The Polar Project

BP Response Workers Report Low Morale, Lack of Pay, Sickness

Erika Blumenfeld — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:23:02 +0000

Story by Dahr Jamail, Photography by Erika Blumenfeld, t r u t h o u t | Report

BP Oil Disaster response workers are reporting endemic problems, such as not being paid on time, low morale, rampant sickness, equipment failures, and being lied to regularly.

“Yesterday was a catastrophe,” one worker, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Truthout, “People are waiting 2-3 hours for their paychecks to be brought to them, and I know for a fact three people that didn’t get paid, and no reason was given.”

The woman has been working as a clerk for Gulf Asphalt Contractors (GAC), a company that describes itself as “the leading provider of sitework (sic) and building construction services in the Florida Panhandle.” The company, based in Panama City, Florida, is a BP contractor.

While she said she had never been ordered not to talk to the media, she admitted to working amidst a climate of fear and believed she would lose her job if her company found out she had done so. “When GAC finds people who have talked to the media, they fire them.”

She spoke with Truthout on what she explained was “my first day off work in 45 days.” She and her co-workers were instructed to take the weekend off due to Tropical Depression Bonnie, but have yet to be called back to work.

“The last thing I heard them say was not to come into work until we call you,” she explained, “What does that mean? We were promised we’d have this work for two years. I don’t even know if we have worker’s compensation. They are firing people left and right.”

She works at Port Saint Joe, Florida, which is about a three hours drive east of Pensacola on the coast.

“People are being laid off for no reason,” she added, then went on to explain that people working on the beaches cleaning up oil “are getting sick, then they go to the emergency rooms, but they come back and we are always told it was because of food poisoning.”

“Everybody I know has bad morale and is confused and doesn’t know what is going on,” she continued, “Because I work in the TRG trailer, people come to me thinking I know more than they know, but I don’t. I’m coming up with shorter hours, and having to wait weeks to be paid. They shorted me 12 hours three checks ago, then when they finally paid me for it, they paid me at a lower wage.”

Truthout also spoke with a worker in the so-called Vessels of Opportunity program. The program is what BP set up to hire fisherman who are out of work because of the oil disaster, so that they are paid to use their boats in the response effort to do things like laying out oil boom and skimming.

“They’re leaving gaps between the booms, and the oil is going straight through them,” the man, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Truthout in Lafitte, Louisiana, “This is on top of the fact that the booms don’t work anyway. The oil is going over and under them.”

The man is working on a boat laying out oil boom in the Bay Jimmy region of southeast Louisiana, about an hours drive south of New Orleans.

He told Truthtout that the small plastic booms that BP is using to stop the oil from reaching the marsh areas “are a waste of time and money. Some company is making lots of money off of this, when in reality they need booms that are five feet tall above the water with at least a six-foot deep skirt under the water. What they have now is a load of crap.”

After pausing to look out at the water, he added, “Somebody is getting filthy ass rich off these red and yellow booms that don’t do shit. Some politicians’ got a buddy manufacturing that crap.”

The worker said that many people are sick, and complaining of burning eyes and coughs, among other ailments. He had to attend a Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) class for the job. HAZWOPER classes are required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for many of the response workers.

“At HAZWOPER class they told us all this work is harmless, that the oil and dispersants are harmless,” he explained, “But if it’s harmless, why did we even have to take that class? I stood up in class and told them they are full of shit. If it’s so harmless, I’ll run around naked and swim in it.”

He said that as the water warms later in the day, oil on the bottom that has been sunk by dispersants begins to “float back up to the surface, like a lava lamp.” According to the worker, “It smells like strong chemicals, you can tell it’s harmful.”

His voice was hoarse and he had a sore throat that he said was likely because of his working in the oil/dispersants.

The worker explained that he took the job because he needs the money, “since they killed our fishing season, what else was I going to do?”

The GAC employee warned others who are thinking of working as a BP oil disaster response employee.

“It’s not worth working for these people,” she said, “You’ll be lied to. They won’t tell you the truth. Don’t work for them. It’s not worth the headache and stress.”

***

What Happens Next?

Erika Blumenfeld — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 06:38:20 +0000

Story by Dahr Jamail
Photography by Erika Blumenfeld

Recently we met with Captain Louis Skrmetta who runs Ship Island Excursions out of Gulfport, Mississippi. His grandfather came to the US from Croatia in 1904, and began working as an oyster fisherman, now an endangered endeavor. From that background arose the family business of ferrying people out to West Ship Island, which is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore, about an hours boat ride south of Gulfport.

“Normally you see a couple of hundred boats out here,” Captain Louis tells us as we take in the beautiful view from the wheelhouse of his ship. “But now you can’t fish. You can get a ticket now just for having fishing gear on your boat.”

The Gulf Islands are considered a Gulf Coast treasure. These sparkling blue waters, white sand beaches, and fertile coastal marshes were designated a National Seashore in 1971 to protect the wildlife, barrier islands, and archeological sites along the Gulf of Mexico. They are home to fiddler crab, shrimp, flounder, oysters, blue crab, brown pelicans, osprey, great blue heron, raccoon, loggerhead sea turtle, Florida Pompano, shark, and hundreds of species of birds and fish. And now they are being oiled. All this life, along with the humans like Captain Louis who love this area and are deeply rooted to it, are in jeopardy.

“Normally we take out full boats this time of year,” Captain Louis explains while steering us southwards, “That means 500 people per load.” He shows the days totals, which are 93 from this morning’s load, and 128 on the boat right now. If it weren’t for several fraternity groups on board, he says, “We’d be looking at 20-30 people.”

Like all the other businesses that rely on the Gulf for their livelihood, Captain Louis is fixated on the oil disaster. He points south and says, “There’s a huge vortex of oil swirling around out there just off the shelf in the deeper water, and each storm will keep pushing the oil up here, so we’ll have a never ending supply.”

He points to clean-up boats that are buzzing around nearby Cat Island, and tells us how that island has been hit by oil, as has his beloved Ship Island. He has been hired by the US Environmental Services, who chartered one of his boats to transport clean-up crews to Ship Island where they walk around digging tar balls out of the beaches. “That’s helping us some,” he says, trying to explain how, for now, his business is staying afloat. He, like other Gulf-dependent businesses, has no idea what will happen when that contract ends, or when the oil will stop gushing from the Macondo well.

As we near the island, Captain Louis tells us of how when a couple of weeks ago when the islands were hit with a particularly heavy load of oil, they found an oiled pelican. “We called BP’s number, both me and a park ranger, to report it. The next day I was out with passengers and the bird was still there.” Fortunately, a local reporter was on his ship that day and filmed the bird. “The next day we had 20 rangers out here. But the thing is, we here in Mississippi had 70 days to prepare for this thing, because it took longer to arrive here than over in Louisiana. But our illustrious governor, Haley Barbour, keeps downplaying this thing. But we know how Haley works, “If you want it, you pay Haley, and you get it.”

A little about Barbour from sourcewatch:

“Barbour is the Republican Governor of Mississippi. He was formerly a tobacco industry lobbyist based in Washington, D.C. His lobbying firm made $17,150/month plus expenses from R.J. Reynolds in 2000. Barbour won the Mississippi gubernatorial election on November 4, 2003, in part on a pledge to keep Mississippi’s state flag design intact, which contains a miniature representation of the Confederate battle flag. While campaigning, he also appeared at a fund-raiser sponsored by the Conservative Citizen’s Council. The CCC is a modern-day version of the White Citizen’s Councils that fought racial integration throughout the South in the 1950s and 60s.”

Barbour, an errand-boy for the oil and gas industry, said this when the first giant rafts of oil began washing ashore on the coast of Mississippi and the Gulf Islands: “We have had a few tar balls but we have had tar balls every year, as a natural product of the Gulf of Mexico. 250,000 to 750,000 barrels of oil seep into the Gulf of Mexico through the floor every year. So, tar balls are no big deal.”

Captain Louis later explained to me how their “illustrious governor” had tried to drill for oil and gas all around the Gulf Islands National Seashore by sneaking legislation into a Tsunami Relief bill.

As we travel further east along the Gulf coast, I am seeing that it is common knowledge that the so-called Vessels of Opportunity program set up by BP where they hire local fishermen and workers to use their boats for oil recovery, is a bit of a joke, as well as about as effective as a train wreck.

“BP is leasing 15’ boats with 50 horsepower motors, and paying them $1600 a day to run around in circles,” Captain Louis says while pointing to a few off our bow that appear to be doing just that. Last week Erika and I saw some of this down south of Venice, Louisiana on a boat trip – a few guys hanging out in their airboat, wearing the bright orange vests required by BP, and their hard hats, lounging in the shade, drifting about.

As we near the dock of Ship Island, Captain Louis concludes his discussion about Big Oil with this: “I want to see us get completely off oil and transition into something else. Something safe. Something renewable. But the oil companies don’t want change. The Mississippi Sound used to be one of the most fertile fishing areas anywhere. And now look what we are having to deal with. We’re worried how long this will last. 300 million liters of oil in the water column. Where will it go? What happens now? The ecology of the Mississippi Sound…it’s an estuary for shrimp, mullet, crab, flounder, and all these things are part of our culture and youth. And now it’s never going to be the same again.”

