Billy and the berm

"Twenty-four miles of Plaquemines Parish are destroyed. Everything in it tonight is dead. This will destroy the marsh forever."

These solemn words are Billy Nungesser's, a portly, sincere politician, the President of Plaquemines Parish. A former businessman who recycled old shipping containers and outfitted them as living quarters for offshore workers, he's in Venice fighting for birds and turtles, and Billy's a hero to mother nature. He gets red-faced and winded talking to multiple reporters each day, espousing plans for a "Berm", borrowing language from the Dutch, a shelf or raised barrier, which may be dredged onto beaches to both inhibit the advance of oil and to prepare for the worst with the onset of hurricane season just six days away.

Mr. Nungesser is fiercely trying to hold onto something, something there for all of us to appreciate--and it's dying around him. At times, he appears choked-up, just trying to convince someone to take action, someone high up. He's requesting federal help, citing BP's indolence, and calling for government intervention to force BP's hand, who according to Billy, proclaiming with a deleted F-Bomb on local TV, "They ain't doin' a f&%@#' thing!" His red face is incredulous, ubiquitous.

While you can readily find images from the marshland, I can say that at sea, legions of portugese man-of-war float dead, as black-tip sharks still swim through the oil. I've seen dolphin close ashore who appear ok (for now) and sea birds sitting in the slick offshore who surely won't make it; all of it beneath a lavender sky.

This morning BP will attempt, again, to cap the well. God be with them.

Meanwhile Mr. Nungesser will continue pleading that it's way-past time to get the right powers-that-be involved, for a leader to arise.

"We're begging BP to step up to the plate, the coast guard, and now I've written the President this morning to demand that we mow these dredges, to put an 80-mile levee in front of our barrier islands... Up to now they shoot down my proposals, give me excuses why this and that can't be done. Well, what can be done?"

Whatever Billy can accomplish, the damage is done but not over. And much more of it still lurks, offshore; its a plume surely visible from space, enveloping titanic portions of sea; another, bizarre blight on the canvas to the astronaut's in orbit and a reminder to us all of our sickly excesses.