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BP Oil Spill Update 6/11/2010 Last night,
Anderson Cooper’s AC360 show had video of a CNN
videographer (part of Anderson’s professional crew) attempting to
videotape oiled birds being cleaned by a US Fish and Wildlife team.
The reporter was prevented from doing so by a National Guardsman.
Cooper showed the video from her brief confrontation with the National
Guardsman (transcript below, and video link also).
It is absolutely incredible that, instead of actually helping with the
cleanup, our National Guard is now being used to block journalists
from documenting what is going on...
--Jason
=================
VIDEO HERE (probably about 15 mins into the video)
ANDERSON COOPER 360, 6/10/2010
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/podcasts/ac360/site/2010/06/11/cooper.podcast.thursday.cnn
=================
HERE IS THE EXCERPTED TRANSCRIPT ABOUT THE NATIONAL GUARD BLOCKING
CNN’S VIDEOTAPING OF OILED BIRDS BEING CLEANED:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1006/10/acd.02.html
<<<
COOPER: So, James Carville was just getting warmed up. We went to --
we went to break. We're going to have more from him shortly. But I
just want to a little bit talk about transparency and the trouble that
-- that a lot of us reporters are having down here covering this
story. In just the last couple of days, CNN's Jim Acosta and I both,
in separate instances, have been prevented by federal wildlife
officials from photographing birds covered in oil being brought
ashore.
Now, the wildlife official said to me that it was to protect birds.
And they actually now have this area where the birds come in roped off
and guarded by National Guard troops.
Jim Acosta actually had a run-in with one of the troops, getting in
the reporter's face. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to have to ask you to stop taking pictures...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We said -- they said we could do it, as long as
we didn't cross the yellow line.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: There is this yellow line up there. And they literally will
not get you within 20 to 30 feet, where you can actually get a picture
of an oiled bird being brought in.
Why? They say they don't want to upset the birds, and they don't want
to interfere with workers. But, I mean, I can assure you, one
cameraman is a trained professional at CNN, and they're not going to
interfere with workers.
>>>
END EXCERPT
================
Oil-threatened estuary is key to life in the gulf
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-barataria-20100611,0,3956312.story
Shrimp, crab, oysters, gators, birds, snakes, people – all have ties
to Louisiana's Barataria Bay.
Reporting from Barataria Preserve, La. — The sickening images of
pelicans struggling in oil along Louisiana's barrier islands only hint
at what's at stake if the slick forces its way into the state's 3 ?
million acres of estuaries and marshes.
These bays and bayous are thrumming with life — they are far more
biologically diverse than the Everglades — and serve as nursery and
breeding ground for the gulf's world famous shrimp, crab, oyster and
fish. The wetlands system that fringes the coast is often called
"Liquid Louisiana."
Nearly everything that lives in the gulf is in some way connected to
Barataria Bay, which is part of a coastal water system that regularly
flushes with tides that mix salt water and fresh water. Pirates used
the region's uncounted cul-de-sacs as hideouts and bases from which to
launch forays into the gulf and Caribbean. Today, commercial fishermen
motor south from their docks in Lafitte and Barataria.
The prospect of oil penetrating that connection threatens a unique
system of floating freshwater marsh already brought to its knees by
hurricanes, thousands of canals cut for oil industry traffic, and the
dikes, levees and channels that have altered the natural flow of the
Mississippi River.
==============
Spill May Harbor Unique Hazards
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704463504575300551880706526.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular
Dissolving into patches, sheens, tarballs and microdrops, the oil
slick spreading from BP PLC's damaged well in the Gulf of Mexico is
creating a unique mosaic of potential hazards that has marine
biologists, health experts and wildlife activists scrambling to
understand its potential impact.
It is a spill like no other, taking place a mile or so under water and
spreading in layers of more-shallow water and on the surface, unlike
more-common spills that occur on the surface alone. The oil and
dispersant chemicals used to dissolve it are potent variables in the
biochemical equation of life across the Gulf, said several marine
biologists, oceanographers and wildlife experts are working to
understand how large or long-lasting the region's problems may become.