Captain Louis expertly guides the ship towards the pier, where we are tied off. His family has had the concession with the National Park Service here since 1971, to be the ferry, long after his father, who began the business, began taking people out to this island in 1926. Captain Louis is carrying on a family legacy.

He walks with us along the boardwalk onto the island. I’m taken by the beauty – a bull shark chases mullet near the pier, seagulls call overhead, green marsh grass rises out of white sand, and in other places out of shallow pools to sway in the winds.

“I’m worried about hurricanes,” Captain Louis says when he sees us taking in the beautiful marsh in the middle of the small island, “What’s the action plan for when a hurricane dumps oil all over this marsh?”

He goes on to explain his deep concern about how his very livelihood is threatened. “This is a family operation, and how we’ve survived all these years. It’s a tough way to make a living, and we’ve survived hurricanes, but this is gonna be a tough one. Who’s going to want to come out here? We’ve never had to deal with this, it’s a whole new experience. The charter boats are all wiped out. What’s going to happen? It’s scary. Everybody is working for BP now, so what happens next?”

Another common thread of my experience here is being amidst so much raw natural beauty and wonderfully warm people whilst simultaneously processing this growing catastrophe. The island is so beautiful I am taken aback.

Yet as we near the southern shore, the unnaturalness of the oil response effort jolts me back into the catastrophe end of the spectrum of this experience. An oil clean up crew is shoveling tar balls into bags just down the beach, their foremen drive past us in their little motorized carts, and a newly erected platform stands offshore – as a staging area for oil response vessels.

A sign is posted by the National Park Service warns visitors: “Leave the area if you experience difficulty breathing or any other symptoms. If needed, contact your doctor.” If residents of the Gulf Coast region were really given this warning, en masse, by the federal government, most of the population of southeast Louisiana would already be evacuated.

Captain Louis takes Erika further down the beach where she photographs tar balls that are contrasted with the purity of the white sands they contaminate.

I talk with one of the National Park Service lifeguard’s of the area, Matt Fields. He points to a tugboat anchored off shore. “That’s a spray down boat,” he informs, “It sprays off skimmers coming back in. So where’s that oil go?”

He looks at me and holds up his hands, and we both shake our heads. “The oil disaster has killed the numbers of people that come here,” he adds, “We used to have well over 1,000 every day, now we count in the dozens.”

We don’t stay too long on the island before we’re back in the wheelhouse with Captain Louis heading back for Gulfport. He talks more about the oil industry, corruption, politics, and Haley Barbour. “We must end our dependence on oil, but the oil industry is literally fighting change,” he says, “There is no question this type of oil disaster will happen again. But isn’t it enough incentive to introduce change when the entire regional seafood industry has been destroyed? As oil keeps coming in here in this shallow water and mixing with the sediment, this’ll be a disaster area. What happens then with these fish and shrimp nurseries?”

As we pull back into dock, Captain Louis calls over his friend Tony Smith. Tony, 66-years-old, is a fisherman who has been making the trip to Ship Island with Captain Louis on a near-daily basis. “I used to come out here 4-5 days a week to fish,” he explains, “I’d feed my family, and Captain Louis’ family, and a lot of these other folks.”

Nobody is allowed to fish now, as oil is dominant and has, of course, already contaminated the food chain. “This is unbelievable and the worst is yet to come,” says Tony as we are being tied up to the dock, “I’ve gone all over Mississippi looking for a place to fish, but haven’t found it.”

Tony is worried that all the rainwater is contaminated, he’s worried about the fish, and all the sheen that he keeps seeing come into his area. Like most everyone we meet, he is, of course, angry at those who caused his life to crumble. “The worse this gets,” he says, “The worse it seems people with a little power seem to mess it up even worse.”

He tells me he isn’t going to give up, that he’s going to keep fighting, because, “It’s what we do. Hell, we still have people down here still fighting the Civil War.”

I watch him look out into the Mississippi Sound, to the barrier islands, at our boat, then at me, before he says, “I haven’t fished since they shut these waters down. I’ve got a freezer full of fish, but once that’s gone, I’m afraid that’s it.”
***

BP Oil Poisons the Gulf of Mexico’s Food Chain

Erika Blumenfeld — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:44:41 +0000

Story by Dahr Jamail, Photography by Erika Blumenfeld, Inter Press Service | Report

NEW ORLEANS – Environmental experts warn that the eco-systems and food chain in the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding region already deeply harmed and toxified by the ongoing British Petroleum (BP) oil disaster likely face much greater damage.

“You know how the pelicans die of oil,” Dean Wilson, the Executive Director of Atchafalaya Basinkeeper asked IPS, “They open their wings, thinking they are drying them in the sun, and they just cook in the sun. Thousands of birds are dying like that because of the greed of a foreign company.”

The organization Wilson heads is dedicated to preserving the ecosystems of the Atchafalaya Basin on the Louisiana Coast. He is incensed at the catastrophic impact the BP oil disaster, which has been ongoing for nearly three months, is having on the Gulf region.

Wilson is equally angry about what he perceives as a lack of willingness on the part of BP to implement measures necessary to adequately protect wildlife, including BP not rescuing the chicks of oiled adult birds, as well as not allowing local environmentalists, like himself, to go out and participate in animal rescue efforts.

“BP is not rescuing chicks,” Wilson added, “You have to realize that it takes two parents to raise the chicks in these areas. If one of the parents gets into the oil, one parent alone cannot raise the chicks, and the chicks are going to die.”

According to Wilson, there are at least as many chicks who have died as rescued pelicans, and the number of pelicans thus far rescued is “only the tip of the iceberg.”

“You can imagine the thousands and thousands of chicks that are starving to death out there, and they [BP] refuse to rescue the chicks,” Wilson added, “We’ve been complaining about this.”

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as of July 14, 553 miles of Gulf Coast shoreline is currently oiled, 2,930 birds have been recovered (1,828 of them dead and 1,102 of them oiled), along with more than 500 dead sea turtles and other mammals.

More than 45,000 personnel are currently responding to the BP oil disaster, but higher-end estimates show that as much as 8.4 million barrels of BP oil has been released into the Gulf (more than 32 Exxon Valdez’ worth), and more than 1.79 million gallons of chemical dispersant has been used which concerns scientists and environmentalists because it masks most of the oil that has gushed into the Gulf.

BP continues to use Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527 dispersants, which are banned in the U.K.

Health impacts of these include headaches; nausea; vomiting; diarrhea; irritation of eyes, nose, throat and lungs; difficulty breathing; respiratory system damage; central nervous system depression; neurotoxic effects; genetic damage and mutations; cardiac arrhythmia and cardiovascular damage; among many others.

Paul Orr is an officer with Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper, a group focused on keeping the lower Mississippi River pollution-free.

“This is the second most important delta in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most important deltas on the planet,” Orr told IPS, “And we just have no idea what this amount of oil in this close of proximity to the delta could do. The decision was made to use the dispersants intensively to sink the oil – the rationale to minimize shore impacts at all cost. But now it seems like the real reason they’ve been doing that is to get the oil to disappear because if it was staying on the surface, at least you could collect it, even if it starts impacting the shore in some way. But now we have an unknown millions of barrels of oil floating around in the water column and sticking to the sea floor. We may not ever know some of the long-term damages.”

Orr, like many Gulf region environmentalists and scientists, is critical of BP’s lack of adequate efforts towards helping oiled wildlife.

Of their efforts to wash oiled birds and return them to the wild, of which only a relatively small number have been treated, Orr said, “They have to look like they’re doing something.”

He is concerned about all the Gulf species, but in particular the already endangered species in the Gulf that include the Kemp’s Ridley and Leatherback sea turtles, the Sperm Whale, and birds such as the Piping Plover and Gulf Sturgeon.

Jonathan Henderson is the Coastal Resiliency Organizer for The Gulf Restoration Network, a multi-state group committed to “uniting and empowering people to protect and restore the natural resources of the Gulf Region for future generations.”

“There is at least 75,000 square miles of the Gulf covered in oil as we speak,” Henderson told IPS.

Harriet Perry, the director of the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory recently announced that oil droplets have been found beneath the shells of tiny post-larval blue crabs drifting into Mississippi coastal marshes from offshore waters.

Larval crabs are eaten by many kinds of fish and shore birds.

This is among many other examples of how the oil has already made its way into the food chain.

Henderson told IPS that oil-soaked birds are being eaten by coyotes, who are then later eaten by alligators further inland.

Wilson expressed concern for microorganisms that are feeding on the oil, particularly in the deeper regions in the Gulf where BP has sunk the oil via heavy use of dispersants.

“We’re very concerned about the deep water,” Wilson told IPS, “I’m very concerned about the whales and whale sharks. There is a big population of them that migrate right where the oil is. We’ve already seen that the shark won’t avoid the oil. It will go right though the oil. We’ve seen schools of hundreds of whale sharks migrating through the Gulf of Mexico. They open their mouths and filter plankton-so they will do that and swim right through the oil, it will contaminate their gills, and they will suffocate.”

“We can’t play around with BP’s toxic science experiment and sit around and wait for the outcome in the Gulf,” Henderson added, “Even if they capped this thing today, we still have our work cut out for us, and I have a feeling this isn’t going to be the last of these kinds of well blowouts.”

