Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
Billy Nungesser: Minister of Outrage
Plaquemines Parish president expresses feelings of many
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript>var collab_title = 'Billy Nungesser: Minister of Outrage';</SCRIPT><!-- /HEADLINE --><!-- MAIN PHOTO -->
AP Photo/The Times-Picayune, Susan Poag
Gov. Bobby Jindal listens as Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser talks about the response to the oil spill while speaking to the media May 26 at Cypress Cove Marina in Venice.
<!-- /MAIN PHOTO --><!-- BYLINE -->
Michael Luke
WWL-TV Eyewitness News
<!-- /BYLINE --><!-- PUBDATE -->Published: Monday, June 7, 2010 at 8:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, June 7, 2010 at 8:00 a.m.
( page all of 5 )
<!-- /PUBDATE -->
Excerpts:
VENICE -- Early on a Friday morning inside the Emergency Operations Center in Belle Chasse, La., a crowded room is filled with chatter from National Guard advisors, Coast Guard officials, DEQ representatives, EPA agents, Plaquemines Parish officials and a smattering of media, both national and local, all awaiting the entrance of Plaquemines Parish President Nungesser.
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Day 46 of the Gulf oil spill has arrived and to hear Nungesser, a man whose political star has risen fast while his parish is barely treading water, tell it, Plaquemines Parish once again is fighting for its life.
The imposing firebrand has been all over the airwaves ? talk radio, cable talk shows, national news ? and as passionately as he can, Nungesser will tell the story to anyone who will listen that his parish is dying.
The room goes silent as Nungesser enters and before he has barely sat down at the head of the large table for the Friday morning briefing, he simply asks, ?Is there a rep from BP here today??
?There will not be a rep from BP here today,? an assistant replies while looking down at the early morning reports.
Hours before he?s set to meet President Barack Obama, blood rushes to Nungesser?s face.
Another Oily Morning
It was about 8:15 a.m., and looking at his face, the morning was not off to a good start. More oil had washed ashore overnight -- two Plaquemines officials looking at digital photos said oil they found on the beaches was ?like peanut butter? and ?squirted like chocolate syrup? -- and the company responsible for the disaster, the one supposed to be leading the clean up, was nowhere to be found. He also was questioning whether a contractor hired to skim the waters was accurately reporting what resources they had deployed.
With no BP rep, the Coast Guard official, Capt. Sam Honea, would feel the brunt from Nungesser as he boiled over with news that there weren?t enough skimmer boats to attack the encroaching oil while other skimmer boats sat idle in warehouses. He seemed desperate.
?I?m telling you, Sam, we got to do something,? Nungesser said. ?I?m getting told two different stories out of Venice. They denied our clean-up crews. It ain?t a good day. I?m gonna meet with the president, I wanna go with good news. We got oil all in Barataria Bay. We got one skimmer boat.
That?s unacceptable.?
?We?ve been asking for a plan since Day 1 and we still haven?t gotten one,? he said, looking Honea directly in the eye. ?Wiping the blades of grass ain?t cutting it.?
Barely audible to the large room, Honea said he would see what he could do.
Worried that he wasn?t getting enough material for the fight, with bureaucracy dragging down the response and learning that what resources he did have might be shifted from his parish to fight oil coming ashore in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, he threatened he would have his sheriff stop anyone trying to remove any equipment to fight the oil spill from Plaquemines.
------------------------------
The Most Wanted Man
Endowed with a larger-than-life persona and with deadly quick wit, Nungesser?s personality amid the crisis and long hours he is working shifts fast from using deep sarcasm to keep from crying to dead seriousness when he sees his parish being coated in oil. Parish spokesman Kurt Fromherz rattled off a laundry list of national media outlets that have interviewed or want interviews from Nungesser. ?They want him,? he said simply.
And since the oil spill began, The New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, Bill Maher, The Colbert Report, Anderson Cooper, G4 TV, The Walton and Johnson Morning Show, and Sean Hannity have come calling. They are just some of the interviews granted or requested, according to Fromherz.
He said Nungesser is only getting asked for more interviews every day.
?He says it like it is,? Fromherz said, trying to explain Nungesser?s soaring popularity, ?and he doesn?t hold back.?
When BP CEO Tony Hayward doubted large plumes of oil were spotted in the waters of Plaquemines Parish, Nungesser responded bluntly, ?Let?s take him out there, dunk him in the water and then pull him out. And when he comes out black, let?s ask him the same question.?
Sparing no one in his attempt to rescue his parish, Nungesser has admonished the president for not doing his job, railed against Coast Guard leadership and hammered almost anyone, especially BP, who he feels isn?t doing their job to help Plaquemines Parish.
?The minute that I feel we got the right teams responding quickly, you won?t see me in the press, you won?t see me bashing anybody.?
--------------------------------------
?If this oil wipes out coastal Louisiana -- and I still don?t think America understands the importance of these wetlands, these marshes -- until you?ve pulled into there with a boat and seen the fish jumping all over and the life in that marsh, you can?t really understand what?s dying,? he said.
?It?s not just a patch of grass.?
Full text at:
http://www.houmatoday.com/article/2...609518/0/entertainment11?p=all&tc=pgall&tc=ar
Plaquemines Parish president expresses feelings of many
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript>var collab_title = 'Billy Nungesser: Minister of Outrage';</SCRIPT><!-- /HEADLINE --><!-- MAIN PHOTO -->
AP Photo/The Times-Picayune, Susan Poag
Gov. Bobby Jindal listens as Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser talks about the response to the oil spill while speaking to the media May 26 at Cypress Cove Marina in Venice.
