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A group of people affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are hoping to get a glimpse of the long road ahead on a trip to Alaska. This week they'll be talking with some of the people hit hardest by the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Point-Aux-Chenes, La. resident Russell Dardar says he is lost.
“I'm -- I was a fisherman, my daddy was a fisherman, his daddy was a fisherman, and so on and so on,” Dardar said. “The erosion -- we ain't got farming no more, but all we have left was fishing. And now since the oil happened, we don't have much of that.”
Before the spill, Dardar never imagined a life without fishing.
“They say it’s safe for you to catch it to eat but you can't sell it -- I say if you can't sell it, I say I don't know safe it is for you to eat it,” Dardar said.
He left the oil-soaked shores of Louisiana for the icy waters of Alaska, searching for answers from people who know how he feels -- and he's not alone.
“I am in Alaska on a fact-finding mission, essentially, to try to determine what the citizens of Alaska who faced the Exxon Valdez actually went through in terms of dealing with the oil company, once the television cameras had left, to try to determine what kind of challenges we will face in the next year or so,” said Cynthia Sarthou with the Gulf Restoration Network.
The Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Council is hosting the visitors from Louisiana. This week they'll travel to Cordova, and then on to Valdez.
“They'll be meeting with fishermen and clergy, and fishing organizations, aquaculture – we’re going to a hatchery, so they'll be meeting with just about everybody that they expressed interested in talking to,” said PWSRCAC outreach coordinator Linda Robinson.
They want to leave Alaska with a sense of hope, and understanding, but there will also be sadness for the realities of what lie ahead.
“I don’t really know, because I ain't got much schooling, I mean some of them might be able to go into the oil field,” Dardar said. “But see, you either got shrimping or you're in the oil field -- and if they shut down the oil field, what you got left to do?”
Right now Dardar’s future is an unknown, but he’s not alone. Even if his time in Alaska doesn't give him the answers he's looking for, it will show him it's possible to survive.
Earlier this year, two PWSRCAC members visited Louisiana to meet with people affected by the spill.
Contact Jackie Bartz at jbartz@ktuu.com