’re making me tear-up at work!! Thank goodness I’m the only one in the office right now! A beautiful, sad, important piece. As others have said, it should be required reading!
Very powerful and very heart wrenching.I have sent it to my friend in Missippi.and I’m sure it will be circulated there,
Thanks, AKM
Very powerful and very heart wrenching.I have sent it to my friend in Missippi.and I’m sure it will be circulated there,
Thanks, AKM
Thank you for coming into my back yard and seeing what is still here. Like you, I wasn’t in PWS during the spill but came a decade later in ‘98. I live out here now and most of my work involves education and research biology regarding the EVOS. You couldn’t have picked a more perfect Capt. than Dave Janka to take you around. Dave is intimately familiar with the Sound and the EVOS. I consider him a very special person and friend. His continued advocacy and education regarding EVOS is invaluable.
Wonderful piece, AKM. Pointing out how distant these disasters are to most of us is so important. What is today’s disaster in the world of news slowly becomes the small news on the back pages as time goes by. Unless it hits your life. The Gulf oil is impacting far more people directly than Valdez, but it already seems to have gone from the headlines, at least the initial horror of it. I’m afraid we haven’t seen the true horror of this spill yet, mentally, environmentally, or economically.
But the deed is done- we have to keep this mess in the news, we can’t forget or look away because it hurts too much. I am overwhelmed at times by the potential impact on our earth, but other times I am ready to fight. We all need to pick up the slack when others are needing a break from it, especially those close to it. We all need to keep up the pressure for change, and we must never forget. This event should be our lesson for change.
The latest name of the Exxon Valdez is Dong Fang Ocean.
http://www.aukevisser.nl/supertankers/bulkers/id425.htm
It still is in service, it seems. I will also pass on this testament of the heart. Thank you.
Jeanne, thanks to you and Shannon and Zack and those who helped you get there. I salute the courage and drive that makes you deliver words and pictures while I can only think, “I have no words…”
This is why I am enraged when I hear so many who flippantly say Drill, baby, Drill and Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less. As if money is all that matters.
So WHAT if we end up paying more for alternative fuel? Is it not worth it so that we don’t shred our environment. So many Christians are conservatives who wholeheartedly adhere to the free market principles and I want to ask them HOW can they be so completely disconnected? What’s more important? People’s lives and their well being or the Profit Motive?
I didn’t want to read this, I knew it would be really hard. But I am glad I did and I am really thankful for your insights, your journey and your honesty.
You know……sometimes my pastor talks about how people worship the environment more than they worship God. I get what he means. But sometimes I want to say to him, isn’t God’s glory reflected in His creation? In the majesty of Nature?
I want to ask him – aren’t we christians taught to believe that God put us here to take care of the Earth and everything in it that He created? So how are we doing in that department? Not very well I would say.
I know as christians we shouldn’t worship the “created” more than the Creator. I’m fine with that concept. But being an environmentalist doesn’t mean one has to forget the sovereignty of God. If anything – those who believe that God made everything around us, that God made Nature in all its beauty – well, shouldn’t they be the very people who are the most vocal about keeping it beautiful? Or has the love of money blinded us all?
I am a Presbyterian, and our Mission Statement as well as governing documents have strong planks regarding our role, and serious responsibility, to be stewards of God’s creations. While not all members/churches buy into the faith statement that God commands us to protect the purity and sanctity of the earth, many do.
“I know as christians we shouldn’t worship the ‘created’ more than the Creator.” I agree and, like you, I’m fine with that. But it’s deeply frustrating to hear churches take that position, because usually what happens is that this statement is used to close the door. It conveniently stops conversation. As if no further consideration is needed. As though one can’t worship the Creator and value the life-giving sustenance of creation at the same time. As if destruction of natural resources in the name of greed is not a temptation to individuals and society, as if we don’t ever have to look at it that way.
As a theological position it is correct, but at the same time it is a convenient shortcut past the uncomfortable knowledge that we have fallen into temptation, that we can confuse “dominion,” utility, and sustenance with destruction and greed, that we can take that which God created, which God looked upon and saw that it was good, and blast it into smithereens, slash it down for profit, foul it with the excesses of agribusiness, change the chemistry of the air and sea, and consider the demolition of an entire ocean region as simply the cost of doing business.
For those who say that the conversation ends before we get to the part about our own generation’s response to temptation, perhaps they should also reflect upon, What did God create first, creation, or the people to inhabit it? God doesn’t get it backward. It’s a pity we do.
This is an awesome comment, thank you so much. You expressed it so much more eloquently than I ever could.
