BP Slick

Oil is resurfing again not far from the location of the BP Macondo Wel

2011-09-01T16:11:00.000-05:00

If you think there's nothing going on out there and believe that "they" don't have any knowledge of it, check out this screen grab from just a few minutes ago. The yellow circle is the DWH site.

~Mac MacKenzie Oil is resurfing again not far from the location of the BP Macondo Well off the Gulf of Mexico, 15 months on. Oil is resurfing again not far from the location of the BP Macondo Well off the Gulf of Mexico, 15 months on. http://aje.me/InDeepShoil Could the capped wellhead at the Deepwater Horizon site be leaking again? That's the question some are asking after the discovery of oil sheens in the vicinity of the infamous BP disaster. http://bit.ly/InDeepShOil2 Video: http://youtu.be/RDO-MhWMJVE Mystery Oil Leak in Gulf: Ask some folks in the blogosphere and they'll tell you that without a doubt BP's Macondo well is spewing oil once again. Ask people at BP and they'll tell you it's not their well. Ask the U.S. Coast Guard and they'll say "We haven't seen any yet." So who's telling the truth? On Wings of Care, a non-profit that uses airplanes to help assist in wildlife rescue and habitat protection efforts, has spotted oil repeatedly in the area. http://bit.ly/DrudgeOil The Alabama Press Register has gathered photos, video, and oil samples that BP and the Coast Guard are lying about oil leaking from the Deepwater Horizon Macondo well. http://bit.ly/InDeepShOil3 Gulf Oil Spill Crisis Not Over: BP's Deepwater Horizon Well Is Leaking Again - We May Never Be Able To Fully Stop the BP Leak http://bit.ly/InDeepShOil4

Cherri Foytlin tells of her arrest at the BP Protest in NOLA

2011-08-07T07:05:00.003-05:00

Cherri was arrested for civil disobedience to mark the anniversary of the so called end of the BP crisis.

Photo by JLW

The day before yesterday, on August 4, 2011, one year after the President of our United States stood on national television and said that 75% of the oil that had spewed into our Gulf was gone, I was booked into the New Orleans Parish Police lock-up with the charge of Criminal Trespassing.

The day before, I had been called by the Louisiana State Police Department to come to a meeting with them to discuss the Non-violent Direct Action Protest that myself and a united group consisting of environmentalists, community organizers, fishermen and clean-up workers, had organized in front of the British Petroleum offices, which are on the 13th and 14th floor of 1250 Poydras in NOLA.

At that meeting, I was told that we were allowed on the sidewalk only. That there would be plain clothed officers among us, and that if we crossed a certain line, which runs from the building to the parking lot, we would be arrested. The detectives, very nicely, drew us a map to explain the exact whereabouts of that line.

When we got to the event, which at the beginning had nearly 100 in attendance, I made the announcement that I was going to cross that line. And that I was doing this in protest of the so many lines that BP has crossed, in my mind, concerning the cleaning up of their mess, the spraying of toxic chemicals in our water, the murder of 11 of our energy providers, the disrespect and economical damage to our fishermen and residents, and the denial of and lack of response to health issues and claims since April 20 of last year.

So, I intentionally crossed that invisible line and took their tar balls back to them - a box full that had been picked up our beaches that day, (with no clean-up workers in sight, I might add). At least 15 other people chose to go with me, to complete this task.

As we approached the front door, we were met immediately by a representative of the company, the building and a security guard. Together they refused us any access to the building, citing that all BP workers had been dismissed for the day - a fact I knew to be untrue, because the state police had told me at our previous meeting that although most would be sent home at 4:30 that day, some would be available until 5:30, (at the time that they had told us this, they were trying to facilitate a meeting between us and BP - to which we had said was only an option it Feinberg and Zimmer was in attendance, and to which BP had refused to consider).

Being unable to enter the building, we dropped the tar balls on the sidewalk (in plastic), and sat down directly in front of the doors, where others came to join us.

And that was where we stayed.

In the mean time, kind people from within our group brought us waters and other refreshments in order to make our stay more comfortable. So, naturally, it was not very long before I personally had to urinate.

