Bruce Barcott

Sundance Diary: Chasing the Hot Docs

Flew into Salt Lake City last night for a weeklong stint reporting on the Sundance Film Festival and doing some other field work for future stories. I'll be filing "Sundance Diary" posts for On Earth's website this week, seeking early info on some of 2012's most compelling documentaries. I've covered Mark Kitchell's "A Fierce Green Fire" extensively, but it's not the only interesting movie screening around town. Just filed a piece on "Chasing Ice," about an amazing five-year quest by National Geographic photographer James Balog to document climate change with time-lapse cameras stationed on some of the world's most remote glaciers. Also hoping to get a few items in about the strange rituals of Sundance. Which this year include an army of volunteers wearing bright orange Kenneth Cole down jackets. Gotta get one of those for my daughter. Tuesday morning update: Caught three films yesterday. Will post on two of them soon, but I had to get an immediate piece up on "The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom," which was nominated for an Oscar this morning. More soon. 

The Greatest US Women's Marathon Ever? Tune In Saturday.

One of the greatest footraces in American history could take place Saturday morning and too few people are aware of it. The US Olympic Marathon Trials go off this Saturday morning, January 14, in Houston. (Men start at 7am EST, women at 7:15.) The men’s race features two well known runners, Ryan Hall and Meb Keflezighi, and their duel will be fun to watch. But the real action is on the women’s side. 

One veteran marathon coach put it to me this way: “This is the best women’s marathon field, ever. Period.” 

Two-time Olympian Deena Kastor will try for one more Olympic bid, but it’s the race among the top three qualifiers that’s the real attraction. This is the first time Kara Goucher, Desiree Davila, and Shalane Flanagan have gone head-to-head against each other in any race. Over the past two years I’ve had the great fortune to profile Goucher, Davila, and Flanagan in three separate features for Runner’s World. They’re each amazing athletes and interesting characters, and I can’t wait to watch them compete. Runner’s World resident guru Amby Burfoot will be blogging the race live on the RW website, and NBC will broadcast it in tape-delay later Saturday afternoon, 3pm Eastern, 12 noon Pacific. Also: Check out our handicapping guide: Amby's 11 Men To Watch and my 10 Women To Watch. I invite you to join me and become a running geek for the day. 

UPDATE: The results are in. After 26.2 miles, Shalane, Desi, and Kara finished with less than 30 seconds separating them. All three will represent the United States in London.  
1) Shalane Flanagan 2:25:38
2) Desiree Davila  2:25:55
3) Kara Goucher   2:26:06  

Story Update: US Army Announces ADS/Hyperstealth Bid One of Five Finalists for Next General-Issue Camouflage

Just got a note from Guy Cramer, the brilliant camouflage designer I profiled in a 2011 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. His design has just been named one of five finalists in the competition to create the next generation of general-issue US Army fatigues.Next: The top five will undergo extensive lab and field tests. A winner will be announced in 9 to 12 months. 

Cramer teamed up with the military supplier ADS in the bid. Two of his toughest competitors, Crye Precision of Brooklyn, and the US Army's own Natick Soldier Research, Development, and Engineering Center, are also on the short list. One interesting entry, too: Kryptek Inc, a small camo developer based up in Fairbanks, Alaska, made the finals. Looks like Kryptek's a couple of Afghan/Iraq war vets who've teamed up to create great gear and interesting patterns for both soldiers and outdoorsmen. Great story there for anyone with the budget to get up to Fairbanks. 

The Ranger Who Saved Paradise: Thanks to Margaret Anderson

Amid all the tumult of the past week's shooting and manhunt on Mount Rainier, one fact tended to get lost in the coverage: Margaret Anderson (right), the murdered park ranger, most likely saved a number of lives by diverting the man who killed her.   She protected not only those people but also the life of the mountain in our minds. I wrote up a short essay about Anderson and the mountain early last week, and the Seattle Times published it on their Sunday op-ed page. Anderson's memorial service will be held this coming Tuesday, January 10, at 1pm at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma. 

Green Fire and Quakenamis: Updates and Final Words on My Favorite 2011 Stories

Thought I'd end the year with updates on some of my favorite assignments from 2011.

