Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Patricia Clarkson: "BP has ruined the Gulf of Mexico"
Posted by Kevin Allman on Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 9:39 PM
Film star and New Orleans native Patricia Clarkson came home in mid-June to tour Barataria Bay with Plaquemines Parish president Billy Nungesser, City Council president Arnie Fielkow, and her mother, City Council vice-president Jackie Clarkson, as C-SPAN cameras recorded the visit. This week, Clarkson became a spokesperson for the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), calling upon Americans to contact their Congressional representatives to urge them to pass clean-energy legislation.
The Academy Award-nominated actress made a powerful short video for the NRDC, using footage from the Clarkson family’s vintage home movies of swimming in Lake Pontchartrain and vacationing on the Gulf Coast, beginning with a shot of Clarkson as a toddler in a blue dress, dancing on the levee with her mother, and ending with a plea for donations to the NRDC’s Gulf Recovery Fund.
In an accompanying essay, Clarkson describes the boom around the marshes as “like Band-Aids on gunshot wounds,” and writes,
I remember the bay as a place filled with wildlife — birds, alligators, sea turtles, and of course abundant oyster, shrimp and crab beds. But since the BP explosion, the bay has become an industrial zone. Oil sheen covered the water as far as we could see, and in every single marsh we passed, it was as if someone had taken a giant brush, dipped it in a big bucket of paint and painted the grass black. We went over to Cat Island, where the pelicans gather. There was no place for them to land that was oil-free, so they touched down in oily water, and their bellies were covered with the stuff.
Clarkson states flat out that “BP has ruined the Gulf of Mexico,” and adds, “We need to strengthen the regulations for offshore drilling so a disaster like this never happens again.” Such sentiments are, of course, easier expressed by an entertainer than a Bayou State politician. Several days before the Barataria Bay trip, Fielkow introduced a resolution into City Council supporting the efforts of President Barack Obama and the federal government in combating the disaster. The resolution ended with a subtle rebuke of Obama’s moratorium on deepwater drilling, urging the feds to “put all available expert resources on each rig subject to the moratorium, to evaluate its safety, and as a rig is deemed safe, to immediately remove the drilling ban on that rig.”
The council resolution passed 7-0.
Speaking of...
-
Cynthia Hedge-Morrell releases statement regarding City Council absence
Hedge-Morrell: " ... an ongoing and implicit disregard for debate and discussion that has left me feeling as though I've been marginalized."
- May 22, 2012
-
Landrieu's 2012 State of the City address
Liveblogging Landrieu this afternoon.
- May 22, 2012
-
City Council standoff: The emails are flying
It's she-said she-said she-said he-said this afternoon in New Orleans City Councilmember statements. And the beat goes on ... even if city government does not.
- May 16, 2012
- More »
Comments (2)
Showing 1-2 of 2
As usual we have an actress telling the world that the coast of Louisiana has been destroyed. What garbage ! I just spent 4 wonderful days in Cocodrie. I wonder if Miss Clarkson and her embittered mother even know where that is? The waters were teaming with life! Shrimp jumping, birds diving, and fish hitting the bait on our hooks as fast as we could cast. The CLEAN-UP of the oil spill must continue for years and our coast should be rebuilt. The burden of this effort is the joint responsibility of the Federal Government and the Oil companies drilling in the Gulf. Miss Clarkson should use her public platform to insist their efforts be substantially increased. In addition the present crop of local politicians whose only solution to the problem is restricted to a laughable city council resolution should be replaced as quickly as possible. Chief amongst these is her mother Ms Jackie Clarkson.
like
dislike
The population is the victim of damage that caused a third party, the British petroleum. The reconstruction should not be paid by the public but must be paid by BP. It is out of place to ask the citizens to cooperate to repair the damage and is absolutely unfair.
