Bush/Cheney Legacy
UPDATE: Saturday Obama's address
Obama says before forging ahead with new offshore drilling the Oil Industry must prove they are acting responsibly and are able to better deal with any oil spills or well blow out.
Obama appears serious about all of this but is the system too broken to fix FUBAR
Or is the Oil Industry too big too politically powerful for any substantive changes to take place.
For instance BP is still not being forthright about the magnitude of the volume of the oil and gas gushing out of the whole in the bottom of the sea.
BP did not deploy booms and other equipment to the disaster sight in a timely fashion
And BP has its thugs who are preventing the public or the media from entering areas that have been heavily inundated with Crude Oil and toxic dispersants
May 29, 2010 — President Obama addresses the nation on the BP Oil Spill as well as not only his feelings about it but also how they are cleaning up the mess and holding those responsible for the disaster
May 24, 2010 — "... like sniffing gasoline or something, and still my ears are still popping right now. I'm still coughing up stuff. I feel real weak. All the tingling." -- Gary Burris, Gulf Coast fisherman
"The volatile, organic carbons, they act like a narcotic on the brain. At high concentrations, what we learned in Exxon Valdez from carcasses of harbor seals and sea otters, it actually fried the brain, (and there were) brain lesions." -- Marine toxicologist Riki Ott on chemicals used by BP
BPs slow reaction to defend the shores and marshlands of Louisana
Dylan Ratigan report
Much of the damage now occurring could have been stopped if BP had deployed booms and taken other necessary actions to protect these areas. BP spent more time playing the PR Public Relations game than doing anything constructive-they still see it as a PR problem- & GOPs reply Oil is as natural as ocean water WTF!!!
Oil Spill Workers Getting Sick!
BP judge shopping. Let the games begin - Rachel Maddow
May 28, 2010 — BP is trying to shift hundreds of lawsuits in 5 states to a Texas court and a judge with conflicts of interest.
BP trying to play down the effect the Deepwater Horizon oil spill catastrophe and clean up by BP becoming a public health issue- it seems crude oil and dispersants when mixed
Gulf Oil Spill Is Public Health Risk, Environmental Scientists Warn by Suzanne Goldenberg Via The Guardian & Common Dreams, May 28, 2010
• Pollution could do lasting damage to locals' health • BP's 'top kill' attempt to stop flow enters third day
Prolonged exposure to crude oil and chemical dispersants is a public health danger, environmental scientists warned today as BP spent a third day trying to initiate a "top kill" operation to cap the ruptured well on the sea bed
...With no immediate end in sight, there were growing concerns over the effects on public health of a prolonged exposure to the oil as well as to the more than 3,640,000 litres (800,000 gallons) of chemical dispersants sprayed on the slick.
Environmentalists and fishing groups in Louisiana say prolonged exposure to the oil, in the form of tiny airborne particles, as well as dispersants could be wreaking devastating damage on public health.
They also accuse BP of threatening to sack workers who try to turn up for clean-up duty wearing protective respirators, and the Obama administration of refusing to release results of air and water quality tests that would show the impact of crude oil and dispersants on the environment.
Wilma Subra, a chemist who has served as a consultant to the Environmental Protection Agency, said there was growing anecdotal evidence that locals were falling ill after exposure to tiny airborne particles of crude. Air quality data released earlier by the EPA suggested the presence of chemicals that – while still within legal limits – could be dangerous. But Subra complained that the EPA was not releasing all data it had gathered from BP.
"Every time the wind blows from the south-east to the shore, people are being made sick," she said. "It causes severe headaches, nausea, respiratory problems, burning eyes and sore throats." Long-term health effects include neurological disorders and cancer.
Subra said there was even greater concern for those recruited to lay booms and skim crude off the water, since they were in closer proximity to the oil and the chemical dispersants.
lint Guidry, of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, has accused BP of threatening to sack workers who turn up wearing respirators. The oil firm said it was not aware of any workers being turned away, but noted that it was the responsibility of the Obama administration to decide whether such protective gear was warranted.
Hugh Kaufman, chief investigator for the EPA's ombudsman, said he encountered similar worker safety policies after 9/11. "If people are wearing respirators, it scares people because they realise how toxic it is," he said "The administration is down-playing the problem because it saves them money down the line. It was the same at Ground Zero."
EPA tests indicate that the combined effect of dispersants and crude oil are even more toxic than individually. "There are dispersants being applied by aeroplane and by boat, and these people on the water are being sprayed over and over again," Subra said.
and so it goes,
GORD.
No comments:
Post a Comment