When I spent time with Mark Kitchell, the director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary "Berkeley in the Sixties," in San Francisco back in early June, he was a man down on his luck. As I wrote in "Lights, Camera, Activism!" for On Earth, he'd almost completed his next picture, an epic history of the environmental movement titled "A Fierce Green Fire," but his money was running out. Distribution deals were falling through. And he couldn't find an ending for the film. Seven months later, things have taken a dramatic turn for the better. His film has been accepted into Sundance. He's raising money again. He's found both an executive producer and a distribution partner. And he's secured a narrator for the film. A fellow by the name of Robert Redford. So...not a bad end of 2011 for Mr. Kitchell. "A Fierce Green Fire" will have its world premiere on January 23 in Park City, and I'll be there to blog the festival for OnEarth. Look for my updates Jan 23-30 at www.onearth.org. 

 

Guy Cramer, the camouflage genius I had the great fortune to find and profile for The Atlantic Monthly last summer, continues to crank out new patterns and inventions in his Hyperstealth studio in the backwoods of British Columbia. The Army Camouflage Improvement Effort, the competition to design the next generation of US Army camo, is expected to announce the winning design in mid-January 2012. Meanwhile, Cramer has come up with some far out new patterns, including this one being considered by the Canadian armed forces.
He's also working with the US Bureau of Land Management to conceal new oil-and-gas structures on public land. High Country News had a nice piece on that effort a few months ago; it's worth a read. 

 

The Elwha Dams, which I wrote about in the Oct issue of Seattle Met, are not just coming down--they are gone, daddy, gone. If you recall what the two old dams look like, you owe it to yourself to check out the National Park Service's live webcam photos of the two dam sites today. It's astonishing. The Lower Elwha Dam is simply gone. The Glines Canyon Dam (at right) has been notched to let the reservoir drain through. 

 

Perhaps my favorite story of the year was a massive feature the editors at Bicycling let me run with: "The Italian Job," a profile of Campagnolo, the great Italian bicycle component manufacturer. This was a rangy one, covering everything from Asian outsourcing to Boeing's 787 Dreamliner to a false advertising lawsuit in Seattle. I had the chance to spend a day at the famously secretive Campagnolo factory in Vicenza, Italy, and meet with Valentino Campagnolo, CEO and son of the company's founder. Part of the fun of the piece came in talking to Sr. Valentino about whether the company would ever, after nearly two decades of research, release an electronic shifting group. And, in a bit of beautiful timing, the company introduced the new Super Record 11 EPS (Electric Power Shift) and Record 11 EPS one week after "The Italian Job" hit the stands. The new gruppos should be available in early 2012 for, ahem, around $4,000 to $5,000. 

Hold on--nope, I was wrong. "The Italian Job" was my second favorite assignment of the past year. The winner: "Totally Psyched for the Full-Rip Nine," a big ol' rip-roarer of an Outside Magazine piece in which I was given the freedom to imagine (with the backing of months of painstaking research) a subduction zone megaquake, like the one that hit Japan in March 2011, erupting off the West Coast of the United States. The resulting infrastructure collapse and tsunami destruction gave me a new perspective on the Northwest. The research for this piece took me back to my days working on "The Measure of a Mountain," when I had the chance to talk to some of the geologists who unearthed the mystery behind the Osceola Flow. Thanks to the work of scientists at Oregon State, UW, and other institutions, we now know that a killer quake and tsunami last hit the coast of Washington and Oregon in 1700, and we're due for another any year now. Update: The megaquake did not hit the Cascadia Subduction Zone in 2011. But the year's passing did put more tension on the CSZ. When you feel the rumble, head for the hills, people.  

Coming in 2012: Brazilian Gauchos, grassland birds, marathon runners, microbes, Detroit, nuclear waste, and more stories about buildings and food. 

Favorite Books of 2011

I review a lot of books. Most of them are pretty good (my editors pre-sort, and yes, they do read them before they assign them), and a few of them turn out to be great. Here's my list of favorite books of 2011. Some of them came out prior to 2011. One probably won't get popular until early 2012. Most of them I didn't review, I just happened to come upon them in the library or the bookstore or got sent an early copy in one of those padded mailers that pile up on our porch. What's my opinion worth? I'll let this gentleman from Frisbee: A Book Journal answer that question. "Bruce Barcott, a contributing editor at Outside Magazine, enjoyed and admired [insert author's name here]'s book. But do I know Bruce Barcott? Heavens, no. He might have good taste, or he might not." 

