The Duval law firm specializes in maritime law and counts as clients the Bollinger Shipyards, Fina Oil Company (Italy) and other maritime and petroleum sector firms, including Apache Operations, the second largest Gulf Coast petroleum leaseholder and operator. [23]
There are twelve Bollinger “family-owned” shipyards in southern Louisiana, with five in the immediate New Orleans vicinity, and ten on the “panhandle” New Orleans peninsula. Like many Gulf Coast industrial giants, Bollinger facilities were literally built over the swamp. Bollinger Gulf Repair in East New Orleans by itself covers 58 acres with 3,300 feet of wet dock area.
Donald Bollinger served as a delegate to every Republican National Convention since 1976 and has served on the Republican National Finance Committee, the National Steering Committees for both Bush presidential administrations, and was the State of Louisiana’s Finance Chairman for the George W. Bush for President Campaign and Campaign Chair for the General Election. He serves on the National Petroleum Council and previously served on the President’s Export Council under the administration of President George H.W. Bush. He is Chairman of the Governor’s Maritime Advisory Task Force, on the board of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Military Affairs, and former Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans.
Blame Katrina Blame the Victims
The selling off and destruction of Louisiana’s wetlands and other environmental assets occurs today behind powerful business groups like those listed above. This is the classic modus operandi of the shock doctrine of disaster capitalism. It was not a sudden realization or awakening brought about by a hurricane, but an ongoing, simmering project that seized the moment it had been waiting for.
It was not a hurricane named Katrina that wrecked the Gulf Coast wetlands.
The wetlands that once protected the city of New Orleans from tropical storms have been obliterated and corporate industry and our now privatized government have accomplished an environmental—on top of the political—coup d’etat by blaming the problem on Mother Nature.
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