At land’s end in Louisiana, disaster puts heavy strain on uneasy balance between oil and water

Coastal La. dilemma: Oil is essential; so is water

VENICE, La. — Out where Louisiana ends and the Gulf of Mexico begins, it’s hard to know which is king — oil or fishing.

Up and down four-lane La. Route 23, which runs between two protective earthen levees, aluminum skiffs share driveway space with pickups. Meanwhile, a sign outside the Fill-A-Sack convenience store in Boothville proudly advertises gas with “ZERO ETHANOL” — a subtle homage to the oil industry’s tank farms and refineries that line the roads between here and New Orleans.

There’s an old adage that oil and water don’t mix. But in this lacy fringe of marsh grass and mud, drilling and fishing have, for the most part, blended peacefully.

Some wonder if the massive spill from BP LLC’s Deepwater Horizon well will upset that delicate balance.

Like most people around here, Ken Frelich has a stake in both industries. His family has owned Frelich Seafood in Empire since 1973; they also ferry oil crews to the offshore rigs.

If some in the community are angry at the oil industry right now, it’s because they feel helpless.

“You can only do so much,” says Frelich, 43, as he takes a break from selling shrimp and crawfish at his store off La. 23. “It’s like waiting for a hurricane.”

The April 20 explosion that sank BP’s oil platform nearly 50 miles offshore has been spewing an estimated 210,000 gallons of crude a day.

One area of Frelich’s livelihood threatens to destroy the other. But he knows it was an accident.

“There are hundreds and hundreds of rigs out there, so accidents happen,” he says. “There are so many car wrecks on the road, nobody is surprised when one happens. When there’s an accident on an oil rig, everybody hears about it.”

Mark Trahan agrees.

Sipping a Heineken and munching on chicken fingers at Empire’s Delta Marine Bar and Grill, Trahan, 47, recalls the motorcycle accident that brought an end to his career in the oil fields. In 2004, he started a fishing guide business.

“People don’t understand this place,” he says, adjusting a visor emblazoned with the words “Capt. Mark.” ”It’s a give and take. Without oil companies, I couldn’t take people fishing.”

But no disaster this big has ever happened in these parts. And the uneasy balance between oil and water is being tested as never before.

In the Boothville-Venice School gymnasium, shrimper Eric Tiser switches into fishmonger mode.

“Fresh Gulf shrimp, $2 a pound!” the stocky man in the cap and stained rubber boots shouts. “The last shrimp left in Plaquemines Parish! Already dipped in oil for you — black crude oil!”

Hundreds of people packed the gym for the chance to get basic safety training from a BP contractor, in hopes of getting paid to help with the cleanup. Crabber Bret Ainsworth says it’s the least the company can do for the area’s fishermen.

“If we can’t crab or sell seafood for the next three or four years, we’d like a job doing SOMETHING,” says Ainsworth, 51, who’s been fishing these waters since he was 18.

In an exploration plan filed with the federal government, BP downplayed the possibility of an accident at the well. Even if there was one, the company assured officials, “due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected.”

Louisiana has lost hundreds of square miles of wetlands in recent years, the breeding ground for many of its most commercially valuable species. Ainsworth and others already blame oil-related canal dredging and boat traffic for much of the erosion.

“After (Hurricane) Katrina, we lost thousands of miles of coastline,” he says, his bald head flushing red. “What is oil 2 inches thick going to do on the beaches? Is the grass going to grow THROUGH that, or is the grass going to die and we’re going to lose more?”

Down at the Venice Marina, Matt O’Brien sits on a deck staring across at the steel skeleton of what will soon be his wholesale shrimp dock.

“I came down here to sit and look at my business going up,” the 39-year-old O’Brien said as he dragged on a Salem 100. “I’m not getting as much enjoyment out of it as I thought I would.”

O’Brien used to service the oil companies’ rigs and drive their trucks. He had just gotten into the fish business when Hurricane Katrina wiped him out in 2005.

A contractor is scheduled to put the “skin” on his building Monday, but O’Brien has told them to hold off bringing the ice machine.

“It couldn’t have been worse timing,” said O’Brien, who lives in a houseboat at the marina and visits his wife and four children in Hattiesburg, Miss., when he can. “Now that this has happened, I don’t expect to buy no shrimp this year.”

O’Brien is loath to speak ill of BP. He knows this was an accident, and the area couldn’t survive without the oil jobs.

Still, he’s frustrated, and he’s scared. So is Earl Armstrong.

Armstrong, 66, runs crew boats for the oil companies. His son Matt, 31, trawls for shrimp, shark, drumfish — whatever he can find.

When your livelihood depends on something as capricious and unforgiving as the sea, he says, it comes with the territory.

“A fellow asked me one time what would it take for me to leave this parish. And I told him, ‘Well, when it runs out of mud. When there’s no more land to stand on,’” he says with a laugh. “This is home.”