Fair enough, Frisbee. 

MY 5 FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2011: 

5. Room For Improvement: Notes on a Dozen Lifelong Sports, by John Casey. Surprising, lovely, plainspoken essays and memoirs about the pleasures of exercise throughout a long and productive life. 

4. No Cheating, No Dying, by Elizabeth Weil. You may have read her recent profile of Diana Nyad in the NYT Magazine, or the excerpt from this book in the NYTM in 2010. She's a delightful writer, married to my Outside Mag compatriot Dan Duane. This one should be hitting bookstores in a week or two. Great book about Gen X marriage, trials, tribulations, annoyances, and the quest for improvement. 

3. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. I ran across a copy of this old classic (originally published in 1996) at a book fair in Brazil in October. It's still as good as you remember. Simply the best oral history published in my lifetime. Incredible research, depth, interviews, and brilliant editing. 

2. The Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker. The year's most thought-provoking book, and one that quite improved my outlook on the human condition. If you like Jared Diamond, you'll love this book. 

1. The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides. My reading runs heavily to nonfiction, and I wasn't a big fan of Eugenides' previous novels. But this one swept me away. Absolutely genius writing, perfect evocation of college life in the eighties, all wrapped up with a satisfying and spectacularly spot-on finish. 

THE MOST DISAPPOINTING BOOK OF 2011:

1. Those Guys Have All the Fun, Tom Shales' oral history of ESPN. Shales' Saturday Night Live book was a hoot. And I'm a total ESPN junkie. I'll even watch Colin Cowherd on Sports Nation. Really. But this book was a complete piece of crap. Expectation: Pages of amusing anecdotes on Chris Berman, memories of Aussie rules football and Super Bowl parties. Delivered: Page after page of boring BS on the network's owners, whine whine whine about what a craptown Bristol is, Keith Olbermann's an ass, that NFL drama series sucked, the magazine succeeded, and did I mention what an ass Keith Olbermann is? I threw it across the room in disgust when some ESPN reporter started getting all proud about scooping the world with news of the Danny Tartabull trade. Way to go, fellah. There's a classic scene in one of the earliest episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street where Det. Munch (the great Richard Belzer) slaps around a suspect who's holding out on him. Munch: "Whatta you, saving your best stories for Montel Williams? Is that it? You saving the good stuff for Montel Williams?" This book felt like everyone who'd ever worked at ESPN was saving their best stories for Montel Williams. 

GREATEST GUILTY PLEASURE OF 2011: 

1. The Book of Basketball, by Bill Simmons. Yes, I am the last man in America to read this book. I picked up the paperback for like $3.99 at a Borders that was going out of business over on Kauai. And devoured the thing. It was like text cocaine. I could not stop. Yes! Tell me more about Artis Gilmore! And David Thompson! Or is it Mychal Thompson? I don't care, just don't stop writing about basketball, Bill Simmons! 

Outside Magazine: Totally Psyched for the Full-Rip Nine

Last April, my editor at Outside asked me to look into the possibility of a Japan-style earthquake and tsunami striking the West Coast. Turns out it's not only possible, it's probable. Will it strike within our lifetime? Nobody knows. But if it does, it's going to be one hell of a ride. The resulting 7,000-word piece, "Totally Psyched for the Full-Rip Nine," envisions a 9.1 megaquake and tsunami hitting the coast, with a minute-by-minute narration. It won't hit newsstands until mid-September, but the editors put an early version online and it's getting massive hits and media interest. Here's an interview I just did an hour ago on KUOW's "The Conversation," with host Ross Reynolds. Coverage also at the P-I Online, KING 5 News, and Daily Kos.

National Geographic: Lair of the Spirit Bear

The long-awaited (by my children) National Geographic cover story on the Spirit Bear of British Columbia finally hits the stands this month--and it's a thing of beauty. I provided the words for the two main features on the bear and its lair, but Paul Nicklen's photos are the real glory of the issue. I've had the good fortune to work with Paul on two NG features now (check out his work, with my words, on Svalbard in NG a couple years ago), and it's always a thrill to open up that early proof and see what he's come up with. Paul and I got lucky with this piece--when we first went up to the Great Bear Rainforest two years ago, an abundant pink salmon spawning season lured the bears down to the rivermouths. Our bear guides, Marven Robinson and Doug Neasloss, knew where to lead us and proved to be wonderful companions on the trail. (You can reach Marven through King Pacific Lodge, and Doug at his website, dougneasloss.com.) National Geographic cover stories aren't often controversial, but this one is kicking up a bit of dust in Canada, where the Northern Gateway pipeline, a proposed pipeline that would bring oil tankers into the heart of the Spirit Bear's homeland, is the object of heated debate.