***

BP’s Scheme To Swindle The “Small People”

Erika Blumenfeld — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 21:25:48 +0000

Story by Dahr Jamail, Photography by Erika Blumenfeld, t r u t h o u t | Report

Clint Guidry, the Louisiana Shrimp Harvester Representative on the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force created by Executive Order of Gov. Bobby Jindal, has called BP "liars" and "killers." (Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010)

Gulf Coast fishermen and others with lost income claims against British Petroleum (BP) are outraged by a recent announcement that the $20 billion government-administered claim fund will subtract money they earn by working on the cleanup effort from any future damages claims against BP. But this move, according to lawyers in Louisiana working on behalf of Louisiana fishermen and others affected by the BP oil disaster, contradicts an earlier BP statement where the company promised it would do no such thing.

Kenneth Feinberg, who was appointed by President Barack Obama as the Independent Administrator of the Gulf Claims Facility for the $20 billion BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster compensation fund, said yesterday that the wages earned by people working on BP’s cleanup will be deducted from their claims against the company.

He said the fund is designed to compensate fishermen and others for their lost income, and if BP is already paying someone to help skim oil and perform other clean up work, those wages will be subtracted from the amount they’re eligible to claim from the fund.

Attorney Stephen Herman, one of two Interim Liaison Counsel for cases pending in the eastern district of Louisiana before Judge Barbier, told Truthout he has spoken with Feinberg and that this recent announcement contradicts an earlier statement made by BP, when the company clearly said it would not do this.

A letter dated May 2, 2010, from Herman’s firm, Herman, Herman, Katz & Cotlar LLP, in New Orleans, sent to Murray Greene in BP’s Legal Department, asked Greene to confirm in writing that BP agreed to destroy voluntary waiver and release forms issued to response workers at a meeting in Venice, Louisiana, and stated:

“Lastly, we inquired as to BP’s position with respect to any future claim of credit or set-off due to payments made to individuals who are assisting BP in mitigating its exposure to individuals and others for the unprecedented environmental and human losses as a result of this incident. It is our position that since my clients are effectively helping BP minimize its own future exposure as well as attempting to preserve the wetlands and the environment that BP ought not to seek any offset or reduction of claims as a result of any payments made to these individuals who courageously take on the dirty work of cleaning up BP’s mess.”

The next day, May 3rd, A.T. Chenault, a lawyer representing BP, responded in writing via letter stating, “We have no personal knowledge of the presentation of a Voluntary Waiver and Release to numerous people from Plaquemines Parish in Venice, Louisiana. However, it is the position of BP that any such documents will be rescinded and not binding on anyone signing same.”

Chenault’s letter concluded with a statement that directly contradicts Feinberg’s recent announcement.

“Lastly, we confirm that BP will not offset payments to vessel owners or other volunteers against claims they might have,” wrote Cheault, who is with the firm Fowler, Rodriguez, Valdes-Fauli.

Today, during a speech at the Economics Club in Washington, Feinberg appeared to be attempting to dissuade claimants from filing lawsuits against BP. “You’re crazy to do so, though. Because under this program, you will receive, if you’re eligible, compensation without having to go to court for years, without the uncertainty of going to court, since I’ll be much more generous than any court will be. And at the same time, you won’t need to pay lawyers and costs.”

The move is being seen by many as an attempt by Feinberg to sell the compensation fund to victims, so as to prevent more lawsuits against BP.

Herman told Truthout that he believes Feinberg has said things that “are not consistent,” and that Feinberg “may not have been familiar” with the aforementioned agreement by BP to “not offset payments to vessel owners or other volunteers against claims they might have.”

Herman, who has already met with Feinberg on several occasions, said he expects to meet up with Feinberg’s law partner, Michael Rozen, “very soon.”

Attorney Robert Wiygul in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, represents many fishermen involved in BP’s oil response program, and told Truthout he “finds it very troubling” that BP and Feingold appear to be trying to position themselves to avoid future compensation claims from fishermen, as opposed to handling it on a year to year basis.

Clint Guidry is a Louisiana fisherman, and is on the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Shrimp Association and the Shrimp Harvester Representative on the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force created by Executive Order of Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Guidry told Truthout that he believes Feinberg is “trying to limit BP’s liability,” and added, “Every time Feinberg announces something he changes what he said before.”

According to Guidry, Feinberg first proposed a partial claim settlement that would provide settlement checks for up to three years. This would have allowed fishermen to determine if there were “holes in the ecosystem.”

If the oil disaster kills off enough shrimp, for example, there would be no shrimping season next year, and no way for shrimpers to earn a living.

“But now his new plan is to do away with that by having folks take a settlement,” Guidry added, “There’s not much of his program I like. It appears he is protecting BP.”

On May 24, in Galliano, Louisiana, Guidry testified to a delegation of US Senators, Congressmen, and various Obama administration departments and agencies. He said:

“BP committed fraud in furnishing oil spill response data required to obtain a permit to enable them to drill the MC 252 location. The reality is they were not prepared to handle or control a blowout and resulting oil spill of this magnitude. Simply put, they lied.

“BP, in their haste to cut corners and save money in the completion process on the well location at MC 252, exhibited willful neglect in their duties to complete the well safely which led to the blowout and explosion that killed eleven people. Eleven souls that will never come back. Eleven families with mothers and fathers and wives and children. Children who will never see their fathers again.

“This neglect and loss of life constitutes negligent homicide and all involved should be arrested and charged as such.”

Guidry told Truthout he believes, “There has been a BP cover-up from day one,” and “The US Government, OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration], the Coast Guard, NIOSH [National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health], all of them are in on it.”

Guidry is very concerned about the health of fishermen he represents, of which there are approximately 600, who are working on the oil response for BP. “These people are putting their health at risk by working for them, and now look at how they are being treated.”

This morning, Herman sent this letter to Rozen and Feinberg:

“Dear Mr. Rozen and Mr. Feinberg,

“It was reported in the local media last night that BP (presumably thru the Claims Facility) was going to take a credit or offset for payments to fishermen and others engaged in the Vessels of Opportunity and/or other clean-up/remediation efforts against what is owed to them for lost profits and/or diminished earning capacity.

“Please note that BP agreed very early on agreed not to do this. (See Letter from BP Counsel A.T. Chenault to my partner Jim Klick dated May 3, 2010.)”

Herman also provided Truthout with an email he sent to persons concerned with BP’s and Feinberg’s recent moves where he expressed concern with the procedures of the Claims Facility. While Herman stated that Feinberg and Rozen “have attempted to answer some of these questions, (with perhaps some inconsistency), no one – it seems – has ever seen a document signed off on by BP.”

Herman asked, “What, specifically, has BP committed to do? What, specifically, has BP given Mr. Feinberg (as an “independent” agent or administrator) the authority to agree to on behalf of BP? The attached letter was sent to BP’s local counsel here in New Orleans on July 3rd. We have still not received a formal response, and, to my knowledge, no one (including Mr. Feinberg) has seen a formal written document (other than a White House Press Release) that purports to be authored by, signed by, agreed to or otherwise binding on BP. So, it would seem to be time to start asking BP (and/or the Administration) : Where is BP? Or, perhaps stated another way: Where’s the beef?”

On June 1, BP Board Chairman Henric Svanberg stated, “[President Obama] is frustrated because he cares about the small people and we care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don’t care, but that is not the case in BP. We care about the small people.”
***

The Source of Our Despair

Erika Blumenfeld — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 16:05:11 +0000

by: Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld, t r u t h o u t | Photo Essay

For the first time in 87 days, little or no oil could be escaping into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s Macondo well. The new Capping Stack was deployed on July 11 from onboard the Transocean Discoverer Inspiration.

With a new containment cap atop the damaged well, many are hopeful.

But all is not well, after all.

National Incident Commander Thad Allen said Friday that the pressure within the cap is not increasing, as was expected.

The idea is that the pressure (pounds per square inch (PSI)) within the cap should balance out between 8-9,000 PSI, which would show the well has maintained integrity. BP hoped to reach 9,000 PSI, but stated that there would still be well integrity with 7,500+ PSI. Unfortunately for BP, if the pressure tops out below that level, as it is now at 6,720 PSI, this could be an indication of a sub-sea leak somewhere deeper inside the well casing, meaning-the well has failed. One concern associated with this lower pressure is that it may well indicate that the well has been breached and that oil and gas are leaking out at other undetermined points.

Given BP’s proven propensity towards lying, skeptics, which are consistently needed to keep BP’s rhetoric in check, are also pointing towards other factors that could mean oil is continuing to spew into the Gulf near the well.

“With the pressure now virtually level at 6,700 [psi], it’s at the lower end of the ambiguity range, so it seems there is a good chance there is leak-off,” writes the Daily Hurricane, “That makes a lot of sense to me since there is 1,200 feet of open hole from the bottom of the 9 /7/8″ liner to TD at about 18,300 feet. That’s not to mention possible casing damage up hole. Think of it like a garden hose with a nozzle on the end. As long as the nozzle is open, the hose looks fine. As soon as you close the nozzle, the hose will leak through any pinholes or around the faucet as pressure builds inside. In his statement late yesterday, Admiral Allen indicated they were probably going to go back to containment, which means they’ll be flowing the well to the various ships they have on station.”

Like virtually every other aspect of BP’s oil catastrophe in the Gulf, we’ll have to wait and see how bad this really is.

On Monday we took a flight out to what is referred to now as “the source,” the former site of the Deepwater Horizon rig. It’s taken me this long to be able to write about what we saw, because it was, frankly, traumatizing.

