As we daily pick up the newspaper, we are constantly informed about the gulf oil spill.

Having worked in the oil field myself, I know there is always a possibility of having blowouts, and yes, they do blow up sometimes.

This is the price we pay to continue on our cause of daily vehicle use.

The families of those lost should be foremost in our thoughts.

As the spill is going, we can se the hazards of drilling. As a resident of Louisiana, I know we have a very close relationship with the oil companies. We have many involved in working in the oil field and in refineries.

If we don’t want to put these men to work, they will be added to the unemployment lines.

I agree that we need to get the information of what went wrong and caused this catastrophic failure in order to be able to avoid it happening again.

But before pointing fingers at BP and Transocean, we need to take a good look at ourselves.

Can we do anything personally to help? Drive less? Walk more?

We are causing this mad rush to have bigger and better everything.

We need to see where we can help.

Let those companies fix the leak first.

We don’t need to point fingers until we take care of the problems.

We’re spending time with committees to find out who is to blame. But we are all to blame.

Please let the companies repair the leak and don’t bottleneck them into to committees and finger pointing.

Do all that after the leak is fixed. It’s to everyone’s advantage.

Louis Tarver

Ferriday resident