The Elwha's Last Dam Summer

Nearly a quarter century ago, an anonymous artist/activist painted a giant crack down the face of the Glines Canyon Dam, one of two dams that blocked the passage of salmon up the Elwha River on the Olympic Peninsula. 'ELWHA BE FREE" appeared beside it. The crack was, in a way, the opening shot in the great Elwha dam war, a 25-year fight to remove the dams and restore one of the Pacific Northwest's legendary salmon runs. Later this fall, the dams will come down and the Elwha will indeed be free. In the current issue of Seattle Metropolitan magazine, editor Katherine Koberg gave me some space to chronicle the battle--and to track down and reveal, for the first time, the story of the crack painter. He's an old Earth First! activist named Mikal Jakubal, and I think you'll enjoy meeting him.

How to Turn Invisible

On newsstands and online this week: My feature in The Atlantic Monthly on the art and science of camouflage.

The backstory: A couple years ago, while working on an article on deer hunting, I became interested in the idea of human camouflage. There seemed to be two completely different schools of thought. Hunters favored tromp l'oeil foliage patterns like those produced by Mossy Oak (bottom right photo), while soldiers wore those strange pixelated digital patterns (left).

Like a lot of articles I work on, this one stewed for a while. I kept a file on camouflage, followed my nose, and eventually found a way to write about it. Which is to say, I found Guy Cramer (that's him in the photo, upper right). Cramer, a 40ish Canadian, lives in a rural town east of Vancouver, B.C., and spends his days designing military camouflage patterns and inventing new ways to become invisible. The guy's a quiet genius. But I didn't know that at first. After meeting him in his research lab last year, it took me time and a lot of checking to make sure the guy was legit. He didn't fit the pattern of how we think of either military contractors or inventors. His office was neat, clean, almost eerily squared-away. There was no massive back office, no lobbying arm, no PR professional squiring me around. There was just Guy, quietly working on his projects in the cold misty Canadian afternoon. He's one of the most memorable characters I've met. Read more about him in the online version of the story.

Shalane Flanagan: Running Like An Assassin

The amazing Shalane Flanagan took bronze at yesterday's World Cross Country Championships in Spain, continuing a string of world-class performances that began with her second place finish in last year's New York City Marathon. Coincidentally, my profile of Shalane just hit the stands in the April issue of Runner's World. I had a chance to talk with Shalane and watch her train at Nike headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, and also saw her run with training partner Lisa Koll at the UW Dempsey Indoor meet in January. She's an amazing athlete to watch: Such a smooth, quiet runner. I'm excited about the next Olympic marathon trial, just announced for Houston in January 2012. I've profiled two of the leading contenders--Shalane and Kara Goucher--and can't wait to see them run against Deena Kastor and one of the strongest American fields ever.

The Fraying of the Arctic Food Web

Last November I traveled to Alaska to research a cover story for On Earth magazine.  The idea was to go up there and see if global warming is changing the food web in any way. I got more than I bargained for. It rained the entire time I was there, which is itself an indication of how things are going up there. (It's usually snowing, and the ice should be freezing.) On Earth has just published the story online, and the print version should be on newsstands soon. We've also put together an audio slideshow, and I'll post a few photos of my own here. This is what it sounded like: Download 1058.

 

This is Kotzebue's controversial new sea wall, created to protect Front Street from autumn storms. Those weren't such a big problem in the past, as the sea would be frozen, and the storm would just whip up snow. Now with more open water later in the year, storms surge up against the town. Hence the wall. Note the melting band of water along the edge of the wall. This was taken on a day when locals were warned not to travel on the ice; the warm rain had made it too unstable.

