June 4, 2010

Alabama Awaits the Oil

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Photos © Julia Whitty.
 
Mobile Bay, Alabama. If only BP followed their own admonitions. This sign marks where their pipeline comes ashore at Pascagoula, Mississippi.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I was headed east today, chasing the latest likely oil landfall. Happened upon this pipeline. Didn’t realize it was a restricted area, and came pretty close to getting arrested. Not because I was trying to monkeywrench the pipeline. Hell, BP’s already done one version of that. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
But because I noticed that some plovers and nighthawks were taking advantage of the fenced enclosure around the pipeline to nest on the ground in there. I tried to give the deputy a short course in birdwatching. But he wasn’t amused. Anyway, glad that pipeline’s good for something.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Further east, out on Dauphin Island off the Alabama shoreline, where the offshore rigs stand as thick as mangrove islands, everyone I talked to wanted to make sure I understood these were natural gas not oil rigs. Oil, once a mainstay of the Gulf shore, is hated here now. Most of the folks on the island were trying to enjoy what they knew would be their last day of fishing, casting uneasy glances out to sea. Oil was forecast to make landfall here today.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The people I talked to were angry that all the orange boom—which had been stockpiled here by the mile a few weeks ago—and that is designed to keep the oil off the beaches and marshes, has since been deployed to Louisiana. (This was the only piece of boom I saw in Alabama, a short forgotten length left behind.) The people here wanted to know what was going to keep the oil off their beaches and marshes? They wanted to know why BP was hiring 19-year-old men in fast boats to spray dispersant offshore and not the local fishermen who have families to provide for and no work now?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Just across the road from the fishing pier, and pointed straight at the offshore rigs, lie the Civil War cannons of historic Fort Gaines, site of the Battle of Mobile Bay. Too bad these old blunderbusses can’t defend against the oil that will probably wash ashore during darkness tonight.
 
 
 

 

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate