Contacting Vitter: Hannah Sarco's Letter to a U.S Senator

Inspiring youth activist, writer and fellow reporter - Hannah Sarco - recently reached out to David Vitter, hoping to share her feelings on his recent decision to try to overrule Obama's drilling moratorium.

Dear Senator Vitter,

I can understand, on some level, your growing concerns about the economy and what effect rising gas/oil prices will have on Louisiana communities. However, I must warn you that drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is dangerous, expensive, and potentially life threatening to the extensive ecosystems that live there. Not only are these drilling operations severely dangerous in the Gulf but they pose huge threats in any ocean. Oil drilling has already proven itself to be a potential economy killer as well; the BP oil spill sent thousands of jobs and paychecks down the drain. The oil spill, which could have occurred on any oil rig in the Gulf, killed thousands of migratory birds, native plants and marine animals that are crucial to biodiversity within just 6 months. These are major risks that stand even without mentioning the often traumatic, and extremely hazardous, lifestyles of workers on oil rigs.

I'm asking you, as a New Orleans native, to please invest your time not in overruling Obama's drilling moratorium and continuing dangerous oil drilling, but in alternative energies. I cannot stress enough the importance of alternative, local and clean energy sources. Wind power is a viable and lucrative option to pursue in the Gulf Coast area; because the land is very flat here, wind turbines can easily be used to produce energy. In Europe, there is much work being done in places such as Poland and Germany to use and promote clean energy; this also is reducing harmful CO2 emissions. In 2007, a study showed that the United States emitted, per capita per year, 14.7 metric tons of CO2. In the France, it was less than half, with only 6 metric tons per year. These emissions came from sources like car exhaust, chemical plants, oil rigs, and more; the less CO2 spewing into our atmosphere, because of oil drilling in particular, the better.

Not only would wind and/or solar energy generate jobs, it would stimulate our economy, protect workers and ecosystems from toxic oil spills, cut back on greenhouse gases that lead to global warming, and save our tax payer's money on practices that endanger every one's health.

I hope that when you read this email you will consider changing your focus on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, and take a more environment and people friendly approach to this issue. Thank you for your time.

Best wishes,

Hannah Sarco

Mother Nature - Taking Care of Business? A short report

By "business" I mean the aftermath of the BP oil spill and by "taking care of" I mean that mother ocean has unleashed an army of methane gas-devouring ocean bacteria.
In just 4 months, a key ingredient in the BP oil spill catastrophe(methane gas) has been literally eaten up by ocean bacteria. This bacteria has also often been called oil-eating bacteria. But this bacteria doesn't eat the oil, it eats separate ingredients of the oil like methane and propane.

Many scientists believe that this feast has come earlier than expected and has already surpassed their expectations. Scientists also found the exponential and immediate growth of the bacteria to be quite strange. A likely explanation for this momentous growth would be warmer water temperatures around where the bacteria were blooming.

Although this isn't a noticeable change to us on shore, it is indeed a very significant change in the ocean's ecosystem. Nature, much like our bodies, is constantly battling disease, infection and ailments. It is constantly healing itself. Treat nature like you would treat your body.

Thank you
- Hunter

Twenty Four Inches Deep: An Update on the BP Oil Spill

     As I walked out onto the white sands of the Pensacola beach with my grandmother, I didn't realize at first what was going on. It was early morning, around eight o'clock, and as we trudged through the cold, slippery sand closer to the water I could by then clearly see six odd looking machines trundling down the beach. Two of them looked a lot like tractors, one a cement mixer, and in the back a little golf cart sporting a port-o-potty on its rear. They all were headed down the beach to a group of even larger and honkier machines which were surrounded by workers wearing orange shiny vests, walking around. On closer inspection, I noticed the workers all appeared to be chatting amiably to one another, the machines quite deserted for the time being.

There was one man herding the machines, waving them onwards and looking around importantly. We approached him curiously, and said hello. “What are all of your machines for?” I asked, though part of me already suspected the answer.

“We're digging for oil.”

“How deep are you finding oil?” My grandmother asked, looking slightly surprised.

“Around six to twenty four inches deep, ma'am. This area in front of the hotel here is pretty much clean, so we're moving on down to the pier there.” He pointed and I looked automatically to where the machines were indeed sitting close to a pier. As I watched, what looked like a small power shovel sprang to life and, huffing and puffing, began to dig a hole in the sand. The workers stopped chatting and turned to watch as well.

“What do you do with the contaminated sand once you dig it up?” Gran asked. I looked back to the man to hear his answer.

“Well, once the sand is mixed with oil, it gets kinda like asphalt, so BP is going to pave some roads down here with it for free.” The man said, nodding again. At this I have to contain myself from throwing him a disbelieving look, and instead respond with a timid, “Oh, I see.”

The man looked around and, seeing that his posse was leaving him behind, wished us a good day before jumping onto his own golf cart and speeding after them.

After the man departed and my grandmother and I have mulled over his words, I decided to dig a hole and see for myself whether I find oil or not. I found a large, handy shell and begin to dig where the sand was reportedly clean. It took me a while but I finally dug a hole about a foot deep and peered inside. The man was right; all I could see is that the sand is a couple shades darker and ringed with a few mysterious black circles. Oil? I decided after some observation that it probably wasn't, as the sand didn't look dark or smell foul enough to be oil.

