Close Encounters of the Gulf Coast Kind
By Michael Boyajian
New York photographer Kevin Downs reporting from the Gulf Coast tells of a surreal situation reminiscent of the frightening contamination of the alien landing area in the film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Only this time it is not faked and it’s the greatest environmental catastrophe in history and it is the press that is being kept away from the horrid scenes of BP’s calamity.
Mr. Downs states that he was thwarted in his efforts to reach the Audubon bird sanctuary on Dauphin Island a barrier island of the coast of Mobile that is the first land encountered by birds migrating from South America.
Downs showed his press credentials time and time again but to no avail. He was told by a woman claiming authority that he would not be allowed near the wildlife area of the island. Crossing over a nearby bridge Downs noticed that the normally bright orange booms were now black with oil.
He pressed the woman that he was media and needed to photograph the scene but he was told that it was closed on orders of Homeland Security and BP.
Mr. Downs also reports that tension is rising in the local Vietnamese community. These Vietnamese escaped the rape and murder of the Vietnam War as boat people. They came to this region and put their skills as fishermen to work as shrimpers and built a new life for themselves free from war. Now, thanks to BP, that life is ruined by a toxic nightmare.
The community is growing angry because now out of work they are not being allowed to work on clean up and containment by BP which would allow them to support themselves and their families. Their lives were destroyed not once but now twice by manmade horrors and their plight is going unheard overshadowed by the slow death of the Gulf ecological system. But it is not just dolphins, sharks, shrimp and birds that are dying off but the hope of a people and so too the hope of a nation. A nation prevented from witnessing scenes beyond imagination by forces outside their control.
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