A very respectful gentleman from the state police had come forward to negotiate, just as he had the day before at the meeting in the SBI offices. I asked him, jokingly, if he thought they would just let me in to pee. He said no and that “They were freaking out in there.”, but pointed out that there were portable toilets just beyond the fence in a nearby hotel construction site.

After a few minutes, I felt it calm enough at that moment - since all BP representatives, building security and police personnel were discussing the issue inside, (excluding the one member of the state police that, at that time, was sitting with us), I could go use the restroom quickly, and come back.

So, I did. I jumped the fence and used the facilities. Upon my return jump, I realized that the BP reps in the building had seen me go and went running to find me, perhaps thinking I had looked for an alternative route into the building.

And that they had taped me jumping the fence and notified the nearby construction site mangers of my trespassing. We believe that they had hoped that the other owners would have had me arrested for trespassing and kept the BP name out of the incident. You see, arresting and charging people for bringing to light their negligence and lack of response sort of blows that whole “making it right” image.

But, the people next door had no interest in arresting me, or anyone else. We have more allies than they, or even we, know - you see?

I then joined the others in sitting, which we continued for over all around 3 hours until a little after 8:00 pm, which is when - after negotiating tirelessly, and being very respectful with us all day, the New Orleans Police Department and the Louisiana State Police gave us one more chance to end the protest and go home before arrests were made.

At that final refusal, NOLA PD, quietly came forth and arrested the 3 of us, who had remained seated.

Truth is, I knew that I personally was going to get arrested if I stayed sitting there, I knew that. And this was a decision that had not been made lightly on my part.

Over the last year and nearly a half I have studied past movements that have worked on different levels. And thanks to those who have come before us, we have a general formula for affecting change.

According to Dr. King, mainly from his letters while he, himself, was sitting in an Alabama jail, he said that the progression includes the following:

- To find out if an injustice exists - without doubt we, the people of the Gulf, have been dealt with very unjustly with regards to this corporation and our governments handling of this event, as well as others across the Gulf.

- To negotiate - we, the residents, fishermen, clean-up workers, tourism industry workers, oil workers, community organizers, ect, have negotiated on the local, state and federal levels with the HHS, the CDC, the NOAA, the EPA, the GCERT, the CEQ, the DEQ, the Oil Spill Commission, the Administration, and BP itself for nearly 16 months - to little or no avail.

- Dr. King’s next step was to “self-purify” - each person must take this step alone. Personally, I had first interpreted this step as the ending of bad habits, such as social drinking. But on the walk I realized that he was talking about preparing your mind against egotistical illusions, self-doubt and self-pity.

- The last step is action. And in the successful civil rights movement, as well as the Eastern Indian movement for independence, that meant non-violent action and civil disobedience taken against the oppressors in order to advance the cause of, and bring to light the call for, justice and liberty.

Our being arrested, was just the first step of that last phase.

Now, while I was sitting there I had a good friend of mine, who is very sick from the toxins still in his system and our environment, say to me, “Cherri, it is not worth getting arrested.”. He was begging me not to take that final step. He did that, because he love me, and he did not wish to see me suffer, I understand that - and it warms my heart. But my response to him was, “My friend, you are so worth getting arrested for”.

You see that is what we all must understand. You, my friend, are worth it. Our ecosystem is worth it, our kids are worth it, our future is worth it.. We must understand the value of what we have and be determined in protection of that. We must take up responsibility to, and for, each other now, in these times. Because, we are all worth it.

As we sat there, we repeatedly looked across the crowd and saw testament to that notion; such as, the poster my 9-year-old had made of her depiction of Earth with pollution dotting it, and the eyes of the people who were sick from chemical poisoning and yet had still come out to take a stand, calloused hands of a fishermen, community organizers who we have all seen at events from Texas, to Florida, to D.C. - demanding, begging sometimes, to be heard on behalf of the communities and ecosystem that they love. And we saw grandmothers and grandfathers, daddies and mommies, and sisters and brothers, all united in the simple humanitarian right of clean air and water.

