Apropos my recent posts
here and
on Tumblr on the histories of fish and humans in the Atlantic world, today I came across a
grim report from the Louisiana Coast on the ecological, economic, social disaster looming over already fragile African American oystering and shrimping communities:
Ironically, one approach to keeping the oil away could itself finish off the black fishing community here.
State officials have opened Mississippi River diversions, such as the White’s Ditch Siphon, hoping that a strong outward flow of water will keep the oil out of the bayou and marsh where it could persist for decades, and ruin the already brittle wetlands . But emptying that much fresh water into the oyster beds throws off the delicate salinity balance the bivalves need to survive.
When the White’s Ditch Siphon was installed in 1963, it destroyed most of the oyster beds owned by African Americans, said Byron Encalade, president of the Louisiana Oysterman Association. Encalade says he had close to 1,500 acres of oyster beds before the White Ditch intrusion and now has about 200 acres. At peak, blacks owned almost 10,000 acres collectively, but now maybe 1,500, he said.
As this sadly beautiful photo-essay from
ColorLines puts it:
the oil spill spares no one.
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