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Alabama Town Selfhelp Defences Against Oil Spill

As the US waits for the Gulf of Mexico oil leak to end, one man’s passion for his town’s picturesque way of life has inspired a small Alabama community to take matters into its own hands to protect its shores.Magnolia Springs reminds me of a Norman Rockwell painting. He depicted heart-warming scenes of American life in the 1950s, from boy scouts to happy homecomings after the war. A canopy of oak trees frames the main street here, American flags fly outside the ante-bellum wooden houses, and mothers and their children bicycle around. The waterside houses along the Fish River are among the last in the nation to have their post delivered by boat. As one proud local told me, “we don’t have a Wal-Mart supermarket”. The lawns are immaculate, not a weed in sight, no easy task in the humid south. The volunteer fire station boasts antique firefighting equipment, alongside the more modern tools. But there is nothing old-fashioned about the thinking inside. Protecting paradiseJamie Hinton is the chief of the town’s volunteer fire department. A tall, broad man with a slow, southern accent, he is devoted to this idyllic place. When the Deepwater Horizon rig started spewing out oil in April, Jamie immediately began to worry. Louisiana is only two state lines away from Alabama. Once the oil started to move down the Gulf coast, Jamie feared it would be carried into the waters of Mobile Bay, and pollute the town’s Fish and Magnolia rivers. A conversation with his county emergency management official was not reassuring. So Jamie began to find out where he could get supplies of boom, to absorb the oil. Then Jamie and his friends decided boom alone would not be enough to protect Magnolia Springs. So they rented barges, to block the waves from carrying oil into their waters. Official approval for this plan was granted some time after its execution. Jamie became the embodiment of the virtues of American self help in the face of federal bureaucracy, declaring he would go to jail if he had to, he was only doing what was right. He chuckles when he recounts how a BP official turned up soon afterwards, and said he was in Magnolia Springs to do whatever Jamie wanted. Two months after that 15 minutes of fame, the boom and the barges protecting Magnolia Springs have not yet been tested by any actual oil. The slick has swirled around ominously, but has not made it to here. Jamie has not stopped worrying though. “Even if they capped the leaking well tomorrow,” he says, “the oil will be in the water for two years and it will come to us eventually.” Team spiritThe problem is that the money Magnolia Springs is getting from the state of Alabama via BP runs out on 1 September. The barges and the boom cost 50,000 a week to maintain. “Where will you get that money?” I ask Jamie. “If everyone gives 10, that will be a start,” he replies. The story of Magnolia Springs and the oil spill, however it ends, reads like a Hollywood feel-good movie promoting the American values of self reliance and ingenuity. And if the tale ever was made into a movie, what better place to film it than here. Yet this is not fiction, it is real life, and Jamie Hinton and so many others in the town responded from the heart to the oil spill. They were not acting. As the Mayor, Charlie Houser told me, “I was baptised in these waters, I fished in them, I could not stand by and see them ruined.” Restoring faith”Preserving a way of life,” was a phrase I heard over and over. Having seen the damage Hurricane Katrina brought to the Gulf Coast in 2005, and observed the lackluster federal response, Jamie Hinton knew the dangers of waiting for help. As Charlie Houser explained: “The lesson from here is that you just don’t know what you’re capable of until you’re tested. People surprise you and themselves with what they can do.” In the town’s only restaurant, Jessie, Jamie stops by for lunch. The talk is of boom suppliers, and have you heard that tar balls washed up in Texas. It strikes me that this is a scene Norman Rockwell could have painted in his later, more provocative years. Just as Rockwell exposed racism in America with a famous 1964 painting, so Magnolia Springs is displaying a steeliness in the face of bureaucratic incompetence, showing the nation it is possible to help yourself rather than wait to be rescued. Jamie Hinton, the plain-speaking fire chief, is baffled by the interest in him. He does not want to be a hero – he simply wants to keep this town as it is for future generations. How to listen to: From our own CorrespondentRadio 4: Saturdays, 1130. Second weekly edition on Thursdays, 1100 (some weeks only) World Service: See Download the Listen on Story by story at the

Source:BBC