One person in particular, Kimberly Wolf, a warrior woman who I have had the honor of getting to know early on in this fight, and who also has terminal cancer, yet got out of her bed and joined us for as long as she could - strengthened our souls. She is the picture of strength and love in all of this - and in seeing her, I have never been so moved by an example of commitment and perseverance.

That is the epitome of what this event, and our arrest, was about. That there is hope, we have allegiance to each other, that the loss of one does not and will not end the journey of the whole for truth, justice and recompense of the human rights violations that are taking place in our homeland.

There are so many to thank for the success of the day. I would especially like to recognize Kyle Nugent and Noah Learned, who I had not met prior and yet went all the way on behalf of our people and coast. The people who helped in organizational duties, too many to name here - but in particular Karen S, Ada, Devin, Josh, Mary-Margaret, Anne, Elizabeth, Robert - there are so many. And including the people who were at the event(s) of last week, and/or are still working on this issue, or others like it.. you are all my heroes.

I would also like to make clear, that the New Orleans Police Department and the Louisiana State Police Department were very kind in their treatment of us before, during and after our arrest. The first thing I was told after getting in the car was, “Why didn’t you just go home, Miss Cherri? None of us wanted to arrest you.”

They also took the handcuffs off as soon as we arrived at the station, and made sure we were as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.

So, there you have it.

I want you all to know, that we will not stop. We will not stop until our fishermen, our workers, our families, our wildlife, our waters, our region - are made whole again. Because when you love something, when you really do, you will never be silenced in protecting and fighting for it.

There will be further opportunities for those caring souls across the nation to stand with us for justice. Be ready.

You see, THAT is the greatest weapon in our tool box, that is what will win this and so many other battles we have been called to participate in, it’s our LOVE that will carry the day.

On August 4 we took our first stand. Courage, my friends, this is just a beginning.

Yours truly,

Cherri Foytlin

Gulfport councilman slams BP

2011-07-20T14:34:00.002-05:00

Posted: Jul 05, 2011 12:16 PM Updated: Jul 05, 2011 12:16 PM

By Brad Kessie, News Director - bio | email

GULFPORT, MS (WLOX) - Gulfport councilman Rusty Walker doesn't mince words when the issue of BP's relationship with his city comes up. "They're not dealing fairly with us," Walker said during a phone conversation with WLOX News Director Brad Kessie. "They're using low level flunkies to deal with us."
Walker admits his anger with BP stems from Gulfport's efforts to work with the company on a post-oil spill settlement. That anger becomes evident in a news release he sent to the media on Tuesday afternoon.
"BP's office in Gulfport does not make up for the negative impact of the oil disaster it was responsible for. It's affect on our City will be felt for years," the councilman wrote."
"In fact, this new office should facilitate direct communications with BP management on the damages and losses that have been suffered and will be suffered in the future by the City. However, to date, BP has refused to deal with the City on a direct basis and instead has tried to force the City to deal with an array of contract adjusters, lawyers, and consultants such as Witt and Associates, headed by Democratic FEMA director, James Lee Witt, with no experience in understanding local government finances or short or long-term community redevelopment.
In the interest of a timely settlement and desire to avoid unnecessary costs, the City has tried to seek a non-judicial resolution for BP oil spill related damages.
But BP continues to demand that initial contact must be channeled through processing personnel with no management authority who have already deemed that the City should only be compensated in an amount that equals no more than $1.11 per resident of Gulfport. This is an insult to the people and the City of Gulfport. It is an affront to common sense and reality.
BP's offer is based on an arbitrary formula that it wants the City to follow. Should it be any wonder that Gulfport has developed an alternative to that formula?
It is only reasonable that we will want to discuss our approach with real managers of BP, not low level surrogates.
Finally, BP needs to stop trying to mislead the public and media to think that federal law mandates how compensation is decided from its $20 billion fund. Just as it compensated a business partner for $10 million without any reference to federal law, BP can make compensation on any basis that it agrees to. The $20 billion set aside to pay for current and future losses due to the oil disaster it caused, is private money that BP can allocate on any basis it chooses.
A BP office lease in Gulfport is in and of itself not a bad thing; attempts to buy off the City through such an effort is.
I will work through the City Council to make clear that the damage suffered by our community is way beyond $1.11 per resident. To be considered a good neighbor, BP needs to deal with the City of Gulfport with honesty and fairness. Our citizens deserve no less."
WLOX News is attempting to reach BP for a response to Councilman Walker's comments. As soon as we hear from a BP representative, we'll post that on WLOX.com.
Copyright 2011 WLOX. All rights reserved.

