On Thursday, a Greenpeace boat with seven journalists aboard traveled along the Gulf Coast and stopped at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Then they saw it: The oil spill causing one of the worst environmental disasters in the country’s history.

The reporters told me they had gazed in shock as they watched the oil slowly creep onto land and saturate the sand.

Sadly, there was not enough space for me on the boat. Three colleagues and I had traveled that day to Venice, La., the state’s southernmost tip, in hopes of witnessing the oil spill for ourselves. It didn’t happen, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

Greenpeace, the largest environmental group with 4,000 staff members worldwide, has been offering free boat trips to media outlets to spread the word about the devastation. At the rate of at least 5,000 barrels a day seeping into the Gulf of Mexico, this spill could become the worst in history.

Greenpeace representatives said they send out several boats per day. We didn’t make it on any of them.

We tried to bum rides out onto the water with local shrimpers, or with just about anyone else with a craft that floats. Then we considered hiring a boat. Simple enough, I thought.

Wrong.

The cost of a taking a four-seater boat to the spill off Venice was $600, plus the cost of fuel. That’s how much, the boat owners said, that they would charge for a typical fishing run.

It was much more, however, than I was prepared to spend. I’m sure my reaction gave away that I was a rookie correspondent. My eyes bulged and my head cocked back as if the words had punched me in the face.
I tried to compose myself and said “Oh, cool — well, let me call my editor and see what he says,” even though I already knew the answer.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.