For the past month, my sweetie has been working on getting an oil containment technology into the Gulf. It's inexpensive, and very easy to use. And very effective. There have been roadblocks all along the way, but over the past few weeks, we have put together a group of people in the States, with a few of us here in Canada, to commercialize this technology. Everyone has been working tirelessly to get it down to the Gulf, because we can see that this disaster is epic in proportion. The ramifications to 400 species and an irreplaceable ecosystem are horrendous, but the ramifications of this manmade disaster to the people living there are equally horrendous. With all the inland waterways connected to the Gulf, if it makes it far enough this disaster will destroy inland as much as it is destroying the food chain at the bottom of the ocean.

We have been working with a manufacturing company in Louisiana that spent all last week retooling one of their lines to produce our thinfilm technology (it's an oleophyllic, hydrophobic plastic). They are working with not one penny changing hands because it is the right thing to do. We all are. The problem has been that this has never been tested on a real world disaster, especially when the oil is combined with the chemical dispursants that have been used, chemicals that are themselves and ecological disaster so toxic that it is pretty much killing everything it touches. On Thursday, the first samples came off the line. On Friday afternoon, after much backing and forthing with our engineer in LA (who had just been through surgery on Thursday on his neck), my sweetie and I decided that we had to fly down to test it. We were on a 7:00am flight Saturday morning after 3 hours sleep, and landed in New Orleans at 10:30am.

We've been working very closely with Michelle over the past few weeks and she had some suggestions as to where we could test the stuff. She completely rearranged her entire weekend so that she and her love could be with us on Saturday to get to the location. We were blocked from getting to the first location because, apparently, BP was doing tests there and they didn't want us messing things up. So, we moved on to our second location at Grand Isle.

There, we found a beach that had no-one on it. However, the ATV tracks in the sand told us that it was being patrolled, so we had to work quickly. I cannot fully express what it was like to see oil ten feet up the beach, blackish red, goopy pools of it. It truly brought home how great this disaster is. Michelle had been telling us, as had our engineer, but until you see it, stand in it, smell it, watch every wave bring more of it ashore... you don't know. You just can't know. We got still photos that I will post once I reclaim my memory card from my sweetie. There aren't words enough to express it.

My sweetie took some of the 'film' and placed ontop of the oil on the beach. You could see the oil beginning to suck into it. Then he mashed it in with his foot. About 2 minutes later he pulled it up and it was black and goopy with oil. Oil only, no sand. The he took about 20 foot lengths of the original samples from when they tried to commercialize it 20 years ago, and some from the plant and walked through the water dragging one of them behind him. You could see the oil beginning to attach itself. He dropped that piece on the shore, with the waved pouring over it and walked further down the beach to a spot where a local had pointed out an ever greater concentration than we were at. He dragged the second sample through the water. Again, you could see the oil beginning to adhere. We only had about ten minutes, unfortunately, before the Sheriff showed up and told us we had to get off the beach. We went back to where my sweetie had dropped the first sample. It was heavy enough with oil that the water had not been able to drag it out back out into the water. It was still where we'd left it. We figure that in that 10 or 12 minutes, we pulled about 5lbs of oil out, just based on how heavy the plastic grocery bag was that we put it in to take it away. While there was water dripping from it, it was surface water and it was running off like it would off a rubber boot. Indeed, the oil was so thick in places on the beach that both my sweetie and I had difficulty pulling our boots out of it a couple of times.

We documented the entire thing with stills and a camcorder. We now know that our technology will work, but we need a second round of more intesive tests. My sweetie's working on that now. Our engineer worked until 5:00 this morning getting his data prepared and sent off to us. Our partners in the States are working on getting BP on board. We've been keeping this pretty quiet and other than me telling you (and I'm doing this with my sweetie's approval) we are not advertising it widely. We've asked for no press coverage to this point, and are working that way for the next little while. We don't want the hype. But we did talk to locals about what we were doing and they were so moved. At dinner Saturday night I should some of our still shots to locals who were blown away by what they were seeing.

Sunday, we drove back to New Orleans. We wanted to do more testing, but truth be told, we didn't sleep much Saturday night either and we were both exhausted. We could not have done this without Michelle, and without our engineer. Both of them gave up family time for this and we are so grateful. The scope of this disaster is such that I am unable to think of it without crying. I only pray that we can prove our technology to the point that it cannot be ignored. There have been 10,000 ideas presented to this point, all of which have been rejected in favour of the existing methods.

We had lunch in Jackson Square, in the French Quarter, before going to the airport yesterday afternoon. It was so beautiful. I've always wanted to visit New Orleans, but I always thought I'd be there as a tourist, you know? As we walked around the square looking at the art work displayed by local artists, a lovely miniature caught my eye. As I was paying for it, the artist asked how long we were there. We told her we'd arrived Saturday and were leaving in a couple of hours. Her first reaction was gratitude that in our short time, I'd chosen a piece of her work to take home. Then she asked why so short a visit. So we told her. Sitting with her was a man from the southern end of Louisiana, where the spill is. When he heard that the oil has hit the shore at Grand Isle he wept. All I could do was kneel beside him and run my hand over his back, while my sweetie talked to the artist. Another man overheard and asked if we had photos. I showed him the ones I had taken. He asked when we took them and I told him it was the afternoon before. He was stunned. He had been on that very beach a week before and it was still clean. It's heart breaking. Just heart breaking.

But I am bearing witness to what I saw. The waterways of Louisiana will be impacted, both coastal and inland. If a hurricane hits and is moving in the 'right' direction...dear god...it's mind blowing. Something has to be done and soon. President Obama expressed his displeasure yesterday at the slowness with which BP is moving. He is right to. But I don't think they have any clue as to how to cope with this.

Makes me wonder if this deep sea oil drilling is worth it. Maybe it's time to put a stop to it and look to other forms of energy, other ways of powering our cars. I don't know what the answer is The hardest hit will be those areas on the Gulf, but this disaster has global ecological ramifications.

Pray for the people on the Gulf, pray for the ecology of the Gulf. Pray for all of us, for god knows what we, as a species, have wrought.

Warm hugs,

Kat

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
"Strictly Ballroom"