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"WE'RE ON OUR OWN"

On a sun-drenched afternoon in early June, it was slow at DJ’s One Stop, a convenience store and deli on Highway 15 in Pointe a La Hache. The co-owner Sharon Domingue did not want to speculate whether the lack of activity at the nearby Pointe a la Hache Marina had anything to do with the slow pace of business that day.

She and her husband opened DJs less than a year ago so that residents in the area could have a nearby place to purchase staples like milk, bread and eggs. On some days, she could count on the fishermen who launched their boats from the marina to stop in for something cold to drink or a hot lunch. But on this day—more than 50 days after the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico—business was slow. Still, she didn’t know for sure if the oil spill, which has threatened the way of life in the mostly Black fishing communities along the Mississippi River, was also threatening her business. Although the local community is well-known for its fishing industry, Domingue has never worked in it herself. Still, her father did; and so did a brother. So she knows a little bit about it. What she knows is that it’s not for the faint of heart.

“It’s hard work,” she says as she prepares to leave her store for the day. “When it’s good it’s good, but when it’s bad, it’s bad.”

By all accounts the last 100 days or so have served up some pretty bad days for fishing communities throughout the state and especially in the largely Black fishing communities of Phoenix, Davant and Pointe a La Hache in Plaquemines Parish.

Fishermen like Roger Moliere Jr. and Warren Duplessis know that all too well. Both men have worked on the water for as long as they can remember.

On the same day that Domingue lamented the slow pace of business at DJ’s One Stop, Moliere, 37, and Duplessis, 45, pulled into the marina with about 4,000 pounds of oysters. Many of the areas they are used to fishing have already been closed. But on this particular day, they managed to find one open spot, they say, and were both surprised that they caught that many oysters. They were just as certain that within a week or so they would not be able to get any all.

“In the next week, we ain’t going to have anywhere to fish,” Duplessis says. “Next week, it’s going to be all out.”

Though it had only been about seven weeks since the accident, Duplessis also says he has had enough with the hassle and red tape he has had to endure to get some compensation for loss income from BP. At this point he has received one check from the mammoth oil company and says he was led to believe that another would automatically follow, though he had received nothing yet.

“You have to miss a day of work to see them, and then you get nothing,” Duplessis says. “Now you done missed a day a work and you don’t have any money.”

A Way of Life

According to Byron Encalade, almost everyone in Pointe a la Hache works on the bayou. And he would know. Encalade serves as president of the Louisiana Oystermen’s Association, a local organization which is comprised of about 75 members—mostly Black, though some are Asian and Native Americans, as well.

“The only people that don’t work on the bayou are the old people getting a pension and the children that are in school,” he says.

The reality is that there are some adults too young to be retired—like Sharon Domingue and her husband—who don’t make their livings fishing those briny waters. Her husband Darrell works at a petrochemical company in the area. And she once worked there as well. In fact, it’s not too hard to find a resident of Pointe a la Hache, Davant or Phoenix whose livelihood is not tied to the fishing. But it’s next to impossible to find one whose life has not been or is not touched by it in some way.

Roger Moliere, Sr., the father of the younger oysterman who hauled in the catch made his way to the marina just as his son and Duplessis were coming in. The elder Moliere fished the same waters or 52 years before retiring. And, he continues to make—by hand—many of the small wooden fishing boats like the one his son is aboard. It’s a tiny boat compared to some of the larger fishing vessels; but it’s the sort most often used by the Black fishermen of the area. The elder Moliere suspects that boat-making skills will no longer be in such demand as the effects of the oil spill wear on.

A while later, Michael Bartholomew also comes to the marina, which is shaping up to be quite the meeting spot for locals to chat about the recent state of affairs.