<!-- /MAIN PHOTO --><!-- BYLINE -->
Michael Luke
WWL-TV Eyewitness News
<!-- /BYLINE --><!-- PUBDATE -->Published: Monday, June 7, 2010 at 8:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, June 7, 2010 at 8:00 a.m.
( page all of 5 )
<!-- /PUBDATE -->
Excerpts:
VENICE -- Early on a Friday morning inside the Emergency Operations Center in Belle Chasse, La., a crowded room is filled with chatter from National Guard advisors, Coast Guard officials, DEQ representatives, EPA agents, Plaquemines Parish officials and a smattering of media, both national and local, all awaiting the entrance of Plaquemines Parish President Nungesser.
<SCRIPT language=JavaScript> var enableForum = "false";</SCRIPT><!--
AC = 1234
--><!-- GRAY BOX ARTICLE CONTENT--><STYLE type=text/css media=screen>#forumnumcom h6 {width:250px;float:left;margin:18px 10px 0 0;padding:10px 0 15px;border-bottom:none;border-top:9px solid #888}</STYLE>
Day 46 of the Gulf oil spill has arrived and to hear Nungesser, a man whose political star has risen fast while his parish is barely treading water, tell it, Plaquemines Parish once again is fighting for its life.
The imposing firebrand has been all over the airwaves ? talk radio, cable talk shows, national news ? and as passionately as he can, Nungesser will tell the story to anyone who will listen that his parish is dying.
The room goes silent as Nungesser enters and before he has barely sat down at the head of the large table for the Friday morning briefing, he simply asks, ?Is there a rep from BP here today??
?There will not be a rep from BP here today,? an assistant replies while looking down at the early morning reports.
Hours before he?s set to meet President Barack Obama, blood rushes to Nungesser?s face.
Another Oily Morning
It was about 8:15 a.m., and looking at his face, the morning was not off to a good start. More oil had washed ashore overnight -- two Plaquemines officials looking at digital photos said oil they found on the beaches was ?like peanut butter? and ?squirted like chocolate syrup? -- and the company responsible for the disaster, the one supposed to be leading the clean up, was nowhere to be found. He also was questioning whether a contractor hired to skim the waters was accurately reporting what resources they had deployed.
With no BP rep, the Coast Guard official, Capt. Sam Honea, would feel the brunt from Nungesser as he boiled over with news that there weren?t enough skimmer boats to attack the encroaching oil while other skimmer boats sat idle in warehouses. He seemed desperate.
?I?m telling you, Sam, we got to do something,? Nungesser said. ?I?m getting told two different stories out of Venice. They denied our clean-up crews. It ain?t a good day. I?m gonna meet with the president, I wanna go with good news. We got oil all in Barataria Bay. We got one skimmer boat.
That?s unacceptable.?
?We?ve been asking for a plan since Day 1 and we still haven?t gotten one,? he said, looking Honea directly in the eye. ?Wiping the blades of grass ain?t cutting it.?
Barely audible to the large room, Honea said he would see what he could do.
Worried that he wasn?t getting enough material for the fight, with bureaucracy dragging down the response and learning that what resources he did have might be shifted from his parish to fight oil coming ashore in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, he threatened he would have his sheriff stop anyone trying to remove any equipment to fight the oil spill from Plaquemines.
------------------------------
The Most Wanted Man
Endowed with a larger-than-life persona and with deadly quick wit, Nungesser?s personality amid the crisis and long hours he is working shifts fast from using deep sarcasm to keep from crying to dead seriousness when he sees his parish being coated in oil. Parish spokesman Kurt Fromherz rattled off a laundry list of national media outlets that have interviewed or want interviews from Nungesser. ?They want him,? he said simply.
And since the oil spill began, The New York Times, USA Today, Newsweek, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, MSNBC, Bill Maher, The Colbert Report, Anderson Cooper, G4 TV, The Walton and Johnson Morning Show, and Sean Hannity have come calling. They are just some of the interviews granted or requested, according to Fromherz.
He said Nungesser is only getting asked for more interviews every day.
?He says it like it is,? Fromherz said, trying to explain Nungesser?s soaring popularity, ?and he doesn?t hold back.?
When BP CEO Tony Hayward doubted large plumes of oil were spotted in the waters of Plaquemines Parish, Nungesser responded bluntly, ?Let?s take him out there, dunk him in the water and then pull him out. And when he comes out black, let?s ask him the same question.?
Sparing no one in his attempt to rescue his parish, Nungesser has admonished the president for not doing his job, railed against Coast Guard leadership and hammered almost anyone, especially BP, who he feels isn?t doing their job to help Plaquemines Parish.
?The minute that I feel we got the right teams responding quickly, you won?t see me in the press, you won?t see me bashing anybody.?
--------------------------------------
?If this oil wipes out coastal Louisiana -- and I still don?t think America understands the importance of these wetlands, these marshes -- until you?ve pulled into there with a boat and seen the fish jumping all over and the life in that marsh, you can?t really understand what?s dying,? he said.
?It?s not just a patch of grass.?
Full text at:
http://www.houmatoday.com/article/2...609518/0/entertainment11?p=all&tc=pgall&tc=ar