'In a terrible way this is a portent of things to come and a warning'

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The author of Wild at Heart, Barry Gifford, whose books are set in the American South, talks about the man-made horrors that have ravaged the Louisiana coast
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/02/deepwater-horizon-oil-spill-new-orleans

When Hurricane Katrina wrecked the Louisiana coast, it wasn't the wind that created disaster in itself, but the floods which surged over the levees and washed across the wetlands in its wake.

Now the region has been hit by a second disaster, an oil slick. A different kind of flood this time, a thick, black flood of crude oil that approaches the coastline, threatening the wildlife and the fragile ecosystem of the wetlands of Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta.

For years I lived in New Orleans, right in the French Quarter. It's a very special place and unique for its cultural mix, derived from the people who have settled there over the centuries.

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I'm not a geologist or a scientist. I'm a writer. But I think that this is a move in the wrong direction entirely. I know that by drilling locally they are trying to lessen our fuel dependency on the Middle East, but at what cost? It's true that we had a thriving oil and gas industry in Louisiana for many years, and that great deposits of oil remain. But you have to weigh the risks, and they are taking real chances with local residents' lives and livelihoods.

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1. Here's another strike against us:

At first, reports suggested the oil leaking into the Gulf was standard Louisiana crude oil, a type of oil that biodegrades pretty well, Overton said. But sample testing revealed that the leaking oil was a different type, one that contains a very high concentration of components that don't degrade easily, called asphaltenes, according to Overton. He estimates that the concentration of these asphaltic components could be as high as 50 percent in this oil spill, while in other types of crude oil it might be as low as 1 or 2 percent.

"That is bad, bad news, because this oil is going to be very slow to degrade," Overton said today.

(Edward Overton, a professor emeritus of environmental sciences at Louisiana State University)