"This is a three-dimensional spill," said Columbia University
oceanographer Ajit Subramaniam. "The physics, the chemistry and the
biology action are very different when you have oil released from
below."
===================
BP Sees $3-$6 Billion Oil Spill Cleanup Bill: Analyst
By Tom Bergin
June 11, 2010
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=10886258
LONDON (Reuters) - BP expects the total bill for the clean up of the
Gulf of Mexico oil spill to be $3-6 billion, an analyst briefed by the
oil giant's Chief of Staff said in a research note on Friday.
"BP has incurred $1.43bn of total costs to date, and expects the total
costs of containment and clean-up to be around $3-6 billion," Kim
Fustier, oil analyst at investment bank Credit Suisse, said.
Credit Suisse said the note was based on a breakfast briefing with BP
Chief of Staff Steve Westwell.
BP said the figure was an extrapolation based on the costs so far and
was not a forecast. A spokesman said it was impossible to estimate the
clean up bill until after the well is capped.
Citigroup had estimated a containment and clean-up bill of $3.5-7
billion and Merrill Lynch said the bill could be up to $6 billion.
====================
Support ECEA - Hold Big Oil Accountable!
http://ga3.org/campaign/ecea/eg7gdbiryjdekbmj?qp_source=jun10%5fecea
Eleven workers lost their lives in the Deepwater Horizon rig
explosion. Countless more have lost their livelihoods. The
environmental devastation to marine life and coastal wetlands is
unfathomable.
Yet under current law if a jury finds BP criminally negligent, the
company would not necessarily have to pay any restitution to the
victims of the spill – not even to the families of rig-workers who
perished or to the fishermen put out of work. Furthermore, criminal
penalties are currently too lenient to adequately deter corporate
wrongdoers from authorizing risky schemes that damage the environment.
Please urge your members of Congress to support Sen. Patrick Leahy's
Environmental Crimes Enforcement Act (ECEA) to make restitution for
violations of the Clean Water Act mandatory and increase criminal
sentences for violators.
===============
<<<
On the toxicity question, you could hardly find a more dangerous
combination of poisons to dump into the Gulf of Mexico than what has
been revealed in Corexit. The Corexit 9527 product has been designated
a "chronic and acute health hazard" by the EPA. It is made with
2-butoxyethanol, a highly toxic chemical that has long been linked to
the health problems of cleanup crews who worked on the Exxon Valdez
spill.
>>>
Toxic Corexit dispersant chemicals remained secret as feds colluded
with Big Business
http://www.naturalnews.com/028974_Corexit_dispersants.html
Friday, June 11, 2010
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)
(NaturalNews) After weeks of silence on the issue, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally decided to go public
with the list of ingredients used to manufacture Corexit, the chemical
dispersant used by BP in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. There are
two things about this announcement that deserve our attention: First,
the ingredients that have been disclosed are extremely toxic, and
second, why did the EPA protect the oil industry's "trade secrets" for
so long by refusing to disclose these ingredients until now?
As reported in the New York Times, Brian Turnbaugh, a policy analyst
at OMB Watch said, "EPA had the authority to act all along; its
decision to now disclose the ingredients demonstrates this. Yet it
took a public outcry and weeks of complaints for the agency to act and
place the public's interest ahead of corporate interests."
On the toxicity question, you could hardly find a more dangerous
combination of poisons to dump into the Gulf of Mexico than what has
been revealed in Corexit. The Corexit 9527 product has been designated
a "chronic and acute health hazard" by the EPA. It is made with
2-butoxyethanol, a highly toxic chemical that has long been linked to
the health problems of cleanup crews who worked on the Exxon Valdez
spill.
A newer Corexit recipe dubbed the "9500 formula" contains dioctyl
sodium sulfosuccinate, a detergent chemical that's also found in
laxatives. What do you suppose happens to the marine ecosystem when
fish and sea turtles ingest this chemical through their gills and
skin? And just as importantly, what do you think happens to the human
beings who are working around this chemical, breathing in its fumes
and touching it with their skin?
