Cleaning up the Gulf Spill: Sudden Activist Robin Young discusses economic ruin, Punishment by Oil and The Government's Response

Robin Young manages houses for a rental company in Orange Beach, Alabama and has been coming to the Gulf all her life. Days after the spill she and a few women and an attorney started Guardians of the Gulf and have been working ever since.

What is your group saying to BP?

At one of the weekly city meetings, I actually talked to a BP executive, who didn't have balls big enough to sit at the table on stage, I told him I had something I had to discuss, and he replied that money was getting tight and that they're paying out billions.

I told him:

"Had y'all not padded all the politicians you wouldn't have gotten away with setting up this rig without enough regulation.

Had you spent $500,000 on the safety measures--that's like me throwing a dime out the window-this would have never happened.

You have ruined everyone's lives on the gulf coast. You've destroyed all the property. You've killed I don't know how many animals.

If you think the people of the Gulf are going to fight you for 21 years and get nothing--like the people of Alaska after Valdez  -- you have another thing coming. The poor people in Alaska lost all their business, they had two different fish the herring and salmon, and Valdez wiped out their herring.

The entire world is watching you now; if you think the people of the Gulf coast are going to let you get away with it, you're wrong.  Just paying for the damage doesn't make it right.  We are going to fight you.

How is the spill affecting your local economy?

After Katrina, people stayed away.  This year, we were set to have one of the biggest years ever; we're not even a month into it and most of the rental companies have lost 80% or more of their summer bookings.

We make our money then and that has to take us through the winter.

We've had a sporadic amount of vacationers and they sure won't eat seafood.

One woman who has a restaurant at Harbor Place, she can't pay her rent, she's had to slash her servers.  Usually, it's an hour and a half a wait.   But the other night, we walked in right away.

I have a 16 year old who works for a boat rental company who said, 'there goes my whole summer'.  My daughter, who is 18, was going to make a bunch of money, now she cries and asks me, 'Are we going to have move away?'

Are people experiencing any health effects?

The State's Department of Health hasn't closed the water.  We've got people swimming out here; we've got people here already sick from the toxins. Two women, have been going out and documenting dolphins, they got tested and one of them tested positive for one of the toxins in the dispersents.

They won't let the guys have respirators; it's taken a ton of screaming to get them.

I already have a respirator. I got them for my kids too - the oil itself is toxic but what makes it really bad are the chemicals in the dispersants, it smells like diesel.

How are governments responding?

Why does the federal government move so slow? It has done nothing.

What amazes me, the United States government comes to other countries after a disaster and does it quickly, but they've absolutely done nothing here.  They could have moved a whole lot faster, we could have had the back bays closed weeks ago.

A lot of the charter boats and cruises work from the back bay; had they just protected our back bays, a lot of us could have continued to earn a living-- but they moved too slow.

I'm furious, the Coast Guard and the Federal government knew it was going to hit Orange Beach and Pensacola, it was a couple of weeks off.  Our mayor has been jumping up and down, asking for booms skinners and reinforcement, asking for permission to close, Perdido pass or Alabama Point--to close several spots to keep it in from the back bay we have a lot of inter-coastal water ways, they wouldn't listen to us.

Tonight the oil was starting to roll into the pass, and mayor was screaming and they still wouldn't close it.  Now it's 60 days out; they say they've got a plan. They're talking now about putting an underwater gate, and using oil absorbing mats, but it doesn't make any sense to me.

Why did they let BP be responsible? It's like letting rapist run the court room. They stood back and watched what BP is doing, they have huge boats, why didn't the fed government do it and just send BP the bill. But BP has been in charge, not the feds or local government.

The Governor recently sent out The National Guard to talk to people about claims, but I'd rather see them in proper hazmats cleaning up the spill, or standing over claims officers and make them write the checks.  But I appreciate the effort.

Aren't there a lot of crews down there? 

We flew over a huge oil slick, right up on the shores of my rental houses just now.  There are no clean up crews anywhere, it has been going on 30 minutes. We'll report things and a crew doesn't show up for 6 hours.

I reported a tar ball behind one of my house and six days later someone shows up. Hell it's been six days, it's gone now.

What is BP doing?

BP is picking up all these dead carcasses, which is like murderers picking up the corpses--somebody else should be doing it. We know the numbers they are reporting and think it's too low. We truly feel they are hiding, there are thousands of animal floating out there.  We have alot of dolphins, they've just had their calves.

BP has hired vessels of opportunity to go out spot the oil and report it. But BP also had documents for signing off all claims in future; they tried to slip language into the contract. But the boat owners didn't buy it, so the contract was revised.

The other problem is all these people coming here who have nothing to do with our local charter boats and collecting $50,000 in contracts, and they're are taking money out of our guys pockets. Some, I don't think even left the dock .

How are the claims working?

From the entire gulf coast, they've set up claim offices, and they only have 500 people through all those four states--for Katrina they had 1000 claims offices,

Some people are getting claims paid easily, but others are being asked for way more documentation than others.  One woman' restaurant's rent was $12K, but she was only given $5,000.

What do you want to happen?

I want people to sign the petition-- don't let companies drill anymore without strenuous safety precaution. And people need to start writing letters to their senators.

I want Obama to make sure BP pays claims, and not let them claim bankruptcy   Everyone here is worried they're going to file chapter 11.

We want President Obama to seize BP's assets.  And all those people who know what's going on should have their butts in jail.

I want to put the people responsible into the oil. I would like to drop every one of them in a great big blob of oil, not let them dry off, put them some place for days and days, and let them have the short and long term health effects of being exposed to all this (oil and dispersants).

We're standing up and we're not going to shut up.

photo:  National Wildlife Federation

Interview condensed and edited by Amy-Willard Cross