The Legacy

Update: 8/5/10

DR.TOM TERMOTTO : ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH IMPACTS OF THE BP GULF OIL SPILL

These realities in the water, and in the air, ought to be known by anyone participating in cleanup and recovery operations anywhere in the Gulf. To ignore them is to do so at great peril. The water has been polluted to a degree never seen on such a grand scale in US Territorial Waters. There simply is no precedent here.

Many in the MSM have been trumpeting the miraculous recovery of the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the successful capping of the gushing oil well at the Macondo Prospect. Of course there are also those from whom common sense has not fled. Thankfully, we still have among us reasonable people who are able to utilize the human faculty of reason. We pray that there will be many others who will understand the simple facts of life in the Gulf, which has taken on an awesome toxic burden – a toxic load of various chemicals, pollutants, contaminants, and poisons that ought to be dealt with very carefully and with great circumspection.

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/174426

See: The Daily Hurricane

Quote: If the well is static, then why is the wellhead leaking?  Also, the leaking fluid is rising, indicating hydrocarbons, and continues even at this moment.  This whole operation has given me the willies. End Quote

Link: http://dailyhurricane.com/2010/08/bp-well-is-static-us-oil-is-gone-nothing-to-see-here-move-along.html

See The Daily Kos real time ROV watchers here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/5/62647/10084

View well here: http://bp.isevil.org/ Click on the numbers and it will bring up a ROV. The first one is usually the best.

Blog: 8/2/10

I have great respect for Riki Ott.

Riki is a Marine toxicologist and Exxon Valdez survivor. She has a PhD, and shares her stories of the oil impact at Sound Truth and Corporate Myths. Her latest book, Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez (Chelsea Green, 2008) is on the social trauma of this disaster. She is a national spokesperson with Move To Amend, a grassroots coalition working to abolish the legal doctrine that allows corporations to claim constitutional rights and undermine legitimate democracy.

In case you didn't know, a corporation is a legal entity. It has the same rights that you and I do and while I once ran a corporation and took comfort in the fact that it was a legal entity, I now question the validity of such a structure. 

Not that it does any good to doubt my once core beliefs as I don't see it changing in the near future, but here goes: A corporation doesn't have feelings. It also has more than one mind, and more than one area of interest. Therefore, there are many conflicting opinions within a corporation, some of which may not be for the public good.

Corporations hire people. They train them, employ them, give them health insurance, and generally take care of them. When a person's welfare is at risk, they tend not to talk, the fear of reprisal swift and on occasion reprehensible. Therefore, finding the truth can be difficult. 

Riki has stood the test of time. She has put the welfare of the people first, her needs last. For that she is to be commended. Her most recent blog http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/emoilgateem-bp-and-all-th_b_667709.html discusses what is really going on in the Gulf. 

Excerpt:  

We followed thick streamers of black oil and ribbons of rainbow sheen from Bay Baptiste and Bay Jimmy south across Barataria Bay through Four Bayou Pass and into the Gulf of Mexico. The ocean's smooth surface glinted like molten lead in the late afternoon sun. Oil. As far as we could see: Oil.

This was July 31, Day 103 of BP's disaster and more than two weeks after BP had sealed its broken wellhead that had hemorrhaged oil into the Gulf for nearly three months. BP's latest pretend is that tropical storm Bonnie washed the oil away - or at least off the surface - so the company is busily laying off response crews and claiming damages were over-exaggerated.

The official story does not match the reality that I saw from the Cessna or have heard from people I have met during community visits since the well was temporarily sealed - and ever since I first arrived in early May. Public health is a huge concern - and with good reason.

BP has created Frankenstein in its Gulf laboratory: an oil-dispersant chemical stew that so far has contaminated over 44,000 square miles of ocean and caused internal bleeding and hemorrhaging in workers and dolphins alike, according to Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA, who recently blew the whistle on the industry-government cover up. BP has sprayed dispersants steadily in the Gulf with Coast Guard approval from the beginning - under the sea, on the surface, offshore, near shore, in inland waters, at night, during the day - despite a public uproar to cease and desist. 

End excerpt.

This matches the emails I receive from those living in the Gulf. Take a bit of your time and read the above link. Check out the rashes, the vomiting, the bleeding our Gulf responders are bearing and question the information you get on the nightly news.

Somtimes I feel like what is up is down and what was truth is now a lie. Frankly, I don't know what to believe anymore. I do know that if news organizations want to survive, they had better start reporting the truth, and not what their CEO's deem is in the best interest of a corporate entity.