What happens when the international media abandon a disaster scene and a community is left to fend for itself?
New Orleans-based freelance writer Karen Dalton Beninato will address that question as she investigates the continuing environmental and social fallout from BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Dalton Beninato is writing an in-depth profile of Joannie Hughes, a Plaquemines Parish single mother turned environmental activist after the BP blowout in April 2010 turned her hometown into a public health risk. Hughes founded Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana and found laboratories willing to study the environmental effect of the Deep Water Horizon disaster on rainwater in Belle Chase. Her findings so far have been eye opening.
Hughes' non-profit has a second mission: To collect food and medical supplies for residents of the Parish; help local fishermen fill out their BP claims forms; and collect toys and holiday dinners for hundreds of families struggling to pay their bills after losing their livelihood. The psychological impacts of the BP blowout on the tightly knit communities of Southern Louisiana has been an underreported aspect of the oil spill, and will also be covered in this story.
This article is slated for publication in the Summer 2011 edition of Earth Island Journal.
Dalton Beninato is writing an in-depth profile of Joannie Hughes, a Plaquemines Parish single mother turned environmental activist after the BP blowout in April 2010 turned her hometown into a public health risk. Hughes founded Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana and found laboratories willing to study the environmental effect of the Deep Water Horizon disaster on rainwater in Belle Chase. Her findings so far have been eye opening.
Hughes' non-profit has a second mission: To collect food and medical supplies for residents of the Parish; help local fishermen fill out their BP claims forms; and collect toys and holiday dinners for hundreds of families struggling to pay their bills after losing their livelihood. The psychological impacts of the BP blowout on the tightly knit communities of Southern Louisiana has been an underreported aspect of the oil spill, and will also be covered in this story.
This article is slated for publication in the Summer 2011 edition of Earth Island Journal.
(Photo: courtesy of Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana)