BP Oil and Chemicals Still Pollute Alabama Back Bays

2011-06-22T08:33:00.003-05:00

BP Oil and Chemicals Still Pollute Alabama Back Bays

From Locust Fork News Journal

June 20th, 2011 According to BP ads and the lamestream media, including local newspapers and television news outlets that have taken millions of dollars in advertising money from BP, the Gulf of Mexico is now “clean” only a year after being polluted on a massive scale by the BP oil spill of 2010, the largest and worst mand-made environmental disaster in American industrial history.
The only problem is, it is NOT true. According to this video by Trisha Springstead with Captain Lori Deangelis of Dolphin Queen Cruises, the oil and chemicals are still showing up.

For more information, check out this Website on Poisoned Earth, Poisoned Bodies.

Gulf Coast environmentalist, Sea Lab director tangle over Gulf's post-oil spill condition

2011-06-12T17:50:00.000-05:00

Gulf Coast environmentalist, Sea Lab director tangle over Gulf's post-oil spill condition

In this July 7, 2010, file photo, oily sand covered beach chairs sit idle on the beach in Orange Beach Ala. The oil washed ashore with the tide overnight, leaving an ugly stain that brought out hundreds of BP workers to clean. One year after the spill, environmentalists differ on the lingering effects from the spill. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

Questions about the severity of the Gulf oil spill’s environmental impact have divided officials along state lines and are now creating discord even within coastal Alabama.

Data collected so far show that the spill’s effects have been "minor" east of Louisiana, according to George Crozier, executive director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.
Crozier, whose research lab was granted $5 million by BP PLC last year to coordinate environmental studies, said "I would love to screw BP with their own money." But, he said, "I can’t bring myself to exaggerate effects that I can’t document."
Crozier, who announced Friday that he will retire from the Sea Lab later this year, expressed frustration over a letter sent by environmental groups last month to top Obama administration officials. The letter warned of a "growing health crisis" because of the spill. Such claims are unsubstantiated and harmful to the Gulf fishing industry, Crozier said.

George Crozier of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab: "I would love to screw BP with their own money." But, he said, "I canât bring myself to exaggerate effects that I canât document." (Press-Register File Photo)

Casi Callaway, whose Mobile Baykeeper group signed on to the letter, said that while it would be irresponsible to "cry wolf," it would also be irresponsible to conclude, "We have no problem; it’s over."
"I am not telling people that we’re sick and dying, and every animal is dead and gone," she said. "I do believe that it is critical that we keep studying."
An estimated 206 million gallons of crude gushed into the Gulf last spring and summer after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank in waters southeast of Louisiana, killing 11 workers.
It quickly drew comparisons to the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster immediately off the Alaskan coast. The Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil, but the environmental consequences appear to have been much more devastating, Crozier said.
The fact that the ruptured Gulf well was 5,000 feet underwater and many miles from most shores greatly reduced the potential damage, as did the natural ability of the Gulf ecosystem to consume oil, Crozier said.
Callaway cautioned that it’s too soon to judge the spill’s lasting impact. "We don’t know what the long-term environmental effects are going to be," she said.
Callaway, Crozier, and many across the Gulf agree on at least one point: Louisiana received the most severe environmental blow. Other Gulf states, such as Alabama, were harmed economically, in large part, through losses in tourism and fishing.
The distinction is significant in light of the $5.4 billion to $21.1 billion in Clean Water Act fines expected to be assessed against BP and other parties responsible for the spill.
Lawmakers in Washington are working on a bill to send most of the fine money to the affected Gulf states. But they have bogged down on several points, perhaps chief among them: How much money is doled out for environmental vs. economic restoration, and how much each state receives as a result.
Callaway urged that lawmakers consider both environmental and economic issues in deciding the question. But once states get their money, she said, they need to devote most of it to environmental recovery.
"The economic impact was caused by an environmental disaster, and if we’re going to fix it, we’re going to fix it by fixing our environment," she said.

