My time spent in Grand Isle fills me with mixed emotions. One can't help but to love the area and it's people, in fact this 8 mile long island 3 hours driving time from New Orleans is absolutely gorgeous! Of course meeting the president is exciting, but spending time out in the water and seeing the destruction first hand makes me feel overwhelmed with sorrow. The coastline here is already effected by this massive oil gusher. Birds are covered in oil as their habitat, Queen Bess island is battling oil as we speak. The beautiful brown pelican calls this island home and thousand of baby pelicans have just hatched, making this scenario quite unbearable to watch. Dolphins and other marine life are also washing up on shore as the oxygen is being strangled out of the water. The men and women who make their living from the sea now have no job and no income. How can we help? Write your state representative and ask them to increase the $75 million dollar cap on damages under the Oil Pollution Act which was established in 1990. This is a insufficient amount for this catastrophe and we need your help to put pressure on our government to overturn or increase the cap. To write your representative visit this website and join us in this pursuit. https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml.

Local fisherman and Charles Hambleton, Academy Award winner for the important documentary film The Cove.