This site has been created by researchers at the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona, with assistance from many friends and colleagues on our campus and in Louisiana. We began working in southern Louisiana in 1996 on a historical baseline study of the impacts of the offshore oil and gas industry on communities in the Gulf of Mexico. From that beginning, we moved on to investigate the social and economic impacts of the industry on individuals, families, and communities of Morgan City and New Iberia, Louisiana; oilfield waste policy and impacts in southern Louisiana; and the history and evolution of the offshore oil and gas industry in southern Louisiana. All of the latter studies have utilized an approach to team ethnography organized by applied anthropologists and integrating community members as ethnographers. The history study includes oral history interviews of over 300 workers, family members, community leaders, and others whose lives were shaped by the offshore oil and gas industry in southern Louisiana.