The answers are currently unknown, which is exactly why it is so
inexcusable that Nalco and the oil industry giants would for so long
refuse to disclose the chemical ingredients they're dumping into the
Gulf of Mexico in huge quantities (over a million gallons dumped into
the ocean to date).
But it gets even more interesting when you look at just how widespread
this "chemical secrecy" is across Big Business in the USA... and how
the U.S. government more often than not conspires with industry to
keep these chemicals a secret.
It's time to end chemical trade secrets
Armed with the accomplices in the FDA, EPA, FTC and the U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office, powerful corporations have been keeping secrets
from us all. It's not just the toxic chemicals in Corexit, either:
Large manufacturers of consumers products -- such as Unilever, Proctor
& Gamble and Johnson & Johnson -- routinely use toxic chemical
ingredients in their products -- ingredients which are usually kept
secret from the public.
Similarly, virtually every perfume, cologne and fragrance product on
the market is made with cancer-causing chemicals that their
manufacturers refuse to disclose, claiming their formulas are "trade
secrets."
Throughout Big Business in America, the toxic chemicals used in
everyday products such as household cleaners, cosmetics and yard care
remain a dangerous secret, and the U.S. government actually colludes
with industry to keep these chemical ingredients a secret by, for
example, refusing to require full disclosure of ingredients for
personal care products. The FDA offers us virtually no enforcement in
this area, depending almost entirely on companies to declare their own
chemicals are safe rather than requiring actual safety testing to be
conducted.
This is why the following statement is frightening yet true: What BP
is doing to the Gulf of Mexico, companies like Proctor & Gamble are
doing to the entire population. We are all being mass poisoned by the
toxic chemicals in personal care products, foods, medicines, fragrance
products and other concoctions created by powerful corporations that
use toxic chemicals throughout their product lines... but who refuse
to disclose those ingredients in the public.
Thanks to the widespread use of secret chemicals in foods, medicines
and personal care products, we are awash in synthetic toxic chemicals
that have already reached the shores of public health. The rates of
cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes and infertility that we're seeing right
now are a reflection of the devastating health cost associated with
ongoing the ongoing chemical contamination of our population. Even
public water fluoridation policies are a kind of "water contamination
disaster" where chemicals from an undisclosed source are dumped into
the water supply (on purpose, no less!).
What's doubly disturbing about all this is that many of the chemicals
used in foods, medicines, household cleaners and personal care
products end up in the Gulf of Mexico as well because they get flushed
down stream. So now the Gulf isn't just polluted with crude oil and
dispersant chemicals; it's also heavily contaminated with all the
chemical runoff from the products made by large corporations that
refuse to disclose the actual chemical ingredients, claiming they're
trade secrets.
It's time to end the chemical secrecy
As this Gulf of Mexico oil disaster clearly demonstrates, it's time to
end the chemical secrecy maintained by Big Business. We must demand
that all ingredients be fully disclosed for all products so that the
curtain of chemical secrecy is lifted once a for all.
Neither oil companies nor consumer product companies should be able to
hide behind the excuse of "trade secrets" to avoid disclosing the
actual chemicals contained in the products they sell. As consumers, we
must demand chemical transparency from these companies or refuse to
buy their products.
Legislatively, we must demand new laws that require full disclosure on
all consumer products so that ordinary people can see what's contained
in the products they buy.
In a world where one person's chemical runoff impacts every other
person, there is no justification for chemical secrecy. We all have
the right to know what we're putting on (or in) our bodies, and if
companies refuse to be honest with us, we should boycott their
products and publicly shame them for engaging in deceptive, secretive
behavior.
Because the truth is that consumer product companies don't dare want
you to know what's actually found in their products. And that's
because most of their products are made with poison. If the average
perfume product listed its chemical ingredients on the label, for
example, product sales would plummet as consumers realized just how
many of those ingredients are linked to cancer and liver disorders.
Big Business wants us all to remain ignorant... blinded to the truth
of what poisons they're slathering on our skin or dripping down our
throats. But it's time to halt this dark era of chemical secrets in
our modern world. It's time to demand transparency, clean up our
waterways and stop poisoning ourselves and our planet.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/06/09/09greenwire-ingredients-of-controversial-dispersants-used-42891.html
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