Oil sheen and sub-surface plumes of oil were visible long before we arrived at “the source,” located approximately 45 miles off the southeast coast of Louisiana.

In what has been a consistently maddening theme of our trip, flying out to the source found us viewing countless oil platforms, and in some cases, drilling rigs. All of which comprising the oily backdrop of BP’s oil disaster.

The stench of the sheen, and oil, began to infiltrate my nose and burn my eyes long before arriving at the source. Black oil clouds lurk below choppy blue seas in every direction as a virtual cityscape of ships and drill rigs loom on the horizon. They appear to rise out of the Gulf as we approach.

We are cleared to fly at 1,500’, well below the FAA mandated 3,000’. My stomach sinks as we begin to bank to our right to begin the first of countless clockwise circles around the war-like scene.

A giant flame from the burning off of Methane and Benzene roars off the side of a rig, leaving a chemical gas floating lazily to the south as it rises.

Cory, our young pilot, flies us directly through this cloud. The plane shudders in the turbulence. I feel sick and dizzy from taking one breath of this, and with each future pass hold my breath through the entirety of our southern portion of the circle from fear of the chemical exposure.

The scene feels like death. An epic example of man-made destruction, damage, and mayhem let loose upon Earth.

It is as unnatural of a scene as one can imagine. That the Gulf, its marine life, eco-systems, and all the life that depend upon it are not under constant assault from this catastrophe is unthinkable.

As our small plane perpetually banks to the right, Erika shoots hundreds upon hundreds of photos of this terrible scene.

While staring at the appalling scene scudding by below us, I scribble notes like:
Death in the blue
Oil makes blue Gulf appear like cancer-ridden areas
Couldn’t look more unnatural
Burning eyes
Trouble breathing
Gulf looks bruised

The thick, humid, chemical-laden air astounds me. I wonder about the health of the hundreds of people down in the ships working around the clock to try to stop the volcano of oil.

After we’ve taken as many photos as we could, and our eyes are sufficiently burning, we all agree to head back towards the coast. The flight is long enough, again over countless wells and platforms, for me to ponder what our dependence on oil is costing the planet.

We divert to fly over the Chandeleur Islands, to see yet more chaotic booming, oil-burnt marsh, sheen, and threatened birds.

Adm. Thad Allen warns off too much optimism towards the cap. “It remains likely that we will return to the containment process using this new stacking cap connected to the risers to attempt to collect up to 80,000 barrels of oil per day until the relief well is completed,” he has said.

I find it interesting that he, BP, and President Obama have all cited this capacity to collect up to 80,000 barrels of oil per day, despite the fact that the high-end government estimate of daily flow is 60,000 barrels.

Yet, the disaster continues. So far, approximately 1.82 million gallons of total chemical dispersant have been applied, 348 controlled oil burns have been conducted, and if daily flow estimates of 100,000 barrels per day, provided by independent scientists is correct, we already have 34 Exxon Valdez’ worth of oil injected into the Gulf of Mexico.

As of July 14, there was approximately 572 miles of Gulf Coast shoreline oiled, which does not include cumulative impacts. While most of the oil remains submerged (for now), we already have vast areas of coastline oiled: 328 miles in Louisiana, 108 miles in Mississippi (nearly their entire coastline), 67 miles in Alabama, and 69 miles in Florida.

I hope others are as enraged as I am by the ongoing ticker tape of BP’s stock price in news reports about the disaster, like this one from Friday: “News of the development just before Wall Street’s close lifted BP shares. They added $US2.74, or 7.6 per cent, to close at $US38.92, still well below the $US60.48 they fetched before the rig explosion.”

Why should we give a damn about the value of BP’s stock while their criminal negligence is annihilating the Gulf of Mexico?

While the cap-praising, and BP stock value glee continues, Thursday biologists are reporting the finding of at least another 300-400 oiled pelicans and hundreds of terns in the largest seabird nesting area along the Louisiana coast.

This finding underscores the fact that the official tallies given for oiled wildlife are significantly underestimating the broad scope of destruction. So far, roughly 3,000 oiled birds have been collected across the Gulf-so this finding alone is a significant percentage increase.

“This is not like Exxon Valdez where you had tens of thousands of birds killed all at once,” said Ken Rosenberg, director of conservation science at the Cornell laboratory. “It’s more insidious because it is literally happening in waves and it’s happening over and over again as the birds are moving around.”

Friday, Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish government reported that there have been at least 31 oil sightings in parish waters and on shorelines in just the past 48 hours. More oil-soaked birds, both dead and alive, have been reported, and the oil continues to spread. Much of this is happening at the Chandeleur Islands, where we’d already logged the futile booming.

Almost needless to say, scientists are reporting how BP’s oil disaster is already altering the food web in the Gulf. On July 14, Associated Press reported, “Scientists are reporting early signs that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is altering the marine food web by killing or tainting some creatures and spurring the growth of others more suited to a fouled environment. Near the spill site, researchers have documented a massive die-off of pyrosomes – cucumber-shaped, gelatinous organisms fed on by endangered sea turtles.”

The scope and scale of this disaster are impossible to communicate. Whilst flying giant arcing circles around the source, in every direction I looked I could see nothing but oil. Jonathan Henderson works for the Gulf Restoration Network. While looking out at the literal sea of oil beneath us, he reminded us that at the moment 75,000 square miles of the Gulf are covered in oil.
***

Toxic Dispersants Near Gulf Harm Humans and Wildlife

Erika Blumenfeld — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:16:12 +0000

by: Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld, t r u t h o u t | Photo Essay

My eyes are burning as I type this. We’ve just returned from spending the day down in Barataria, located about an hour drive south of New Orleans. The community of fishermen is swimming in oil. Within minutes of arriving, our eyes begin to burn and we begin to feel dizzy from airborne chemicals from the oil and dispersant.

Like most of the rest of the Louisiana Estuary, the further south one drives the more one enters a culture that lives/eats/breaths/loves the water. Moss-laden oak trees, some with trunks more than four feet in diameter line the road in places, before quickly giving way to canals, bayous, and swamps that lap against the pavement.

We went to Barataria to meet with Tracy Kuhns, the executive director of Louisiana Bayoukeeper, a group whose goal is “To engage and empower coastal communities for the purpose of promoting sustainable management of Coastal Louisiana’s Bayou Country and it’s natural resources for the benefit of all citizens.” Tracy, who is also a member of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, is talking rapidly before I can get my recorder started.

Tracy is concerned about the dispersant BP has been using on the oil.

The dispersants Tracy references are Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527, both of which BP has used and continues to use (more than 1,400,000 gallons to date and counting) to disperse crude oil on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and near the wellhead 5,000 feet below the surface where the volcano of oil gushes toxicity into the Gulf. The pathways of exposure are inhalation, ingestion, skin, and eye contact. Health impacts include headaches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pains, dizziness, chest pains and tightness, irritation of eyes, nose, throat and lungs, difficulty breathing, respiratory system damage, skin irrigation and sensitization, hypertension, central nervous system depression, neurotoxic effects, genetic damage and mutations, cardiac arrhythmia, and cardiovascular damage, among several others.

According to the EPA’s latest analysis of dispersant toxicity released in the document Comparative Toxicity of Eight Oil Dispersant Products on Two Gulf of Mexico Aquatic Test Species, Corexit 9500, at a concentration of 42 parts per million, killed 50% of mysid shrimp tested.

Tracy tells us of the 44 reports for exemption BP has been issued to use dispersant. She and her husband Mike who are both fisherpersons, are tortured by what they are witnessing where they live, fish, work, and play.

“Just days ago Barataria Bay was full of oil,” Tracy informs while sweeping an arm out towards the south, where the large Bay sits, toxified, “Then they hit it with dispersants and the oil goes to the bottom. But then during the day, it heats up and the oil bubbles up to the surface.”

Tracy, like many other shrimpers I will soon speak with, refers to this effect as that similar to a “Lava lamp.”

“The oil, after they hit it with dispersants, moves around beneath the surface and they can’t track it,” she continues, “They are using dispersants so they can minimize their liability.”

She shows us several photos and video clips on her computer. In some a white-ish foam lines marsh areas. Others show an emulsified, off-white paste floating atop water. Several times over the next hours that we talk, Tracy complains of a persistent headache she can’t get rid of, and feeling nauseous. She also complains of feeling “out of it” often.

Barely two hours after our arrival, I pull Erika aside. My eyes are burning with pain, I feel dizzy and light-headed. “So are mine, and so do I,” she says, “And my skin burns. Look at this.” She turns her head and one of her cheeks has a light-red rash. Pressure pulses against my forehead, and I can feel my heartbeat in my nose. We are both already exhibiting several symptoms of exposure to the dispersant. I’m shocked by the rapidity of the onset of symptoms.

But we’re in the majority, because according to every shrimper we talk with today, everyone has some, or more commonly, most, of the symptoms of exposure.

Tracy, who given her position is up on what most of the shrimpers in the area are up to, is as up to date on how the community is being affected as anyone. She informs us that most of the fishermen are now working for BP laying out boom. “If you’re not doing this cleanup work, you’re not working,” she says, “They feel like they are helping by doing clean up work, and they can’t stand to just sit here and not do something to help. They feel helpless sitting at home, and that’s when the depression, suicide, and drinking kick in.”