What irks me is the causal way my pastor sometimes will say “But oh, of course we have to protect the environment.” Like as if green issues are somehow ‘too liberal” to be discussed broadly. But then we go on and discuss the sins of greed and selfishness! Sometimes I practically have to sit on my hands to prevent from leaping up from my seat and yelling “It’s the greed and selfishness that is driving us to destroy our very environment!!”
I
wow!!
So well written as always. It made me feel as though I was right there w/you and brought tears to my eyes. I’m a long-time Alaskan, having arrived here as a 4th grader in 1950 in Haines on the way to Juneau, which would be our new home.
I have spent hours on the water and there is nothing more enjoyable. In your writing, I could feel what Shannon was as she sat overlooking the water, scenery and taking in what she had just viewed.
I especially think Senator Lisa Murkowski should be the one that is MADE to view this beach and I so, so hope she is not re-elected. Your article needs to appear in Huffington Post and I’m sure it will be moved to other publications from there.
Thank you for the truthful, factual and proof-sourced information you have provided Alaskans and citizens of the U.S. in the lower 48 throughout the past few years.
Especially as we hear how Limbaugh spews his ugliness on a daily basis – w/his nonsensible put downs as to President Obama and members of his Administration i.e.: “Joe Bite-Me” – Obama’s regime – refers to the term of czars for the appointments that have been made in President Obama’s administration – the put down of the well educated in Washington D.C. – there is no worry w/the oil spill in the gulf – it will naturally clean itself – Alaska is pristine after their oil spill – and worst of all, none of the Republicans in Congress stand up to him or counter him. Yes, I force myself to listen to him once a week just to see what his listeners are hearing and believing! I really don’t understand how he can speak so degradingly about President Obama on a daily basis….his heart must be the ugliest of anyone on earth!
Thank you for taking the time to write about this so thoughtfully. It’s heart-breaking and thought provoking and put me in your place, experiencing it as though it were me, and that is what good writing should do.
I want a different outcome for us. I’m tired of the ‘we’re gluttons for our own doom’ meme. I’m tired of the current meme in this country’s political trajectory which seems to say that it’s so corrupt nothing can or will be changed. We’re the unknown quantity in that equation, and even if our votes don’t count, our showing up certainly will.
Take care.
One still has to ask the question why hasnt the State – DEC & Federal -EPA required futher remediation in these and similar areas ?
Research is still coming out on the effects of so-called “remediation”. In many ways, the pressure washing of the beaches with hot water and dispersant caused more damage than good.
Glad to see it is posted on HuffPo
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/akmuckraker/a-beach-walk-with-the-gho_b_636499.html
Like another said, I didn’t “rush” to read this, then came back and read it. OMG, I’m so glad I did…and so heart-broken that it is too true. The writing was wonderful and enlightening, thank you so much for your efforts.
I have never had that smell of petroleum in my nose, so I have no idea how bad it is, but you made me realize that it is the worst. Everyone in this country should have to read this, over and over.
Everyone in govt should be forced to watch a video of this and everyone should demand that congress start taking our environment as serious as they do their damn fund-raising nightly soirees full of booze and fine foods and back slapping yuk yukking as they sell us down the river.
It is beyond comprehension how our environment is so neglected so breezily damn easy. What are we thinking??
As far as the smell goes, think roofing tar, after it’s cooled but still in the air. Horrible stuff.
There is no denying the truth about what our present disaster has done, irreparable damages. Those skunks didn’t even clean up the Exxon mess. Well, I shed my first tear today over what drilling has done. We all needed to see for ourselves what is here on Mudflats. This is serious, your description and intricate detail has truly brought this thing to life. How very unfortunate that with all the bells & whistles, the stunts, the staged rallys, I could go on.
Alaska & the Gulf are tied forever in the greed & carelessness of the entire oil industry. Mudflats has a new purpose now, don’t stop.
A beautifully written piece about such a devastating tragedy.
The Gulf of Mexico is on the receiving end of 4.2 million gallons per day with no end in sight. Already, the Gulf has taken nearly ten times the 30+ million gallon spill from the Exxon Valdez. (the oft quoted 11 million gallon spill figure was Exxon’s low-ball estimate. They subtracted what was left on-board the Exxon Valdez after days sitting on Bligh reef with a 126 foot X 6 foot gash in its lower hull for several days-42 million gallons, from what it left the port of Valdez with-53.04 million gallons. EXXON FAILED to account for the fact that SEAWATER filled the Exxon Valdez from the same enormous gash that oil exited!)
The point is…the Gulf of Mexico is ruined. It’s not coming back for generations…if it ever does. Where are all those people going to go? I imagine the gulf coast will become a ghost town…
Thanks for the great piece Jeanne.
Powerful post, AKM. Thank you all so much for reporting this.