The next day I went out onto the beach again, this time accompanied by biologist/activist Leanne Sarco (who happens to be my aunt). Though it was bitterly cold and windy, we persevered and went looking for oil on the sand, as well as any tar balls washing up onshore. Walking further from the hotel, we arrived at a patch of beach where the dunes had not yet been dominated by large corporate buildings. Sure enough, after a little searching we found not one but three shells that had foul smelling, reddish spots of oil on them, lying close to the gushing tide. I took a picture of one of them, back at the hotel room, and have included it to the right.

In addition to these shells, we found suspicious oily stains on some sand near the shells we'd found, though we couldn't readily identify the stains. What happened to all the oil? I wondered as we turned around a while later and headed back to the hotel. I remembered the endless news stories earlier in 2010 of oil washing up in Pensacola, Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, and countless Louisiana islands like Grand Isle and Grand Terre. Could BP really have swept it all away with their big, shiny machines and plans of cleaning all the contaminated beaches by spring 2011?

One hypothesis of mine as to where all the oil has gone is this: it went down. All of the toxic dispersant and oil, having broken up into tiny pieces, had nowhere to go after a while but settle down to the bottom of the ocean, where hopefully Mother Nature and some butt kicking micro organisms will take care of it. Some of this bottom-coating oil washed up onshore I expect, along with a few unlucky sea shells that had the misfortune of being spotted with grimy oil. Even though you can't see much oil on the Pensacola beaches, it is still a big threat our ecosystems, both marine and on land. And yes, I do mean us as well, the humans who started it all.

The BP Oil Spill: What Really Went Down


At 9:45pm on April 20^th, 2010, the vast and towering Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 men and marking the beginning of one of the biggest oil spills in the history of the US. The cause of the explosion? To put it simply, the cause was bad planning, ignorance, and a utter disregard for safety standards. After the oil rig 

Photo (c) Leanne Sarco.
Oil washed ashore on Grand Isle's last natural beach.



burned for over 24 hours and then sank into the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama Administration, BP and Transocean, the owner of the rig, all considered it to be an unpreventable disaster. But the truth is that had BP taken the steps necessary to make sure that there was a working blowout preventer and their safety procedures secure, there may not have ever been a Deepwater Horizon oil spill. 

As the April days after the oil spill turned into May, the estimations of how much oil would actually be spewed from the 5,000 foot pipe on the bottom of the ocean grew larger and larger. The second week of the oil spill, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that their scientists believed over 5,000 barrels would be spilled into the Gulf waters per day until the well was capped. This remained the government's estimate until May 1^st, 2010. Dr. Ian MacDonald, an oceanographer, said that he estimated the flow rate to be up to 26,500 barrels per day. But soon it became clear that the actual amount of oil spilling from the bottom of the ocean was far, far more.

Soon after this estimate was made, a layer of oil could be seen clearly on the surface of the Gulf, spreading out from the site of the explosion as though an invisible hand was pouring a tar onto the ocean. BP and the Obama Administration seemed remarkably lax as the oil crept further and further towards shore, making only feeble attempts to hire fishermen as well as Coast Guard employees to set up booms and oil catching nets along the waters close to shore. But the number of people working on setting up these booms are remarkably small and the bags of oil dragged ashore and put into toxic waste dumps is even smaller. As the oil grew into the hundreds of thousands of gallons, it is obvious that there is more than just the ocean at stake.



As the balmy summer days stretched by, thick oil began to wash up on the Louisiana and Alabama shorelines, despite the unsuccessful booms that were laid out “strategically” across the waters. BP was quick to give up any semblance of taking the blame as it was now clear that the ocean was peril, instead pointing their fingers at Transocean and Hamilton, the owner of the rig and the cementing company who had made the cement casings for the oil rig. The result was a lot of public confusion and even more dreadful news for the Gulf coast wildlife.



Pelicans, hermit crabs, fish, seagulls, sea turtles: they're all by now in mortal danger, and they seemed to realize it. In Grand Isle, Louisiana, the visible oil started small but soon ballooned along the shoreline, with vast patches of foul smelling oil coating the sand. Pelicans landed in the water, skimming for fish, but are soon bogged down by the oil that swamps their wings. Fish swam under the thick oil layer but are surrounded by drops of floating oil, and soon perish from lack of oxygen. Hermit crabs washed up on shore, so completely covered in oil that their shells are caked with it. Why isn't anyone doing anything about this? Is no one taking action? Huge machines and tons of BP workers appeared on shore, with flashing lights and a big complex that was lit up night and day, but still not much seemed to be getting done.



On July 18^th, 2010, the oil spill was permanently capped, and a huge sigh of relief seemed to go up throughout the nation. But though the oil stopped flowing, the final estimate made on August 5^th, 2010, was that over 4,435,290 barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf. That's right, over 4 million barrels of oil. Even now, December 16^th, 7 months and 26 days after the oil spill, it's still not even nearly gone. There is still so much oil out there, that scientists predict it will take decades before it is totally gone and for the hundreds of wild animals killed from the oil to recover. The US is finally suing BP for the first time today for their actions, but they are not suing Hamilton, Transocean or Carmen, companies who also share some blame for the oil spill. It will take more than a just few billion dollars to totally fix this mess.