Our conversation never veers too far in another direction before it comes back to the air quality, and water. This is a given, because the longer we sit with our eyes open and breathing air into our lungs, our eyes burn more, and the pulsing headache and dizziness increase.

“Bad air moves in off the bay anytime the wind is from the south or southeast,” Tracy adds, “And we’re trying to get BP to have air monitors on the boats of the fishermen who are helping clean up, but they won’t do it.” Kim Chauvin, from Chauvin, Louisiana, has gotten NOAA to put an air monitor on her husbands boat in the Gulf.

Tracy’s passion for the Gulf and marine eco-systems it supports is always evident. “90 percent of the species in the Gulf of Mexico spend some part of their lives in the Louisiana estuaries,” she adds, “BP is killing our hope of getting these restocked for the future.”

Her concerns mirror, almost exactly, those of Paul Orr. Just a few days ago, in Baton Rouge, we visited the offices of the Lower Mississippi Riverkeeper, a group focused on keeping the lower-Mississippi River pollution-free.

“This is the second most important delta in the Western Hemisphere, and one of the most important deltas on the planet,” Orr said during an interview, “And we just have no idea what this amount of oil in this close of proximity to the delta could do. The decision was made to use the dispersants intensively to sink the oil-the rationale to minimize shore impacts at all cost. But now it seems like the real reason they’ve been doing that is to get the oil to disappear because if it was staying on the surface, at least you could collect it, even if it starts impacting the shore in some way. But now we have an unknown millions of barrels of oil floating around in the water column and sticking to the sea floor. We may not ever know some of the long-term damages.”

Tracy embarks on a longer explanation of the horrible timing of the BP oil disaster (as if there would ever be “better” timing), and how the massive amounts of oil and dispersant cascading into the estuary has basically annihilated much of this years brown and white shrimp populations. She then goes on to inform us of milky sub-surface clouds of dispersed oil that have been floating around in their canals since early June, and micelles comprised of oil surrounded by dispersant that turn into mist when boats pass through it. “You can’t help but breathe it in when this happens,” she adds, “Every time we ride out in the bay your chest tightens for days…I still have it. And if you can smell it, you’ve already been overexposed. And the fish, their gills are as affected by this as our lungs are. But BP and the government keep saying they don’t want to scare the public with this stuff, so they are trying to keep it quiet.”

But all anyone needs to do is come down here. To Barataria, Lafitte, and numerous other small fishing communities in the marshland of southeast Louisiana. Your eyes will burn. You will smell the oil and sheen. Your chest will tighten, and your heartbeat will be felt in your head after just a few hours, tops. BP and the government cannot hide this. And it is worsening by tens of thousands of barrels of Louisiana sweet crude and untold thousands of gallons of dispersant every day.

The denials from BP, the Obama administration, the Coast Guard, and other governmental organizations like NOAA are what enrage Tracy more than anything else. In fact, BP is having response workers in Mississippi and Alabama go through metal detectors so they can’t even take their cell phones out with them when they go and do their response work.

“We’re living here and see this everyday. You can’t tell us we don’t have the BP cough that we’ve never had before. It makes us feel like the government thinks we are stupid little toddlers, and that concerns me. They are constantly telling us not to be afraid, and that is what scares the hell out of me. We shouldn’t have to trade our estuary and our kid’s lives to protect someone else’s investment. We shouldn’t have to trade ourselves.”

I breach the question of what she and her husband Mike Roberts are going to do. Mike has been shrimping and crabbing here for more than 35 years. His anguish is written all over his face. They know as well as anyone how incredibly toxified their home is now. “How can anyone just leave their home and never come back again,” she asks me back. “My grandson cries if he has to leave the bayou. He’s been trawling since he was in diapers. This summer he’s 12 and was supposed to be learning more navigation skills. Now he can’t, so he’s like a little lost soul.”

Tracy has been working with eco-activists and fisherfolk in all five Gulf States. She says the BP catastrophe has transcended all usual barriers that usually keep people at odds with one another. “This transcends all other issues because everyone must breath this air. We are all connected by this water. And now we’re all connected by BP’s oil. We all know what’s going on. What planet do they live on in Washington D.C.? Not this one. They need to come here and breath this shit everyday, and swim in this soup and tell us it’s just fine. All the kids around here have rashes, asthma problems, ear infections, and the majority of our fishermen are out there working in this stuff 24/7 because it’s now the only job in town, and they’re all getting sick.”

Tracy is distraught. She pauses and looks out to the nearby canal, then looks back at us. “We’re seeing crabs crawling out of the water. We’ve never seen this before. Ever. Why are crabs trying to escape from the water?”

She learned of the crabs from her friend Gene Hickman. Gene, a commercial and charter fisherman, lives with his wife Vicky a short ways down the road. Gene and Vicky come over.

Gene has cancer, and decided not to work for BP in the response effort so as not to make himself more sick. Gene shows me a video he took on Thursday, at night, of dozens of crabs crawling out of the canal onto his bulkhead.

I’d long since heard of the dispersant poisoning the water, as well as removing oxygen from it. Many toxicologists have already stated that Corexit is much more harmful to human and marine life health than we’ve been told. Marine toxicologist Dr. Susan Shaw has written: “Corexit is particularly toxic. It contains petroleum solvents and a chemical that, when ingested, ruptures red blood cells and causes internal bleeding. It is also bioaccumulative, meaning its concentration intensifies as it moves up the food chain.”

On July 9, in an interview with CNN, Dr. Shaw said this of the toxic soup that is the combination of oil and dispersants: “Shrimpers [were] throwing their nets into water… [then] water from the nets splashed on [one’s] skin. …[He experienced a] headache that lasted 3 weeks…heart palpitations…muscle spasms…bleeding from the rectum…And that’s what Corexit does, it ruptures red blood cells, causes internal bleeding, and liver and kidney damage. …This stuff is so toxic combined… not the oil or dispersants alone. …Very, very toxic and goes right through skin.”

A June 30 story in The Guardian informed us that “Scientists are confronting growing evidence that BP’s ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is creating oxygen-depleted “dead zones” where fish and other marine life cannot survive.”

Two research voyages of independent scientists detected “what were described as “astonishingly high” levels of methane, or natural gas, bubbling from the well site, setting off a chain of reactions that suck the oxygen out of the water.” In the article Larry Crowder, a marine biologist, said, “The animals are already voting with their fins to get away from where the oil spill is and where potentially there is oxygen depletion. When you begin to see animals changing their distribution that is telling you about the quality of water further offshore. Basically, the fish are moving closer to shore to try to get to better water.”

Samantha Joye, a scientist at the University of Georgia studying the effects of the spill at depth, has said that the ruptured well was producing up to 50% as much methane and other gases as oil.

“Joye said her preliminary findings suggested the high volume of methane coming out of the well could upset the ocean food chain,” The Guardian continued, “Such high concentrations, it is feared, would trigger the growth of microbes, which break up the methane, but also gobble up oxygen needed by marine life to survive, driving out other living things.

“Joye said the methane was settling in a 200-metre layer of the water column, between depths of 1,000 to 1,300 meters in concentrations that were already threatening oxygen levels.

“That water can go completely anoxic [extremely low oxygen] and that is a pretty serious situation for any oxygen-requiring organism. We haven’t seen zero-oxygen water but there is certainly enough gas in the water to draw oxygen down to zero,” she said.

“It could wreak havoc with those communities that require oxygen,” Joye said, wiping out plankton and other organisms at the bottom of the food chain.”

I’m horrified by the video. Tears well in my eyes. Gene takes one look at my face, and says, “It’s not natural for crabs to come out of the water like this. They never want to come out of the water if they can help it. They are trying to escape.”

Tracy chimes in. “We are seeing this all over the Gulf now-dolphins, fish, running from the dispersant and oil because they can’t breath. Marine life knows to run out of the way, but we don’t.”

Gene tells us, “This is ripping my heart to pieces. I’m living in high anxiety.” Vicky says that BP and the government are playing down the disaster, when in reality, “anything out there should not be eaten” while pointing out to the water.

Disturbingly, the day after Gene filmed the crabs fleeing the water, residents living near Lake Pontchartrain reported finding thousands of dead fish and crabs in the canals near their homes.

We drive over to Gene and Vicky’s after they inform us of dead crabs and fish floating in sheen-covered water by their boat. Outside their mobile home, that they are about to be evicted from, Gene walks us over to where his boat sits in a nearby bayou.

Dead crabs float in a sheen of oil. It is a toxic soup of stench and death that fouls the air and burns my nose. As I stand looking on in horror, with more tears welling up in my eyes, Gene says, “I’m 52 years old and I’ve never seen crabs crawl out of the water at night. I also saw shrimp swimming in little circles on the surface.”

Vicky, standing nearby, says, “I think this is just the beginning. This is just the small stuff. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Over time bigger and bigger stuff will be washing up here.”

Gene looks out to the water, to nearby Bayou Rigolettes, and holds back tears as he says, “I smell oil all the time. It’s like it’s stuck in my nose. You know why all this hits so close to home? See those crab traps?”

“I guess those are relics now,” Gene says. “I can’t fish now, and probably won’t ever be able to again, so where does this leave me? I feel like that old Indian from that old commercial, who looks out at all the garbage and pollution and sees his whole world polluted. That’s how I feel now.”