The Nullagvik Hotel, Kotzebue's finest, was fully booked when I visited. People from outer villages who'd come to town for supplies or to visit relatives found themselves trapped in town when the sea and river ice melted. (Their inbound routes were on ice.) Some ended up chartering bush planes to get home, leaving their snowmachines in town and coming back for them later in the winter.

A typical scene in Kotzebue in November. Cemetary in the foreground, houses, then fuel tanks holding the diesel that powers the local electrical grid. It gets a little lighter during the day, but not much. This was taken around 2pm, when things were already getting dim.

 

Kotzebue operates some of the world's northernmost wind turbines, which are situated on a rise a couple miles outside of town. They help offset the heavy use of diesel, which can be brought in only during a summer window when ships can travel on the ice-free Chuckchi Sea. I spent an afternoon with two guys who are responsible for repairing and maintaining these things. Tough job.

Have I mentioned my wife's fabulous new book?

Claire's heartwarming and hilarious memoir, Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25) hits bookstores next Tuesday, Dec 21, but you can get a sneak peek in the January issue of Vogue, which hits newsstands today. I've linked to a crummy pdf scan of the magazine here: Download Vogue Jan 2011 excerpt but it's worth getting your own copy. It's the one with Natalie Portman on the cover. (Update: For some reason--spousal magnetic website repulsion?--my website won't allow me to link-insert to my wife's website. Go figure. She and her book are at www.clairedederer.com.)

Grolar Bears and Narlugas: Rise of the Arctic Hybrids

During my trip to the Arctic last month, I had the opportunity to spend time with Brendan Kelly, one of the world's leading Arctic biologists. Brendan and I spoke at some length about his work on ringed seals. (It'll be part of a feature on Arctic food webs in the Spring 2011 issue of On Earth magazine.) We also touched on the topic of hybrid animals, and how global warming may be increasing their number in the Arctic. In today's issue of Nature, Brendan and two colleagues report the first two confirmed observations of grizzly-polar bear hybrids, as well as other hybrids being seen up north. My own piece on his study was published by On Earth's web site today. Brendan's list of 34 potential Arctic hybrids makes for particularly interesting reading. Photographer Steven Kazlowski, who provided the shot of the (possible) grolar bear, lives and works just up the road from me in Kingston, Washington, and his book The Last Polar Bear is one of the great environmental books of the last decade (published by the good folks at Seattle's Braided River books). Very interesting stuff happening up in the great white north.

Bernie Sanders: Most courageous man in America

In case you haven't heard about it, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is currently filibustering the on the Senate floor over the tax deal. This 13-minute clip of the start of his speech, given earlier this morning, may be one of the most courageous and important speeches made in my lifetime.

Go Bernie! Finally somebody's willing to say it, and say it loud.

Writing for the Nonfiction Market: Registration Opens Nov 16

I had such a good time at the Field's End Writers' Conference last spring that I'm working with the Field's End folks again next year. We're teaming up to offer a seminar on nonfiction writing for the magazine market, and it should be a lot of fun. Here's what the catalog copy says:

In this class, we'll work to identify viable nonfiction story ideas and match them with potential magazines and editors. Students will develop story ideas, proposals, and articles as class assignments. The instructor will help students report, write, and edit their stories into shape and give oral and written feedback. No experience necessary.

We'll meet once a week during January and early February on Bainbridge Island. The class is limited to 10 students, so check it out if you're interested. Registration opens Tuesday, November 16. Read more about it at the Field's End Winter Classes site. Hope to see you there!

Hurricane Richard Smashes Through Belize Zoo

The Belize Zoo needs our help.

Sharon Matola's "Best Little Zoo in the World," featured in my book The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, took a direct hit from Hurricane Richard late last month. The storm fairly well wrecked the joint. Giant ceiba trees crashed into the jaguar enclosure, the king vulture exhibit looks like a tossed net and tinkertoys, and the plumbing system's a mess. These photos give you some idea of what they're dealing with. Download More info and hurricane photos.

Sharon has had to close the zoo until December. Volunteers, staffers, and military personnel are all pitching in to clean the place up, but she's taking a huge hit in cement, fencing, netting, PVC pipe, lumber, nails, water pumps, and paint.

"It isn't too nice here," Sharon told me earlier this week. "Lots of things went a bit over-the-top odd. We need help, that's for sure."

Here's the key point: Sharon's still paying the working zoo staff, but the zoo is closed. Which means no gate receipts. And gate receipts are how the zoo stays afloat.

