Driving down Highway 1 and seeing all the seafood businesses that the Gulf oil spill could affect really saddened me. Since I’m from Baton Rouge, La., I know and understand how the people of Grand Isle feel about the effects that the oil spill will have.

Grand Isle is full of beautiful homes that sit high off the ground. Shrimp boats are berthed alongside its waters. Oil spilling into the marshlands and wiping out shrimp, oysters, blue crabs and fish will hurt Louisiana as a whole and could put thousands of fishermen out of business.

Being the journalist I am, I had to see it for myself. Near Grand Isle is Elmer’s Island, where oil is washing ashore. The authorities told me I couldn’t go there because the island was closed off. But I knew I couldn’t return to the newsroom empty-handed — without photographs, so I used my journalism enterprise to get back there. (Sorry, it’s a trade secret.)

On Elmer’s Island I saw the bags of oily gauze lined up and fresh gauze lining the coastline. I knew it wouldn’t get better any time soon.

People down South love seafood and know how to prepare it all types of ways. Some eat seafood daily because it’s good for them. A Gulf oil spill wiping out the marshland and swamps will affect not only the workers but the ones who have a love of seafood.

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