The day before, in Chalmette, Louisiana, I spoke with Dr. Riki Ott. Dr. Ott is a marine toxicologist and Exxon Valdez survivor who has been monitoring BP’s actions and how they are affecting what we know about the damage the oil disaster is causing and threats posed to those working in the polluted zone.

“This is a hazardous waste cleanup,” she told me as we sat in the city hall chambers where she was soon to hold a public forum, “BP needs to be evacuating the Gulf coast, and paying for that, in addition to costs for relocating people and compensating them for what they’ve lost.”

It is that serious. My eyes still burn and my chest is tight, long after we exited the toxic soup of air and water that is south of New Orleans. Toxic chemicals from dispersed oil and the dispersant itself now permeate all the air, leaves, water, and wildlife of the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and parts of Florida and Texas. You are breathing this same air as you read this.

The only question is, how many parts per million of toxics are now in your lungs as well?

***

Requesting Your Support

Erika Blumenfeld — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:58:52 +0000

Dear Readers:

This morning we hired a flight out to the well site where the Deepwater Horizon sank. This environmental crime scene is now littered with boats and relief wells flailing to stop the flow of oil that has been gushing into the Gulf of Mexico for almost 3 months. Tomorrow, we are hiring a boat to take us to some of the most devastated coastline, which is still smeared in oil, causing harm to uncountable ecosystems and wildlife.

I have been on the Gulf Coast of Louisiana for two weeks now, and together with my partner, Dahr Jamail, we have brought you stories and photographs that document and archive the human and environmental impact of the historic and horrific disaster that is the BP oil catastrophe.

In our story, Fending For Themselves, we wrote about the growing crisis of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe being displaced by the encroaching oil, and showed you images of their dying marshlands.

We produced an original photo essay for Truthout, Mitigating Annihilation, which clearly depicts the futility of the booming efforts, and the resulting destruction of the local and migratory bird rookeries, along with South Louisiana’s fragile and endangered coastline.

Our most recent post, Hell Has Come To South Louisiana, articulates the desperate situation of the shrimpers and fisher-folk whose livelihood that spans generations is threatened by extinction.

The complexity and breadth of this continued crisis is beyond what we could have imagined, and our questions have led us to dynamic and impassioned interviews with environmental philosophers, activists, scientists, sociologists, riverkeepers, bayoukeepers, indigenous tribes, and fisher people.

As a freelance team, we could not have produced this important work without your generous support. We are deeply grateful to those who were able to contribute to our efforts thus far.

Our work here is just beginning, and with so much of our investigation requiring that we be out in the field, I am humbly appealing for your continued support to help us extend our reporting, so that we may continue to bring you the unfolding events of this devastating issue that clearly effects us all.

Please support our work in the Gulf Coast by making a donation. There are several ways you can donate:

If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation, International Media Project (IMP) is providing fiscal sponsorship to Erika Blumenfeld.

Checks for tax-deductible donations should be made out to “International Media Project.” please write ”Erika Blumenfeld” in the memo line and mail to:

International Media Project/Erika Blumenfeld
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Online, you can use Paypal to donate HERE.

Donations can also be mailed to:

Erika Blumenfeld
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Direct links to our pieces produced thus far:

Living on a Dying Delta (June 29)
Fending for Themselves (July 4)
No Free Press for BP Oil Disaster (July 7)
Mitigating Annihilation (July 7)
Hell Has Come to South Louisiana (July 11)

Hell Has Come to South Louisiana

Erika Blumenfeld — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 19:00:09 +0000

Story by Dahr Jamail
Photography by Erika Blumenfeld

Clint Guidry is a shrimper from Lafitte, Louisiana. As we sit together, he shows me a picture of his house with 18 inches of water in it as a result of Hurricane Ike in 2008.

In his deep voice, he looks me in the eye and says, “My fear is repeating this situation, but with this water with oil on top of it.”

Guidry represents all the shrimpers in Louisiana, given that he is the Shrimp Harvester Representative on the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force that was created by the state’s governor.

Prior to this fishing season, he, like the rest of Louisiana’s fishermen, was excited for good season, with the price of shrimp per pound finally weighing more in their favor.

“We were primed for a great season,” Guidry says, “And it all got taken away.”

Unlike most fishermen who’ve had their livelihoods decimated by BP’s oil disaster, Guidry has chosen not to work for BP doing skimming and booming operations with his boat.

“I worked for Brown and Root in the oil industry,” Guidry informs, “I know the dangers of oil and chemicals, so there’s no way I’m going to go work out in this stuff. Instead, I’m trying to help make sure BP is paying people, and being safe. But I’m not accomplishing either one yet.”

Guidry is incensed at what he is seeing.

“There has been a BP cover-up from day one,” he says, as I write furiously in my notepad, trying to keep up, “The US Government, OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration], the Coast Guard, NIOSH [National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health], all of them are in on it.”

On May 24th, in Galliano, Louisiana, Guidry testified to a delegation of US Senators, Congressmen, and Agencies and departments under Obama’s administration. He sent the testimony to the president as well, urgently requesting help.

Here is his testimony, verbatim:

–

My name is Clint Guidry. I am a third generation Louisiana Commercial Shrimp Fisherman. I am sixty-two years old and a lifelong resident of Lafitte, LA. I am a Vietnam Veteran and the son of a WWII Veteran.

I am on the Board of Directors of the Louisiana Shrimp Association and the Shrimp Harvester Representative on the LA Shrimp Task Force created by Executive Order of Gov. Bobby Jindal.

I have been invited here today to testify about the current disaster that is occurring concerning the blowout and oil spill from the British Petroleum (BP) DeepWater Horizon Catastrophe and what effects it is having on the fishermen and the families I represent.

Ladies and gentlemen, HELL has come to South Louisiana. A HELL created by British Petroleum (BP) and a failed U.S. Government response to the disaster.

First of all I would like to put into perspective BP’s role in this disaster and show them for what they are.

BP committed fraud in furnishing oil spill response data required to obtain a permit to enable them to drill the MC 252 location. The reality is they were not prepared to handle or control a blowout and resulting oil spill of this magnitude. Simply put, they LIED.

BP, in their haste to cut corners and save money in the completion process on the well location at MC 252, exhibited willful neglect in their duties to complete the well safely which led to the blowout and explosion that killed eleven people. Eleven souls that will never come back. Eleven families with mothers and fathers and wives and children. Children who will never see their fathers again.

This neglect and loss of life constitutes negligent homicide and all involved should be arrested and charged as such.

So now I have established what kind of people we are dealing with, LIARS and KILLERS. It appalls me that they are still in total control of this disaster after almost a month has passed.

Now I would like to speak about our Federal Response to the disaster.

The first response to the disaster was the U.S. Coast Guard, who has assumed duties of protecting BP and aiding them in downplaying the spill, providing BP representatives with armed guards to keep away the press and TV camera crews and sending representatives to local communities to provide false information on safety and health dangers related to the oil spill and the chemical dispersants used.

The second response came from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who in an effort to minimize the spill and save BP face, unleashed two dangerous chemical dispersants which were injected into the water column at the sea floor and sprayed on the surface over the oil and workers in the areas of the spill and along the coast close to coastal fishing communities. These chemical dispersants contain solvents that are dangerous to marine populations in the Gulf and coastal estuaries and were never fully tested for dangers to humans. In the product sheets for these chemical dispersants, there is always a disclaimer: “This listing does not mean that EPA approves, recommends, licenses, certifies or authorizes the use of this product on an oil discharge.”

And that IS exactly what EPA did and is still doing with total disregard to marine populations that will collapse because of it and human populations that will get sick and may die because of this decision.

“Kill the Ocean, Save the Beaches,” a “Trade-Off” decision. Under what logic does this work? The Gulf is the Mother and the Estuaries are the nurseries. If the Mother dies, there will be no children to incubate.

The reality is the oil and chemical dispersants are entering our estuaries as we speak. The “Trade-Off” logic FAILED.

As I stated, I represent commercial shrimp fishermen. I have members, friends and family presently working to contain and clean-up the spill. They are relating to me BP’s total disregard for providing workers with proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

I have extensive experience working with hazardous chemicals associated with petroleum. In the 80’s and 90’s I worked with Brown and Root Industrial Services as a supervisor, General Superintendant and Area Superintendant. I supervised maintenance work in oil refineries and was responsible for worker safety and getting the work done on time. Safety and health of my workers ALWAYS came first with me.

I am being told by workers and family members that proper respiratory protection is NOT being provided to the fishermen workers.

Petroleum, as it surfaces and spreads over the water and heats, releases dangerous carcinogens and these carcinogens are most concentrated directly over the leaking well and surrounding area where my fishermen are working. There has been NO respiratory protective PPE issued to workers working directly over this most dangerous area, even as a precaution to have available given they are working 60 miles offshore. In fact, when some individuals brought their own respirators, they were told by BP representatives on site that if they wore the respirators they would be released from the job. That disturbs me greatly.

My fishermen are more concerned with losing their jobs and the income they desperately need to pay bills and feed their families than their health. From years of experience I know that, when protected, work in very hazardous environments can be completed safely using the proper PPE.

Is BP sacrificing my fishermen’s health and lives to protect themselves from liability issues at a later date?

How can we believe liars and killers when they say the worksite is safe?