I don’t know that the oil from the Santa Barbara spill is gone, either. When the sand is low, and one digs down, there’s still a dirty, oily band of sand down in there, rather like it’s slowly sinking through the layers. And when the sand gets low, there seems to be a lot more oil sheen on the water than usual. I’m out pretty often in my kayak, and it can be pretty gross. Yes, there’s natural seepage, but there’s more sheen and more dirty sand down deep than I remember as a kid. And, yes, I dug very deeply making various kinds of castles and burying various family members standing up. And, yes, I spent nearly every warm day on or in the water.
So, that’s not scientific evidence, just my personal observations, for whatever they’re worth.
We must figure out a way to clean this up.
Send the jars of oily sand and water to your representatives in congress. Too bad you didn’t pick up enough for the congress people and governors in the gulf states. Show them what they can expect 21 years from now.
I agree that a congressional trip to PWS would be a good idea. Complete with press. Oh, and have them bring their kids along to play in the sand and walk barefoot in it. Maybe drink a little salt water. If you don’t want your kid to do it, then maybe you shouldn’t expect your constituents to, either.
Great piece.
“Knowing makes it different.”
You right, AKM, knowing does make it different.
Maybe that’s why people like Sarah Palin, McCain, Beck, Limbaugh, Jindal, Barbour, Cantor, and all the rest insist on being willfully ignorant. They don’t want to know.
They have made their choices. They are only for themselves. Their choices not only tell us their character, they mark their own souls.
Their egos have outgrown their hearts. They will never know what it is to grieve for beauty lost, for life wasted, and for joy that will never return in quite the same way or form.
Why should we allow these dead souls to make decisions? They have nothing of value to add to our lives, to our culture.
Knowing them for the empty shells they are makes it different; for they will never shed real tears in real grief for they can no longer see, feel, or love just for the sake of loving.
Knowing we care should give us the strength to shift the power away from them, to replace them with people who know what it is to love. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. We either love ourselves or we do not. If we love ourselves, we love the earth. It is up to us to take care of what we love – now.
We can do it. We can change things. Others before us have. It is our turn now. We know this – know it better and deeper and more truly than we did. We know they lied. We know they will lie again. We know the time has come to decide: do they win or do we? The answer is what we make it.
This is getting some good movement on Twitter. As it should . I’m going to send the link to my regional reps and will post it on the local news site that I publish. I generally try to keep things light and local but this needs to be read.
Heartbreaking but thank you for the work you call did. Saddest boots on the ground, ever.
Thank you, AKM, for this powerfully written and deeply felt post. The need to get off fossil fuels has been known for years. We simply must find the courage now, finally, to act boldly.
I took a tour of the Valdez harbor and oil terminal a couple months before the spill. Our guide confidently said that there were so many safety precautions in place that a spill would not be possible. Wasn’t that BP’s response plan too?
AKM, thanks for taking us all to a place where most of us will never visit, but one of which we should all be aware. There are some wrongs that can never be made right, and which we should never forget.
I have no words, only tears.
Irish…feel the same…tears tears
Buffalo gal..who did you send it to?
I will post on fb and send it to my reps as well…
this needs to be out there.
Thank You all for going there and doing some real good reporting back to us
Judi – Schumer , Higgins and Gillibrand, so far. Also to CBS and NPR because I have their addresses at hand. I’ll continue the mailings tomorrow.
Why is our government helping BP cover up the damage that is being done. What Bush did in dithering over what to do about Katrina and th 9th ward is dwarfed by the this horror, and yet the states do next to nothing but whine and the Federal government bans the press, won’t enforce safety measures for the workers, and appoints the wolf and the fox and the lynx to form a commission to see what went wrong -.
There is a effen gusher 5000 feet down in the Gulf is what went wrong, you don’t need a commission for that -
But does not appoint a commission to act to stop the harm being done to the Gulf Coast, and its human inhabitants, and the Gulf waters and its inhabitants.
There is everything wrong with that picture.
AKM, can we assume you guys didn’t collect any muscles while you were walking along the beach and tidal areas?
Retorical question of course.
Walking dejectedly through the slough after reading this. Looking for glimmers of hope on the horizon.
The Gulf rig blew up in April! It is now July!
Most news media just spoon-feed us BP’s empty, meaningless words.
We know so little about the real impacts of these disasters.
Thanks for the reminder and the eye-opener once again.
Well-done.
Great writing. I felt like I was there with you. I think those jars you filled should be taken directly to Congress for a “show and tell”. That stuff is never going away. I am horrified to think what is happening in the Gulf knowing what is evident in Alaska after 21 years after a “smaller” spill.
