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Sucking spilled oil. PHOTO: JONATHON HENDERSON


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That Sinking Feeling A


CAPPING BP’S GUSHER WAS ONLY THE START BY JARED SERIGNE


fter a long, enjoyable day chasing redfish from his Hobie Pro Angler, Blake Gill let out a sigh of relief. Four months ago he’d wondered if he would ever fish here again


as a river of oil flowed toward the nation’s most productive fishery. Gill grew up surfing, boating and fishing in South Florida. When he moved to New


Orleans in January 2009, he wanted to stay in touch with his aquatic roots. He quickly found himself part of a growing community of anglers using kayaks to ac-


cess the marshes and estuaries of Louisiana’s fragmented coastline. “At that time kayak fishing was the fastest growing water sport in America and I couldn’t think of a better place for it than South Louisiana. The fishery here is incredible,” he recalls. When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico on


April 20 and BP’s Macondo Prospect well began spewing oil from beneath the sea floor, officials closed commercial and recreational fishing in most coastal waterways. As the oil spread closer to the wetlands, concern mounted. “I actually fished in a tournament on April 25. I remember everyone talking about the


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closures and what it meant for the spots that were accessible by kayak. There was a lot of fear at that time that we might get completely wiped out,” Gill recalls. After the leaking well was capped in mid-July, the state reopened 96 percent of its


saltwater to recreational and commercial fishing. While most anglers remain skeptical that the oil’s full impact has been felt, they have taken full advantage of good fishing and cooler fall temperatures. Yet the fishery is still facing a crisis. Often referred to as Sportsman’s Paradise, Louisi-


ana is home to the largest expanse of wetlands in the lower 48 states. Since the 1930s, this dynamic ecosystem has lost over 2,300 square miles to subsidence and saltwater intru- sion brought on by the levees that channelize the Mississippi River and the dredging of oil and gas pipeline canals. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Marshall is familiar with coastal disasters and


the vulnerability of Louisiana’s wetlands. During the spill he put the issues in perspective. “We need to remember this is a temporary problem on top of a permanent disaster.


Long after BP’s oil is gone, we’ll still be fighting for survival against a much more serious enemy—our sinking, crumbling delta. Our coast is like a cancer patient who has come down with pneumonia. That’s serious, but curable. After the fever breaks, he’ll still have cancer,” Marshall explains. With BP already committed to fund restoration projects, Blake Gill and other sports-


men may have found a unique opportunity to revive their vanishing paradise. “Hopefully we can use this disaster to fix some of the problems that Louisiana was


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facing long before the spill,” Gill explains. And with coastal Louisiana steadily sinking, he knows they must act quickly. —Documentary filmmaker Jared Serigné is covering the on-going battle to save Louisiana’s coast.


DIGITAL EXTRA: Click here to watch Serigné’s film.


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