This is the same game plan Exxon used in Alaska 20 years ago and Alaska fishermen ¬never collected a penny in settlements from Exxon for sickness and deaths related to working clean-up after the Valdez spill. Exxon never issued respiratory protection to fishermen in the Valdez spill.

These workers safety issues are my top PRIORITY and need to be addressed IMMEDIATELY.

If we are going to allow BP “We the people” 5th Amendment rights in court and use “Taking of Future Profits” to let them off the hook for full responsibility of this disaster, we will be playing the same part as the Alaskans did in the Exxon Valdez Playbook that BP is using on us.

It is past time for our elected officials, Departments and Agencies to abandon the influence of “Big Oil’s” “Big Money” and do what they were elected and appointed to do, represent and protect “We the People” who voted them in office.

This Administration needs to treat BP like what they really are, LIARS and KILLERS and take control of this monumental disaster.

This administration was elected to office on a platform of “CHANGE.” So far, as it applies to “Big Oil” it is business as usual. The only change we are experiencing in dealing with “Big Oil” is being “Short-Changed.”

On behalf of the Commercial Shrimpers I represent and the coastal communities who are losing their way of life, I ask that you take control of this out of control situation.

Clint Guidry
Louisiana Shrimp Association

–

Like so many others in Louisiana who have any affiliation with the response effort to the oil disaster (which is basically everyone), as his statement indicates, Guidry is appalled at the seeming lack of concern about the heath effects of the dispersants on response workers.

“There are incidents the Coast Guard itself has recorded and documented of planes spraying Coast Guard boats, platforms, and fishermen with dispersant,” he tells me, “Our biggest battle now is trying to get people protected, and it’s pissing me off.”

Guidry is hearing directly from fishermen he knows participating in the response effort, and they are telling him they are being sprayed.

To make matters worse, despite BP being directed by the so-called EPA and Coast Guard on May 26 to dramatically decrease their use of dispersant in the Gulf, recently released Coast Guard records show that BP has exceeded dispersant limits on a near daily basis since that order.

Guidry, like everyone I’ve met thus far in Southeastern Louisiana, is all too aware of the fact that, as he succinctly stated in his testimony, “Hell has come to South Louisiana.”

Yet he knows the future could bring even worse. “If we have another bout of storms during August, September, and October, which is our severe storm time, that brings one Category 3 hurricane, we’ll have oil and dispersant everywhere. Every area of Southern Louisiana beyond hurricane protection will lose their homes, their living, and their heritage.”

Guidry speaks fondly of how he used to fish for Tuna out in the area where the well is gushing oil into the Gulf.

“Blue, White, Brown Tuna, Marlin, Sailfish, it is all out there,” Guidry says urgently, “This disaster has punched holes in our marine eco-system that we won’t know about for a long time. We don’t know what we’ve done.”

A short while later Guidry invites us, along with several other friends, on a short boat ride up the Bayou. He expertly guides his boat across the water while pointing out dormant remains of the local commercial shrimping industry.

“Nunez Seafood is the only processing plant we have in Lafitte,” Guidry explains, “That’s where we used to box and freeze our shrimp before it would be sent out across the country. Right now, that freezer space should be completely full of shrimp.”

Tracy Kuhns, the executive director of Louisiana Bayoukeeper, is riding with us, and watches me staring at the empty facility, that is also surrounded by many empty shrimping boats.

“We went from a fishing village, to an oil town,” Tracy adds as we pull away from the emptiness that used to be Nunez Seafood.
***

Mitigating Annihilation

Erika Blumenfeld — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:00:58 +0000

by: Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld, t r u t h o u t | Photo Essay

From the air, the area north of Grand Isle, Louisiana, much of it around Barataria Bay, looks like scorched earth. This area has been and is heavily afflicted by BP’s oil. The so-called clean up efforts, including laying out booms to supposedly prevent oil from destroying more marsh and killing more wildlife, are a farce.

Opaque multi-color sheen stains much of the bay, and is visible in countless inlets that snake their way into the marsh. The contrast between the green marsh area yet to be soiled and the marsh already blackened by the oil and the sheen covered Gulf water is stark. The afflicted water appears as a lifeless, dull, silvery fluid.

While BP has put forth great effort in securing tax benefits acquired from leasing rigs like the sunken Deepwater Horizon, it has also saved money by choosing not to pursue better clean-up methods and technologies. We live in a corporate world where profit is god. Profit rules. Showing a profit on the next quarterly earnings statement is everything. This is how a multi-billion dollar oil giant like BP (yes-we can include the others as well-Exxon/Mobile, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, Total S.A.) spends vast troughs of money on developing the latest oil exploration and drilling technologies. But when it comes to cleaning up their toxic mess when disaster strikes, every expense is spared.

Many people across varying industries working in the so-called clean-up effort understand that laying out boom to contain oil is largely an act designed primarily to impress politicians and un-informed media. The so-called clean up work BP is engaged in on the soiled Gulf coast has been shoddy, at best, including allegations that BP has been dumping sand atop oil on beaches to cover it up. Controlled oil burns in the Gulf are also, needless to say, coming under criticism for their devastating impact on the environment, in addition to negatively impacting human health of residents on Louisiana’s coast.

But this should not come as a surprise, given that one of the first things BP did in the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster was to launch a campaign to strengthen its legal defense with the best attorneys money can buy, reign in legal teams, and buy up experts who might otherwise work for plaintiffs in cases against the oil giant.

The more we see of this so-called clean-up and containment plan of BP’s, the more it appears to be the second largest contributing factor in destroying the ecology and culture of the Gulf region, behind of course BP’s oil volcano at the floor of the Gulf.

From the air, we see the same boom catastrophe as we did from our recent boat trip into the marsh. In some areas, boom does little more than outline the dead areas of the marsh, having gathered into piles and left to soak oil directly onto the land.

Time after time we fly over small marsh islands, their shores scorched by oil, the marsh grass immediately dying, surrounded by boom.

Sheen covers the water, held against the islands by the booming.

“It’s as though the booms do nothing more than hold oil in the marsh, rather than keeping it out,” I comment into my headphones as we fly low, just above the soiled islands. Charlie, our pilot, nods.

Erika hangs out her open window, taking hundreds of photos of the destruction caused by BP’s criminal negligence.

The vile physical destruction of these fragile wetlands is an ominous precursor of worse that is to come. Wildlife experts recently reported that the toll on sea birds from the BP catastrophe will soon change dramatically for the worse.

“Scientists warn that as shifting weather and sea conditions conspire with the dynamics of avian life cycles, a tremendous number of birds will soon be put in jeopardy,” says an article in Scientific American, “In the coming weeks, millions of waterfowl and other birds that flock to the U.S. Gulf Coast on their annual fall migration will arrive in the region either to roost for the winter or to make brief stopovers en route farther south. With toxic crude still gushing from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico and streaks of the slick creeping inexorably farther inland, many more birds and other wildlife that nest, feed and find shelter on shore are likely to become casualties.”

This warning has sparked a desperate rush to try to find ways to lure tens of millions of migrating birds away from the oil-infested marsh that has historically served as their habitat.

“The impact of the Gulf disaster on migrating birds will be like a train derailment during rush hour,” Frank Gill, president of the National Audubon Society, said. “Not only will it affect the entire system, but its repercussions will be long-lasting.”

This concern has spurred the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to launch a $20 million program that aims to pay landowners in the Gulf region to idle land, restore wetlands and enhance habitat.

Will it work? This worsening disaster shows us how futile it is to tinker with nature-whether it be via drilling for oil in the depths, or then trying to mitigate the annihilation of nature and life in ways that often make the situation worse via unforeseen consequences.

And this comes on the heels of destruction in this area caused by oil and gas companies that spans decades. “They dug these canals that have let the saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico into what used to be fresh-water marshes,” Charlie, who has spent more than five years in a plane flying over this area, tells us while we fly over the remnants of what used to be a fertile, green carpet of a marsh, “That let all the saltwater in that killed the marsh. This land is now fractured. It’s blown all to hell.”

Most of the small marsh islands we fly over are soiled black and brown by BP’s oil. Some of the worst areas are surrounded by brand new pure white boom that has no oil on it. This boom, aside from possibly keeping more oil from reaching the already destroyed area, functions as little more than show, given that the oil has already contaminated the marsh island.

Sheen covers most of the bay. As we fly low over shallower areas, ripples move across the sheen that are caused by schools of fish moving just below the surface.

In another area, a pelican flies parallel to a red boom. I wonder if it will land in sheen-covered water, or if its rookery has already been destroyed.

Charlie flies us out near the barrier islands that separate the bay from the Gulf of Mexico. Between two of the islands, just behind one of them, a series of barges are being set up, end on end, in a crude attempt to block off the pass between two islands.

“Here’s where they are trying to block a pass to keep the oil from getting into the bay,” Charlie explains while banking the plane so Erika can get a clear view, “But the wolf is already in the hen house.”

It is impossible to articulate the futility of these clean-up and preventative efforts.

We do not see one marsh island surrounded by boom that has actually kept oil or sheen from reaching it.

But, again, we are looking at a company that only by threat of lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity agreed to stop incinerating endangered sea turtles alive.

Fending for Themselves

Erika Blumenfeld — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 23:31:05 +0000

Story by Dahr Jamail
Photography by Erika Blumenfeld

We drive south on Louisiana Highway 55 towards Pointe-au-Chien. The two-lane road hugs a bayou, like most of the roads leading south into the marsh areas. Incredibly green, lush forest gives way to increasing areas of water the further south we venture, until the very road feels as though it is floating.

