Along Gulf, spill still defines state of mind (AP)

ALONG THE GULF COAST – In the small brick church just across the road from the chocolate waters of Bayou Lafourche, the Rev. Joseph Anthony Pereira unbuttons his collar as the last parishioners pull out of the lot. Tonight, nearly a year after the BP oil spill began, he’s asked his congregation of shrimpers and oil industry workers to think about lessons learned when survival is in jeopardy.

But Pereira doubts that many from the 5 p.m. Mass are ready to take his Lenten message to heart.

“You speak about this to them because they forget what they went through,” says Pereira, who pastors at St. Joseph’s Church in Galliano, La., a community that ties its fortunes to the Gulf of Mexico. “Because BP has spoiled them, given them all this money, they’ve gone back to the old ways. They give them big bucks and they forget.”

A year after BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, killing 11 and triggering a four-month battle to contain and cap the gusher, the people who make their lives along the Gulf’s coastline face countless variations of the tradeoff that troubles Pereira.

They are anxious to banish the spill to memory. But that is very different from being

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