We can help. Sharon and the zoo's supporters have set up a Hurricane Relief Fund for direct donations.

My suggestion is this: Please become a Family Member ($35) or Patron ($65) of the Belize Zoo right now. Thirty-five or sixty-five bucks goes a long ways in Belize--I've seen it myself--and will immediately help offset the loss of zoo income due to this temporary closure. Sharon and the animals will thank you!

 

"Hatch-22" Redux

Today's High Country News has a nice riff on my "Hatch-22" piece (see earlier post) by Joseph Taylor, author of the classic Making Salmon: An Environmental History of the Northwest Fisheries Crisis. It's a fair and accurate critique, and I'm always thrilled to find any mention of my work in the old HCN. It's also prodded me to correct an oversight. NOAA fisheries biologist Alex Wertheimer's comment on Ray Hilborn's 2000 study of Prince William Sound hatcheries can be found here: Download Wertheimer hatchery response. Apologies for not posting it earlier. For those of you keeping up with Ray Hilborn, Crosscut recently posted Judy Lightfood's account of his recent lecture in the UW's "Food: Eating Your Environment" series. Hilborn's message: Save the land! Eat more fish.

127 Hours? Can't go. I'd be fainter #15.

Going to see "127 Hours" this weekend?

Me neither.

I love James Franco, like Aron Ralston, but frankly, watching a guy saw off his own arm is my idea of hell. You see, I'm a fainter. Come at me with a needle, I'm done. Whump. On the floor. 10th grade vaccine shot: Whump. Group Health clinic: Whump. Birth of my son, C-section: Whump. (Read all about it in my wife's forthcoming memoir. Seriously.) I fainted--I kid you not--while sitting in a hot theater listening to Spalding Gray describe one of those freaky Phillipine surgery-with-bare-hands deals. So now the LA Times reports that 14 people--and counting--have passed out while watching Franco painstakingly de-hand himself.

Why do some people faint like this? The best explanation I've come across (read: The one that shines the best light on moi) comes from good old WebMD:

The idea is that back in time, when someone was coming at someone else with a sharp stick or rock, a kind of genetic variation allowed certain people to faint in response," explains Tyler C. Ralston, a clinical psychologist in Honolulu, who treats people with blood-injury phobias. Warriors who fainted looked dead and were passed over during battle. The blood pressure drop also might have helped those who were wounded avoid bleeding to death. Survivors then passed on the 'fainting' gene.

Yes! Vindicated! A canny warrior's strategy, that.

Anyway. Warrior-passed or not, I think there may be something to the genetic thing. I recall my father nearly fainting in 1976 while I got stitches in my chin after a nasty skateboarding accident. And last year when the kids got their H1N1 shots, 11 year-old Lucy...hit...the...floor. Whump.

Sorry, kid. That's on me.

Keeping an Eye on the Gulf

There's some interesting stuff going on down on the Gulf Coast right now, most of it happening out of the spotlight because of the midterm election. Though oil isn't washing up in high volumes, it's definitely hanging around in certain wetlands, especially Bay Jimmy, one of the areas I got to know well during my time down there reporting for National Geographic. This afternoon's HuffPo put up this strange hybrid piece  that combines AP photos with Greenpeace photos to give what looks to me like a skewed interpretation of what's going on. The Greenpeace aerial shots show ribbons of what looks like weathered oil--but might very well be algae blooms, given the high volume strands seen from the air and recent testing of the stuff done by scientists at LSU and elsewhere. That's not to say that old oil isn't occassionally turning up in the bays--Tuesday's NYT piece  quoted a longtime Louisiana fisherman who'd gotten her hull gunked up with oil, not algae. I've been out with those folks, and that quote had the smell of truth. What gives? Probably a little same-old, same-old: Scientists only test what the Coast Guard scoops up and gives them, and my experience down there leaves me with little confidence in the Coasties' ability to locate and scoop samples of the reported oil strands. The upshot: There's probably a lot of algae out there and a little bit of residual oil too. Trust AP photos and reports (like the photo posted here, of Plaquemines Parish official PJ Hahn--will they ever get your head in the shot, PJ?), but treat Greenpeace photos and reports with a dose of skepticism. Mixing the two is a bad idea.