We cross over a small concrete bridge over another bayou and find ourselves square in front of the Pointe-au-Chien sign informing us this is their tribal area. We’ve come to meet Theresa Dardar, in order to learn more about how the BP oil disaster is decimating the indigenous populations of Southern Louisiana.

Theresa is a member of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe. They are a small community of self-described Indians that live in southern Louisiana along a small stretch of the Bayou Pointe-au-Chien. Now, oil from the BP disaster threatens their very existence.

Historically, they have been a community reliant upon hunting, fishing, agriculture, and cattle. But due to, as Theresa puts it, “devastation of our land by the oil companies,” the lack of protection of the barrier islands and lack of fresh water replenishment and saltwater intrusion, the Tribe has had to rely primarily on fishing to sustain itself.

On May 29, the shrimping season was closed in their area, putting most of the tribe out of work. On June 19, shrimping season reopened when oil in nearby bays abated somewhat, but shrimping was and still is only allowed in the Cut-Off Canal-a tiny area compared to what they are usually allowed access to.

This is what Theresa is most concerned about-behind of course, their land vanishing beneath their feet as it is, like much of the rest of southern Louisiana, swallowed up by the Gulf of Mexico.

Today, members of her tribe, including her husband, spend their days contracting their shrimp boats to BP in order to lay out boom, instead of being in the midst of a busy and fruitful shrimping season.

Outside her home, like that of her neighbors, huge green nets hang from trees. Other fishing gear sits idly in yards, indicative of a way of life being placed on indefinite hold.

Theresa invites us inside her home, located among several other elevated houses that perch on the bank of the bayou. It is an area surrounded by marsh-much more water than land. It’s an amazing experience to be in Louisiana’s marsh-whether driving on the roads, or walking to someone’s home, the water is so near, and the land barely above it, one often feels as though the water is actually higher than the land. The feeling of it possibly spilling onto the land is ever present.

“We are praying we don’t have a hurricane, because if we do it’ll blow the oil up here, they’ll condemn this place and not let us back in until we clean it up,” she explains. I later learn that this is a fear shared by basically everyone in the area.

Given the encroachment of what’s left of their land by the Gulf, Theresa and the rest of her tribe intend to hold onto what they have. This is among their priorities listed on the Tribes’ website, that includes the following goals:

-Protect Village, Sacred Sites, Fishing Grounds, and Cultural Sites.
-Plan needed for evacuation and relocation to keep tribal members together in the event of flooding–even with a tropical depression–for an unknown period of time.
-Workforce training and development in the event the oil spill contaminates fisheries for an extended period of time.
-Build tribal center to be used for relief and recovery efforts.
-Health issues associated with change in diet and stress from oil spill.
-Houses that haven’t been elevated are at risk for condemnation if oil enters the community.

They are a people used to looking after themselves. “We fend for ourselves,” Theresa continues, as we sit in her living room talking, “We can’t wait for the Parish, or the State, to help us. The only time we see a politician is during election time, or when they come after we have a disaster and we’ve pretty much cleaned everything up ourselves.”

Theresa says they want to put a sign up near the bridge one must cross to enter their area, one that reads, “No politicians allowed.”

The area is also home to Indians that align themselves with the United Houma Nation and the Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees. The land here is considered precious by the tribal community, and it includes at least seven cemeteries that contain the remains of their ancestors.

The livelihood of generations of these people is now threatened on multiple fronts-but for now, the most imminent threat seems to be oil lurking off-shore. According to Theresa, her tribe is now down to only 680 people, and the majority of them live in Pointe-au-Chien.

Like indigenous people around the world, place is paramount. Theresa speaks of their tie to the area in reverential tone. To be removed from this place is to disintegrate, figuratively and literally, her tribe.

“If we have to leave, we’ll be spread out and no longer be a community,” she explains, “We don’t know where we’d go. BP should try to keep this community together because it’s their oil that’ll cause us to separate. Our attachment to our land is everything to us. We live off the land, so when you take us away, it won’t be the same. It’s like taking a fish out of water and seeing how long it will live.”

She stops talking, and simply says that she doesn’t know how to describe this.

Her 54-year-old husband has been a fisherman since he was 16. Now he’s laying out boom for BP-a job that is temporary. Theresa tells me her husband is angry at BP for having put him out of his fishing job, but he needed the money so took the job laying boom for the company that destroyed his livelihood. It’s a job that won’t likely end soon, but when it does, he won’t likely have his old job to return to.

She walks us outside, because her brother-in-law, Russell Dardar, is sitting out near the bayou after having just returned from crabbing. He shows us one of his boxes of crabs. One of the blue crabs reaches into the air, pincher open. “He’s giving you the peace sign,” Russell says with a half-smile.

Russell, wearing cut-off jeans and a t-shirt, is shoeless and completely in his element. He’s going to take us out on his boat to show us where he’s seen oil soiling the marshes in the area where he usually crabs. He’s free to do so since he won’t work for BP.

After looking at his photos of oil-affected marsh, we climb into his boat and start idling down the bayou. It’s a tight waterway, lined with shrimp boats that would, in a time without an oil disaster, be out harvesting.

Russell doesn’t talk much, but when he does, it is impactful. He tells me he used to work on a tugboat, work that is common with many of the people in this area of southern Louisiana, until a back injury led him back to crabbing and shrimping.

I ask him how many of the folks in his community are working for BP laying boom. “Maybe there are four or five of us left crabbing,” he replies while looking straight ahead as we pass empty boats. I eye stacks of empty crab traps sitting on vacant piers.

It is gray, and dark rain clouds loom out in the marsh where we are headed. The rain begins slowly as we motor down the tight canal-green marsh on either side as we voyage down towards the head of the bay. The rain increases into a full shower, lightening flashes in the distance. We’re all soaked within minutes. Erika sits in the front of the boat taking photos, her camera wrapped in its storm jacket. I’m in front of Russell, sitting in a white plastic patio chair while he pilots us along. I look up at him amidst the warm downpour and he smiles, which is a rarity, as he is usually completely focused on whatever it is he is doing.

He pulls us up amongst white booms bobbing in the small waves. They are held in place by flimsy white PVC pipes stuck in the mud-bamboo poles hold them in other areas.

We are struck by how useless they are. Several oil-scarred areas of marsh lie behind booms that are sometimes unattached to their support poles. Other areas float half a foot below the surface. In many areas, booms are washed ashore and sit amidst oil-soaked marsh.

I look back at Russell to find him looking off into the distance, across the marsh, with a stern face.

“These are completely useless,” I say to him. “It’s good for show,” he responds while swinging the boat around in the surf.

He takes us along many areas to show us more of the same-sunken boom, boom washed ashore, oil-scarred soiled areas of marsh that is already dead.

“There was far more oil out here last week,” Russell explains, “But the high tides that reached here from Hurricane Alex pushed all the oil deeper into the marsh.”

The rain slackens as we head back home. Incredible bird life fills the marsh as we motor back…flocks of birds, everywhere.

I wonder how long they’ll last.

As we arrive back at the marina, I see that it has been turned into a staging area by BP. As though to intentionally underscore the futility of the so-called clean up effort, mountains of boom sit in plastic wrap on the shore, waiting to be taken out into the marsh. To the right of the marina building a statue of Jesus stands near a US flag, facing the mounds of boom, his arms outstretched as if he is questioning the futility of it all.

In the front of the Marina another US flag stands above more piles of boom. Erika later finds, upon closer inspection of the photo, it has an indigenous man atop a horse painted on the flag.

When she shows this to me, blown up on her computer, we can only shake our heads.

We idle the rest of the way up the bayou to Russell’s dock and park the boat. Back on land he tells me how BP has promised everyone it’s safe to work laying boom. “Somethin’ don’t sound right about that to me,” he adds.

I thank Russell, shaking his hand, telling him I hope to see him again, and we walk over to Theresa’s house to tell her goodbye. She brings us inside, however, and says, “I knew you’d be wet and hungry, so I made you lunch.”

We sit down and feast on the crab casserole and fried shrimp she has made us while she tells us about a recent meeting at their town hall.

“About two weeks ago a BP spokesman held a town hall meeting,” she explains, “He said, it’s not if but when the oil comes here again. There was not one state or parish official at the meeting. BP is running things here now.”

We finish eating and talk a little while longer before we thank Theresa again for her time and hospitality.

“We hope we don’t have to wait as long as the Alaskans did for our marine life to come back,” she says, referencing the Exxon Valdez disaster from 1989, “They had to wait 17 years for their shrimp to return, and they are still waiting on their herring.”

It’s a slim hope, considering the fact that to date 14 percent of the 250,000 barrels spilled in the Valdez disaster have been recovered. Even by the most conservative estimates, the ongoing BP disaster has erupted many times that amount of oil into the Gulf-and kept most of it underwater via dispersant. Higher-end estimates of the amount of oil erupting from the floor of the gulf show an Exxon Valdez worth of oil injected into the Gulf every two and a half days.

“I’m worried about health problems associated with this disaster,” Theresa tells us before we leave, “And we’re hoping we can avoid the divorces, suicides and alcoholism that hit so many communities up in Alaska. I’m telling people to stay busy and not think of the oil. Otherwise, you’ll drown in it.”

***