Casi Callaway: "I do believe that it is critical that we keep studying." (Press-Register File Photo)

Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Mobile, expressed concern that Alabama groups pressing for an environmental emphasis could effectively be arguing for the fine money to go elsewhere. "They may well be writing Alabama out of anything," Bonner said.
An aide to Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, said that Shelby is working on a compromise that would give states flexibility in deciding whether to spend on environmental or economic projects. Still, the aide anticipated that the majority of the fine money would go to the environment.
Crozier said he agreed with Callaway that more scientific study is needed, but bristled at what he perceived as a rejection of his findings to date.
It’s useful for Callaway’s fundraising purposes, he said, to depict a dire situation in the Gulf. "I am suspicious of the motives of the people who are afraid to accept the fact that we have so little short-term environmental damage," he said.
Callaway, in turn, questioned Crozier’s motives, noting that oil companies help underwrite the Dauphin Island Sea Lab Foundation.
"It helps George’s fundraising to say we don’t have any damage," Callaway said. "We’re not saying we have damage. We’re asking if we do."

Gulf Coast Leadership Summit or Feinberg Evades Answers

2011-04-27T15:10:00.001-05:00

Kindra Arnesen, well known Louisiana activist recently went to the Gulf Leadership Summit to ask Kenneth Feinberg questions relating to current issues surrounding the BP Slick disaster. Feinberg did everything he could NOT to answer.

Gulf Bacteria is for targeting people, not oil - It was never about oil - Its legal Genocide

2011-04-27T07:59:00.000-05:00

Gulf Bacteria is for targeting people, not oil - It was never about oil - Its legal Genocide

Do NOT flush or toss out old medicine!

2011-04-27T07:23:00.002-05:00

Chasidy Hobbs, Emerald COASTKEEPER

For years we were taught to dispose of unused medicines by flushing them. Little did we know, this practice would have a devastating impact on water quality nationwide, especially for those communities who get their drinking water from surface waters (thankfully not an issue for us here in NWFL!).

However, our area has been impacted by this historical practice as wastewater treatment facilities are not set up to remove these chemicals during treatment and our surface waters still receive an unknown amount of them from treated wastewater. Also, those sent to the landfill ultimately end up in leachate water which is sent to the wastewater treatment facility; either way, ultimately these substances end up in our rivers, bays and other coastal waterways.

Emerald Coastkeeper is teaming up with ECUA, Escambia County Sheriff’s Office and Walgreens to help educate folks about proper disposal of unused medicines and to significantly reduce those which enter our waterways. A kickoff event is scheduled for this Saturday, April 30th at several locations throughout Escambia County. We are also working on creating an ongoing program available year round; if you would like to help please contact us.

The “Prescription Drug Round-Up” is a one-day effort to provide the public a site to voluntarily surrender expired, unwanted, unused pharmaceutically controlled substances, and other medications for proper destruction.

The April 30 event will feature ten locations with deputies from the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office and officials from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection providing information on the environmental benefits and proper ways citizens should dispose of prescription drugs.

Walgreens Locations:

20 West Nine Mile Rd
2237 West Nine Mile Rd
4497 Mobile Hwy
5995 Mobile Hwy
870 E Cervantes
6314 North 9^th Ave

Precinct 1, Pensacola Beach
43 Fort Pickens Road
Pensacola Beach32561

Precinct 2, Big Lagoon
12950 Gulf Beach Highway
Pensacola, Florida 32507

Precinct 5, Cantonment
5844 North Hwy 29
Molino, Florida 32577

Precinct 6, Century
7995 North Century Blvd.
Century, Florida 32532

For more information concerning the event, contact us at (850) 429-822, or the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office (850) 436-9277 or ECUA (850) 476-0480.