Along the same lines, check this out. It is just outrageous that the press and scientists are not allowed in the area to see what is really going on.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/06/gulf-oil-spill-scientists_n_636981.html
This has been an odd day. I will be 58 in less than an hour. All day long, I have been remembering my childhood. I was born and raised in Kentucky. Daughter of parents also born and raised there. If you want to go back through the ages, my people came through the Gap with Daniel. Anyway, my father’s people once had quite a bit of acreage in Butler county, Kentucky. This was back in the early 1900’s. A coal company bought the mineral rights. And, in the 1940’s, the farm was taken. Only thing left is the graveyard. To get there, you have to call the coal company, and somebody will open the gates. It is a bad drive, easier to walk. There, sheltered on a hillside, a Resting Ground was established in the late 1700’s. A creek used to run at the bottom of the hill. My father, who visited there many times as a boy, told me the story of when he went back there to see the graveyard after WWII. The beautiful creek was gone. In its place was a stinking copper water miasma, Almost sixty years later, my cousins went to the Resting Place on Memorial Day to work around and fix the stones. They go every year. The copper water still sends its sulfur stench with the wind. The good water is gone.
You can’t find the graveyard anymore unless you know where it is. My cousins do. Nobody else goes there, but the stench and destruction still surround it. Oh, the land around it was “reclaimed” of course. Coal companies are really good at that – just look at their PR.
I keep coming back to those pictures. I keep thinking about my home. My home is yours, and your home is mine. I don’t know what to do. Does anyone know? We are too dependent. I certainly don’t want to go back to horse and buggy days. I don’t want to do without petroleum products or coal-fired electricity in places where hydro-electricity is not feasible. I want to know what to do.
NYT article from a few months ago on Glenn Albrecht, the ‘ecological unconscious’ and solastalgia:
“Solastalgia, in Albrecht’s estimation, is a global condition, felt to a greater or lesser degree by different people in different locations but felt increasingly, given the ongoing degradation of the environment.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31ecopsych-t.html?_r=1
In this post, AKM has captured the solastalgia of the Valdez, which is echoing in the present solastalgia of the Gulf, and it all echoes in the word of those here who have responded to the deep feeling in her writing. So, sadly, there is a name for this shared feeling.
That should be, “words” of those here
I really have no words to say but thank you for this post. I recall finding oil in the sound just a few years after the spill and am not surprised that it is still there. I will mention that as one of the many Exxon litigants, some of us are still waiting for compensation. It seems that even after these cases are concluded, the pay-out schedule is very long & drawn out. Just fair warning to anyone in the gulf area who might be reading this post.
Thanks everyone for your kind words and comments. I’ve been in a bit of a funk since the trip and I’ve appreciated hearing from all of you. It’s hard to know what to do, but I always take comfort in the fact that the number of people who see through the fog and understand what is happening is growing. There is a critical mass for change, and we are heading in the right direction. And the internet provides so many places for people to congregate and come together for a common purpose.
It usually takes a horrible wake-up call, but change comes.
AKM, thank you. It started with Sarah Palin, but your blog has grown beyond that.
Thank you for your trip and your witnessing.
I spent the first 12 years of life in CA. I grew up on the beaches. I was in Santa Barbara when the oil spilled. I remember all the older people among our family and friends cleaning birds and coming home smelling bad, red eyes from oil and tears. We moved to Alaska soon after that.
Eight years after that I visited a beach miles away from where the original spill happened. We couldn’t walk without getting globs of black all over our feet. You couldn’t sit anywhere. The oil never left even though people “said” it was clean.
We moved to Alaska in 1971 and lived through the Pipeline years in Eagle River. Everyone was crazy for the money. It felt like a goldrush and peoples’ ideals seemed all mixed up. I only remember that money was everywhere. Big wads of cash in pockets. Maybe it’s because I was so young, or that I blocked stuff out, but I don’t remember anyone really talking about the future or disasters. We didn’t have much but AM radio, and, looking back, we were oblivious.
We were in Juneau when the Exxon happened. It seemed so far away..even though I got to work a little with DEC on the court case. It felt very “David and Goliath,” and Goliath won.
It seems my life has always been surrounded by oil and that makes me sad. I live once again in CA, after 38 years in Alaska. I find myself afraid to swim in the ocean. No one drinks the water here; we don’t even know if we’ll have enough water. I find it hard to look at the news of the Gulf, but I make myself. I hope for the future but it’s scary as hell. People are so good at destruction.
I read pieces like yours and I so appreciate what people like you can teach the world. I want my son and grandson to have a good life. Funny that my son drives by the pipeline in Fairbanks everyday isn’t it?
I want to add my thanks as well. I didn’t have time to finish reading this yesterday, but I’m so glad I came back to it. You have further exposed the truth about an ugly situation, but you have done it in an emotionally powerful way. So, thank you, and I hope more and more people will read and understand the seriousness of the conditions human are creating on this planet!!