A couple of days ago a friend of mine and I decided to embark on a fateful trip. We had heard that not far from our current location, (a fisherman’s meeting about the BP settlement, near New Orleans), a sink hole approximately 200 feet wide had formed and that it was threatening a nearby bayou community.
According to our sources, the depression was forcing the evacuation of 150 families.
Ashley Alleman and her husband knew something was wrong months ago. Amid reports of unexplained bubbling in nearby Bayou Corne, they’d been feeling strange rumblings beneath their home, rumblings they’d never felt before.
At the Gulf Organized Fisheries in Solidarity & Hope,(Go FISH) conference held August 4th in Westwego, oysterman Byron Encalade of Pointe a la Hache, La. was adamant. Encalade described his Gulf oyster grounds as such: “No spatting at all, nothing. The whole public sea grounds on the east bank of the river, except for a very small area…there is not one spat to be found. That is disturbing. Very disturbing.”
Across the nation’s breadbasket, many farmers are out of time waiting for cooling rains to salvage crops blistered by one of the hottest and driest summers on record. But up in the frigid arctic, another battle with nature is playing out; the race against ice.
On August 3rd, a nearly 400-foot wide sinkhole opened up near Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou in Assumption Parish, Louisiana, turning cypress forest into a massive slurry-filled hole. Residents have been evacuated, and officials are scrambling to identify the cause and solution to the sinkhole. Are we watching a disaster unfold? Has anything like this happened before? When will evacuated residents be able to return home?
Joshua Pelletier, Gulf Coast Fund Community Renewal and Ecological Health. While Hurricane Isaac will likely make landfall as only a Category One storm, it may cause extensive harm for one unprecedented reason: large quantities of crude oil and dispersants from the 2010 BP oil disaster remain in the Gulf of Mexico.
had formed and that it was threatening a nearby bayou community.
strange rumblings beneath their home, rumblings they’d never felt before.
was adamant. Encalade described his Gulf oyster grounds as such: “No spatting at all, nothing. The whole public sea grounds on the east bank of the river, except for a very small area…there is not one spat to be found. That is disturbing. Very disturbing.” 
On August 3rd, a nearly 400-foot wide sinkhole opened up near Bayou Corne and Grand Bayou in Assumption Parish, Louisiana, turning cypress forest into a massive slurry-filled hole. Residents have been evacuated, and officials are scrambling to identify the cause and solution to the sinkhole. Are we watching a disaster unfold? Has anything like this happened before? When will evacuated residents be able to return home?
Joshua Pelletier, 
