WEBVTT
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[projector reeling]
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[electronic beeping]
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[winch motor whirring]
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[pulley creaking]
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[water splashes]
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[pulley creaking]
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[dredge clacks]
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Whoa!
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[solemn music]
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[metal screen rustles]
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[solemn music continues]
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[metal clanking]
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As far as I can remember as back when Jean Lafitte
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and the British and all was here,
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the Indians were picking up oysters on the banks over here,
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and that was their major food.
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Before oyster was ever sold, it was the Indians,
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the natives of Louisiana that showed us about the oysters.
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That was one of our main courses on the menu
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because the oysters were there on the shorelines,
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and they could go pick what they wanted.
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It wasn't something they had to go hunt for.
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[oyster shells scratching]
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When they first started harvesting oysters in this bay,
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it was all sails.
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So you had a sail on your boat,
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and you would pull the dredge on the side,
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and the momentum of the boat,
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that's how you got the dredge up.
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[oyster shells clattering]
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[solemn music continues]
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You see that piling over there?
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My grandpa had two camps there,
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and my dad worked for my grandpa,
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and my whole family was oyster people.
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The islands with people living on it
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over here years, years, ago.
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[solemn music continues]
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[boat motor chugging]
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Like this lake right here was full of islands.
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They're all gone.
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Spanish.
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That's all gone.
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The damage is done,
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you know what I mean?
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[metal scratches]
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[solemn music continues]
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[jumpsuit thuds]
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[boat rumbles]
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[vehicle engine revving]
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[plastic container thuds]
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[oyster shells clatter]
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[water burbling]
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[oyster shells clattering]
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[sack thuds]
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[vehicle rumbling]
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[vehicle engine revs]
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[solemn music continues]
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[box thuds]
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[oyster shells clatter]
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It's a rock.
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I guess they're stranding the whole sea out.
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And they said, "Let me see if I can try this."
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And I guess they figured it was a food that they could eat.
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It was always a thing.
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This is alive before you open it, you know?
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So I think they have a mind of it's own.
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"Don't eat me," I guess.
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"Don't fish me out the sea."
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[solemn music continues]
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[ocean waves susurrating]
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[oyster shells clattering]
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[diners chattering]
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[garbage bin lid thuds]
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[garbage bins scratching]
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[vehicle engine revving]
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[Larry grunts]
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[truck lift motor whirring]
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The Northern South Pole is melting,
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and all that water have to come somewhere.
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So it's coming down here by us.
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And we bring this 20-yard can,
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we dump the shells in the rock shell place.
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And they pick 'em up, put 'em on the barge.
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They bring 'em to the marsh,
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and they kind of fill the marshes up with 'em.
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The wildlife is catching hell right about now.
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They gonna be knocking on your door in a minute.
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They ain't got nowhere to go.
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So they coming to us, you know what I'm saying?
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So long as we can keep doing what we're doing,
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it'll be all right for 'em.
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You got somewhere to, how do you say that?
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Somewhere to chill out.
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[truck motor whirring]
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[oyster shells clattering]
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[oyster shells rumbles]
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[solemn music continues]
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[sky thundering]
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If you think of a mound of soil
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with water rushing by it,
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you can visualize how that would eat away at the soil.
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But if you imagine what is really sort
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of a rock wall in front of that,
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it protects it from that movement of the water.
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We deposit them into these marine-grade mesh bags,
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and then we'll put the bags of the shell
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into a steel cage called the gabion,
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and then we'll have a contractor lift the steel cages,
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put 'em on a barge, and go out to our reef site,
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and place them where we have determined is the best spot
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for them to create an oyster reef.
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[oyster shells clatter]
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[solemn music continues]
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Oyster reefs, of course,
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have the remarkable ability to adapt for sea level rise
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so they can continue to grow up if the water level goes up.
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Whereas if you built a reef out of concrete or something,
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it could not do that.
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So yes, we can win this.
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But whether we have the fortitude
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to do that remains to be seen.
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[solemn music continues]
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It's all a big mess created by man,
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and man is trying to undo that mess.
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You go to Florida, to Everglades,
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it's very beautiful place but it's not like it is here.
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It's just, I don't know.
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And there's nothing better than waking up
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and getting on one of these boats.
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[solemn music continues]
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[water burbling]
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When you grow up in that concrete jungle, the city,
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you don't really understand how things get to your plate,
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you know what I mean?
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And out here, we eat from the land.
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Our ancestors ate from the land.
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There was a story by my grandmother that was 100 years old.
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And she said that during the great depression
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in the early 1900s,
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there was no great depression in Lafitte
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because it didn't matter if they had money or not.
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They had plenty food from the waterways.
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[solemn music continues]
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[water burbling]
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We also understand the ecology and the balance of life
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that you can't take too much from from this,
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or something else happens.
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Something has to die in order for something to live.
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[solemn music continues]
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[water burbling]