09/18/2012 - Bayou La Batre AFTER the Coastal Cleanup

Header image - shoreline in Bayou La Batre AFTER the coastal cleanup. What is in your Bayou La Batre seafood? Piss on Bayou La Batre seafood - Bayou La Batre doesn't care. Enjoy your Cancer.

A little Photoshop fun to better accentuate the reality of this waterway.

This shrimp boat logo (actual logo) sums up Bayou La Batre. "Piss on Bayou La Batre seafood." You might want to find out where your seafood came from before you eat it.

Mouth of Bayou La Batre looking toward the Gulf of Mexico - two days after the coastal cleanup.

There was one crab still shaking in this crab trap and the others were dead. What a waste of life.

My kayak visible on the left should give you perspective of the density of shoreline trash in this Bayou.

This community has publicly allowed their waterway to become severely polluted for the whole world to see. Just image how little they care when it comes to processing your seafood behind closed doors.

Some will say, ah, Isaac put all the trash there. Wrong. Most of the trash has been here for years. The problem is no one is removing it, not even during a Coastal Cleanup Event.

Nice spider lily flower on a industrial property.

This could have been a nice sandpiper photo but it is hard to see the bird for all the trash. That is why there is no kayak outfitter in Bayou La Batre. This shoreline trash is ruining the Bayou's potential kayak tourism.

Kayaking in this waterway makes me sick to my stomach but I had to do it today to show another Bayou La Batre zone coastal cleanup failure. Far as I can see no trash was removed from the western shoreline.

Shoreline covered in plastic. This affects marine life.

Contents of rusting spray cans eventually spill their guts regardless of the content, poisonous or not.

Bayou La Trash looks the way it does because many of the ship building companies like this one are the ones polluting the water. ADEM should fine companies like this and shut down Bayou La Batre until the shoreline is clean (safe) again.

Most shipbuilders use bulkheads so the trash just floats by.

I quit counting how many times I've paddled in Bayou La Batre through a petroleum spill. Basically every time I paddle, there is petroleum on the water somewhere in that Bayou. There are some serious environmental problems and health hazards in Bayou La Trash. The smell of this spill was bad enough to cause me to quickly turn around. It was noxious smelling.

I didn't stick around to investigate the source of this spill because no one gives a shit. Every time I call the National Response Center nothing happens. The seafood capital of Alabama has no money so no one cares. However, if this was BP oil on the surface of Bayou La Batre, the media would be all over this place along with lawyers and people filing fraudulent claims. Mayor Wright is seeking re-election while facing a federal indictment on corruption charges. Bayou La Batre Grant Writer Janey Galbraith was recently found guilty of conspiracy to commit fraud, embezzlement and money laundering. Former Bayou La Batre police officer Jason Edwards was arrested for stealing money from his own police department. Corruption apparently runs deep in the Bayou...so I hope BP has good people monitoring where their BP money given under duress is going. BP money certainly hasn't reduced the oil pollution in Bayou La Trash.

That is a computer monitor floating in the water in the background.

Why do I bitch so much about this waterway? The wildlife suffers much from the trash and pollution. Here is a pelican carrying around fishing line caught in its wing with a sinker on the end of it.

The birds in Bayou La Batre today looked like they have been in a war zone. This pelican probably broke its wing to get free from a fishing line. Marine wildlife deserves better than what Bayou La Batre is providing them. Those who care for injured birds could have easily picked up a dozen birds unable to fly in this area.

08/02/2012 - Mobile River Blues

Header Image is a photo of a ship with an interesting name.

On the way to Mobile River some Manatees surprised me in Spanish River.

One of the Manatees went under the kayak. Awesome.

Besides Manatees, people swim and fish in Mobile River.

Isn't this a cute little rodent? Looks like a politician to me - a RAT. A 14 Trillion Dollar debt and a population of only 315 million Americans means your share of politician sanctioned debt is about $50,000. Pay up. Hahaha.

An increasing trend in river bank pollution is Oil Booms which are installed to protect the environment. Abandoned boom ends up being the pollution. The canvas is quick to deteriorate exposing the Styrofoam.

Mobile River tends to attract large pieces of garbage. Or, wait, could this be Mobile's new cruise ship?

Companies along Mobile River often try to stabilize the bank of their property using garbage. See the sunglasses?

Someone grading their property pushed soil into the river - no biggie - the Corps of Engineers keep Mobile River dredged. What is in those pipes?

Five different petroleum slicks seen today. I feel so bad for Manatees surfacing to breathe through second hand fuel. 

Two of the small sheens I think are related to the oil and grease on the railroad bridges at Chickasaw Creek and Three Mile Creek. None of the petroleum sheens were big enough to investigate further and report.

Question: What do you get when cross a gung-ho Forever Wild supporter with a gun and an important sign? Answer: Hey, it was orange so the high school dropout redneck shot at it. Vote NO for acquiring any more Forever Wild Land unless it is set aside as a wildlife refuge where hunting will be prohibited, Forever.

Question: What will GulfQuest Museum visitors see when looking across Mobile River? Answer: Look at this photo - lovely view for visitors eh?

Question: What is the difference between Mobile leaders and Mobile waterways? Answer: All Mobile leaders do is Hope for more Cash and all Mobile waterways do is Cope with more Trash.

There will be unintended consequences to poor leadership because once you let the people do whatever they want, you can't reverse it without anarchy. Once respect for the law is gone, there is no law.

07/30/2012 - Bayou La Batre Puts BP to Shame

I drove to Dauphin Island for a sunrise launch but the winds were blowing so neither the north or south side was protected from the wind. Rather than paddle in 1-2 foot waves and get wet, the Nature Gods led me over to the sheltered waters of Bayou La Batre. Holy Mackerel - Bayou La Batre is the worst place in Mobile County that I have ever paddled and the trash is thicker every time I paddle there. Here are photos from today's reality check.

Header image - shoreline trash in your Seafood Capital of Alabama. Enjoy eating your Petroleum glazed seafood. What other chemicals are in your seafood that you don't know about?

Bayou La Trash (Seafood Capital of Alabama) puts BP to shame when it comes to caring for the environment. At least BP is paying someone to remove their pollution. Bayou La Batre ignores their pollution. Enjoy your Alabama Seafood that may have spawned around the polluted waters of Bayou La Batre.

The petroleum fumes were so dense today it made me nauseous. Seriously, I felt the need to throw up but couldn't. I had to turn around and get out of there cutting the paddle short.

Even though there was a petroleum sheen visible at the boat ramp before I launched, it was a thicker petroleum sheen 3-4 miles upstream that caused me to turn around.

This photo says it all - the shoreline of Bayou La Batre is full of CRAP, most of it PLASTIC.

This being a working bayou with plenty of ship building activity in progress, some of the crap rusting in containers along the shoreline is poisonous.

his being a working bayou with plenty of ship building activity in progress, some of the crap rusting in containers along the shoreline is poisonous.

Leftover BP oil boom pom-poms still adorn the shoreline in Bayou La Batre. The boom which used to be the solution to the oil pollution, is now just the pollution.

Crabs on rotting cardboard.

A sunken boat's innards are free to float away.

Oil boom to catch escaping oil from the sunken boat was installed across the entire berthing area but the boom had a big gap under the dock allowing oil to go around the boom. Duh...

The shoreline trash of Bayou La Batre which seemingly never gets removed, gets denser and denser. You have to see it in person to believe it. 

Instead of Bayou La Batre being a tourist destination for vacationers who want to rent kayaks, it is a garbage and petroleum dump in which no kayak outfitter would associate themselves with.

The further upstream you go, the shoreline load of trash does decrease but shoreline trash was still easy to find 4 miles upstream.

The further upstream you go, the shoreline load of trash does decrease but shoreline trash was still easy to find 4 miles upstream.

Most of the shoreline trash in Bayou La Batre is visible because it floats and can be seen. 

What we should be worried about is what is beneath the water because some garbage sinks. Boat operators stand a good chance at getting rope tangled up in their props if they go near the shoreline.

Trash piled on the docks here included loose plastic bottles. There is always a sheen on the surface of the water in this area.

I saw six different petroleum sheens today and one was so large I called the National Response Center who in turn calls the nearest Coast Guard Hazmat Response Center who in turn calls me. I told the Coast Guard where the spill was. I tracked down the source of the petroleum to a boat that was pumping out fluids from several holes in the hull - one was probably bilge waste. Whether the Coast Guard responded or not I don't know. The Coast Guard doesn't do much about rainbow sheens. They usually let the sun evaporate the spill. The criminal releasing the petroleum into the water should have been issued a big fine for polluting the environment. Authorities go to great length to contain petroleum spills on the interstates after wrecks, so why don't authorities go to great lengths to contain petroleum spills in the water?

Bayou La Batre is a public waterway and almost every time I have kayaked in it I've ended up having to paddle through petroleum and that indicates a serious underlying problem of watershed mismanagement or lack of any watershed management. If petroleum is so easy to find on the water in Bayou La Batre, why isn't ADEM fining the City of Bayou La Batre for violations of the Clean Water Act? Mobile County values are decaying at an alarming rate. Mobile County watershed and estuary managers are asleep at the desk. It is time for them to get out in a kayak and get a whiff of petroleum to wake their ass up so they can see the serious pollution in Bayou La Trash.