Shrimp & Petro festival highlights critical issue

Lafourche Parish shows signs of slow return to normalcy
September 16, 2008
Southdown Plantation House/The Terrebonne Museum (Houma)
September 18, 2008
Lafourche Parish shows signs of slow return to normalcy
September 16, 2008
Southdown Plantation House/The Terrebonne Museum (Houma)
September 18, 2008

Dear Editor:


The Shrimp & Petroleum Festival celebrates two of Louisiana’s key resources, which play an important role in lives of both local communities and the national economy.

Louisiana’s key role as a domestic energy supplier has been highlighted in the current national energy debate. The issues in that debate go beyond a simple question of whether to drill or not drill off other sections of America’s coasts and in remaining wilderness areas.


America has 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves, and consumes almost 25 percent of the world’s petroleum. We consume about 20 million barrels of oil and 60 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.


Most public land in the U.S. is already open to exploration and drilling, but we cannot meet our current level of demand with domestic reserves alone, and the global market where oil prices are set is becoming more constrained as countries like China and India dramatically expand their consumption of oil.

American drivers are being hurt by high prices at the pump, and want honest answers. Unfortunately, they are often not being given by politicians and pundits in the answers that our official government agencies have supplied. The U.S. Department of Energy has stated that neither the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge nor the off-limits areas of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) in the lower 48 states will significantly lower oil and gasoline prices if they are brought into production – yet some public figures are telling Americans just that.


The clear answer is for America to diversify its energy and transportation systems.

We need maximum investment in energy efficiency to reflect the reality that we can no longer afford to subsidize the waste of energy, and we need a dramatic expansion of transportation alternatives such as mass transit, so that American families and workers are not left stranded by lack of planning for a problem that is clearly before us.

This planning needs to have vision for our future that includes solutions for environmental problems such as global warming. Short-term fixes could create more problems.

A current example of near sighted planning is the large “Dead Zone” of hypoxic areas in Louisiana’s coastal waters. The rapid expansion of acres planted in corn for ethanol in the Mississippi River Valley has led to a dramatic rise in nutrient levels in the river from fertilizer and erosion, as acres once put in conservation are brought back into production. This process is largely fueled by government subsidies, and its effect on the river and Gulf were entirely predictable – but no planning for mitigation was included in the government’s biofuels programs. This Dead Zone places the Louisiana shrimping industry celebrated by the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival in jeopardy.

There are no magic fixes for our current energy situation. For drivers as individuals, the Sierra Club joins many other groups and organizations in providing suggestions for steps they can take immediately to cut down on gas use and save money. These steps – such as properly inflating tires – are not the solution to our energy problem. They are actions that can be taken today, as opposed to waiting 10 years.

While we celebrate the Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, Louisiana residents as well as the rest of America need to encourage their public officials to create visionary plans for our future rather than short term band aids that could create a greater problem in the future. We all need to use our uniquely American spirit to work together to create practical solutions to our energy crisis.

Nancy Grush, Baton Rouge