Oil On the Bayou
Oil On the Bayou
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
I wonder how you handle it. I just finished reading Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild, and my heart hurts, not in an abstract way, but in a deeply geographical one.
Reading it, I kept thinking of places like this bayou.
These waters look calm at first glance, the hanging moss, the mirrored surface, the slow, deliberate quiet that makes you think nothing ever changes here. But beneath that stillness is an environment carrying an enormous burden. Oil, gas, mining, petrochemicals, they leave their marks slowly, invisibly, until one day the damage is undeniable.
You don’t have it quite as badly where you are in Colorado, not in the same way. Mining scars mountains; oil stains wetlands. Different industries, different terrains, same question: how much are we willing to lose in the name of progress?
I am not anti-business. I believe in capitalism. I believe people should work, build, innovate, and prosper. But corporate responsibility cannot be optional. When profits are privatized, and damage is externalized, when ecosystems absorb the cost instead of balance sheets, something essential breaks.
Places like this bayou aren’t renewable in any meaningful human timeframe. Once they are poisoned, drained, or fragmented, they don’t simply bounce back. They become cautionary photos, then footnotes, then memories.
And that is what frightens me the most.
Not that damage happens, but that it becomes normal.
So I hope you’re being careful out there. Stay alert. Stay safe. Avoid residual chemicals when you can.
And remember that some landscapes are more fragile than they look, even when they seem eternal.
xoxo,
a.d. elliott
About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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