GULF DISPATCH: Will BP disaster spark move to a new Gulf economy?

Traveling along Gulf Coast fishing towns from Moss Point, Mississippi, to Louisiana bayou communities like Dulac and Lafitte, one hears a common refrain in the wake of the BP oil disaster: Families fear they're not only losing their livelihoods, but the extinction of entire culture that's sustained them for generations.

Right now, a third of Gulf waters are closed to commercial fishing, idling thousands of boats that would usually be busy catching shrimp and other seafood. The shut-down has brought national attention to the diverse and precarious culture of coastal fishing communities, who face not only an immediate loss of their economic lifeblood but may be grappling with the consequences of the spill for years to come.

Those fears have forced coastal leaders to begin a sometimes painful discussion about the need for the Gulf Coast to explore economic alternatives -- new sources of jobs and vitality that can ween coastal towns from their reliance on two industries that have been thrown into chaos from the BP spill: fishing and oil.

"IT'S LIKE WE'RE ON DEATH ROW"

Today, tens of thousands of fishers make their living off the waters of the Gulf. Shrimping, trapping crabs, harvesting oysters and other fishing have been an especially critical avenue of opportunity for groups like Vietnamese immigrants and Native Americans, who were often excluded from other industries.

"For many of the [Vietnamese fishermen], this is all they know," Diem Nguyen with the Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corp. in New Orleans East told me. "They were fishermen in Vietnam before they came here in the 1970s, and they've been fishing here ever since."

One finds the same story in the bayous of Terrebonne Parish, where the Native American Houma Nation has a community center. "This is what my family's been doing for seven generations," said one fisherman we met with in Dulac, Louisiana. "We're not just losing a job, we're losing a way of life. It's like we're on death row."

COASTAL CRUDE

Adding to the economic stress is the turmoil now engulfing the other big economic driver on the coast: the oil and natural gas industry. According to federal estimates, offshore oil directly employs over 100,000 people nation-wide, with most of those in the Gulf.

The reliance of Gulf communities on offshore oil came into sharp relief when President Obama issued a six-month moratorium on deep water drilling projects. Politicians, oil companies and offshore oil workers rushed to point out that 8,000 jobs hinged on the 33 rigs affected by the moratorium, and another 20,000 work in the maritime industry that supports offshore drilling.

Indeed, while the Gulf fishing and oil industries are often at odds, families along the coast often depend on both in the same year for income. In south Louisiana, commercial fishers often go to work on oil rigs after the fishing seasons end.

And while a federal judge in New Orleans ended deep water moratorium, 17 of the rigs covered by the ban have left the Gulf, and likely won't come back as long as the case is tied up in federal court.

PATHS TO A NEW GULF ECONOMY?

With the future of both fishing and offshore oil thrown into question, coastal communities are now rethinking their long-running dependence on these extractive industries -- and looking to economic alternatives.

Thomas Dardar, the newly-elected chief of the United Houma Nation, estimates that "about half" of the Houma's 17,000 tribal citizens count on fishing income, and thousands also have jobs in the oil industry.

Now, with boats and rigs idle, they're looking at other options -- both to "keep people busy" in the short-run to avoid depression and despair, but also to lay the foundation for a more diverse economic future.

Houma residents are looking into working with the nearby Coushatta tribe to erect greenhouses so they can grow and sell fresh produce. Some are also interested in reviving the Houma tradition of community gardening.

"Our people have always had big gardens," said John Silver, who works with Houma youth and is a member of the tribal council. "We want to bring gardening back to the communities."

Even if commercial doesn't bounce back, the Houma can also put years of experience on the water to use as ship builders and boat captains. As Chief Dardar says, "We learn how to drive boats before we learn how to drive cars."

In New Orleans East, Vietnamese residents are asking the same questions -- and even coming up with similar answers. After Katrina, the community 20 acres next to the Mary Queen of Vietnam church and teamed up with Tulane architects to create plans for a town farm and market. The Viet Village Cooperative Urban Farm is now working its way through the environmental permitting process and hopes to open soon.

Diem Nguyen says a whole set of economic ideas are on the table: Partnering with solar companies to train workers in green building construction; transforming an empty industrial building into a plant making traditional Vietnamese food like dried shrimp and fish sauce; even tourism, with swamp tours and excellent food being the big draws.

A 21ST CENTURY JOBS PROGRAM

But these new coastal economies will likely never reach the scale of oil and fishing. To make the new industries succeed will take money, perseverance and a good measure of luck. And more than anything, it will take one thing that coastal leaders feel like they are running out of: time.

With fishing boats and deepwater rigs on hold, coastal towns are being slammed with a "double whammy," David Gauthe of Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing (BISCO), which works in the bayou parishes of Lafourche and Terrebonne.

That's why Gauthe and BISCO, along with other Gulf leaders, are reviving an idea floated after Hurricane Katrina: the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act, a federal jobs program that could put thousands of Gulf residents to work in good-paying jobs doing green building construction or coastal restoration projects.

The idea of Gulf jobs program is being pushed by dozens of coastal organizations, and it's found allies in surprising places: BISCO alone has convinced local Democratic and Republican leaders in Louisiana to endorse the program.

Whatever support it enjoys among Gulf leaders, the Gulf Coast Civic Works Act faces a formidable obstacle: a deeply divided Congress and an embattled president in an election year.

But the costs of failing to address the jobs and economic crisis resulting from the BP disaster could be immense, both in the short-term -- depression, substance abuse, even suicides -- as well as the future viability of coastal communities.

"It's a ticking time bomb," one Louisiana resident said of the jobs and economic crisis. "We just don't know when it's going to explode."