NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Monday evening, dozens of people marched from the CBD to the French Quarter to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the BP oil disaster. WGNO reporter Deepak Saini talked to activists who say they still have extreme discontent with BP.
Marchers yell, “Gulf South, rise up!”
They want to be heard…
“BP… pay up!”
Dressed in black, dozens of activists marched from Lafayette Square to the French Quarter. Some dressed in costumes like a pelican covered in oil.
“We need the earth to have a way to live on. We can’t just exploit and destruct and keep and going and doing that without any consequences,” says Renate Heurich.
“To watch what happened slowly coming in was a new form of heartbreak for people that live on the gulf coast and have it as part of their souls,” says Andrew Whitehurst with the Gulf Restoration Network.
The people taking part in the Gulf South Rising march say five years later, there are still more questions than answers.
“All of these folks are saying BP needs to tell the truth. People are not OK. People are not well. People have not been compensated and we want the truth to come out,” says Colette Pichon-Battle with the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy.