tagged w/ Defense Council
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We are letting the criminal clean up the crime scene. While Jane Lubchenco, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says the oil is becoming harder to find, the Natural Resources Defense Council‘s annual report on beaches found no downturn in the number of beach closures or advisories since the spill was capped. The NRDC reports that the number of beach closures and advisories this year, 2,200, is roughly 10 times more than last year. And it predicts that the impact will last for years.
A growing number of clean-up workers have reported flu like symptoms including headaches, dizziness, fatigue, nausea and loss of concentration to just name a few. Almost all of the Exxon Valdez clean-up crews have either died or are still suffering from the effects of the use of toxic dispersant.
Senior policy analyst Hugh Kaufman of the EPA blows the whistle on the EPA for allowing BP to poison the Gulf and the workers who are trying to clean it up. When asked what evidence he has to back those claims he responds:
“Well, we‘ve seen anecdotal information of mammals in the water, like dolphins, bleeding from their orifices; some of the workers who have done the spill cleanup are having the same problem. The dispersant and oil mixtures are supposed to atomize materials like oil. Well, if that gets into your system, that atomizes your cells, and that‘s why there‘s hemorrhaging. So, there‘s anecdotal information both down there in the Gulf, similar to the anecdotal information at the Exxon Valdez case almost 20 years ago.”
He confirms what many Exxon Valdez clean-up workers have warned, “The dispersants mixed with the oil and the water is extremely toxic. Sweden has done studies on this. Israel has done studies on this.”
He goes on to say, “The only real purpose of using so many dispersants with the oil was to cover up the volume of oil that was released from that well. So, that and lying about how much is coming out was a mechanism to help BP save billions of dollars in fines.”
“Right now, we‘re very limited. We‘ve got hundreds of millions of gallons of oil spread out, mixed with 2 million gallons of dispersant. And so, what we have to do is accurately monitor the air and water and be very careful with the seafood. But we‘ve now poisoned thousands of square miles of the Gulf and we have to recognize that and take precautions so that we minimize the damage that we have done.”We are letting the criminal clean up the crime scene. While Jane Lubchenco, director... more
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