Chasidy Fisher Hobbs
Emerald Coastkeeper

Corexit solvent poisoning finally comes to light in the Gulf

2011-04-27T07:15:00.000-05:00

Corexit is a solvent. In general, solvents can cause acute and chronic neurological symptoms, ranging from headaches to mood changes to short-term memory loss. Solvents are also toxic to the liver, potentially resulting in chemical hepatitis or jaundice. Prenatal exposure to solvents has been linked to miscarriage. Some solvents, such as toluene (found in many glues) can cause birth defects. Other solvents, such as benzene and vinyl chloride, are known to cause cancer, while some others are suspected carcinogens. One clear-cut case of an adverse health effect in a breastfeeding infant due to a solvent -- perchloroethylene -- has been reported.

Available Hunting For Oil

2011-04-26T12:29:00.000-05:00

(2009) 12 min

On the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Journey OnEarth explores how much damage the disaster has caused.

In the debut episode of Journey OnEarth, we look at the impact of the Deepwater Horizon disaster through the eyes of the people looking for answers.
Paul and Michael are brothers on a mission. For the past year, they have been testing samples of seafood and sediment located in the oil damaged bayous of Louisiana. What they find may help hold BP accountable for one of the worst environmental disasters in US history. We also hear from entomologist Linda Hooper-Bui, her research will tell us how this disaster has the potential of cascading up the food chain, impacting the unique ecosystem of Louisiana’s marshes.

Credits

Directed by

Roshini Thinakaran

Produced by

Zakary Wenning
Roshini Thinakaran

Executive Producers

Roshini Thinakaran

Written by

Roshini Thinakaran
Zakary Writing

Watch more free documentaries

2011-04-26T05:28:00.000-05:00

Texas City BP plant loses power, issues shelter-in-place alert

Credit: Mary Barr / KHOU 11 News Viewer

From Mary: They have at least 8 burners going full out. They say the power is out...? Looks lit up out there to me!

by khou.com staff khou.com

Posted on April 25, 2011 at 11:42 PM

Updated yesterday at 12:57 AM

HOUSTON – A shelter-in-place alert was issued Monday after the Texas City BP Plant lost power, city officials said.

Texas City officials sent out an automated message saying that the BP plant declared a Level 3 emergency and that more updates would be issued as soon as possible.

When the plant loses power they have to burn off their excess product in order to prevent any buildup that could cause an explosion, said TJ Aulds, with the Galveston County Daily News. He said all the flares at the BP plant were going off at once.

There was no word on what caused the power outage.

Some residents complained of the smell on the KHOU 11 News Facebook page.

“The smell is very strong! My eyes are burning & my stomach is soured. The strong winds are not helping AT ALL!” one woman wrote.

Residents were advised to close their doors and windows and turn off their air conditioners until the situation was under control.

Stay with KHOU 11 News for the latest in this developing story.

Ecoviews: Wild South honors conservationists for their efforts

2011-04-25T12:07:00.001-05:00

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20110424/NEWS/110429887

Ecoviews: Wild South honors conservationists for their efforts

By Whit Gibbons

Published: Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 3:30 a.m.

Wild South is a nonprofit grassroots organization based in Asheville, N.C. As the name suggests, its focus is on natural habitats in the South, wild ones at that. In fact, its mission is “to inspire people to protect the wild character and natural legacy of the South.”

CREEKKEEPER and Smokey Joe, on patrol (photo by Ken Robinson)

This year, Wild South's Roosevelt-Ashe Society Conservation Award for Outstanding Journalist in Conservation was given to someone who is most deserving at many levels. I am especially pleased that the recipient of the award is someone I have written about twice in the past decade as a protector of the environment: John Wathen of Tuscaloosa.

The namesakes for the Roosevelt-Ashe conservation awards are Teddy Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, and W. W. Ashe, a botanist at the University of North Carolina in the early 1900s. Both were ahead of their time in the contributions they made to forest conservation. The Roosevelt-Ashe awards are given in eight different conservation categories, including the one for outstanding journalist.

Wathen received the award for his outstanding research and public media communications regarding the environmental situation following the disastrous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Although that endeavor was somewhat different from those I wrote about in earlier columns, in some ways John's award-winning work in the Gulf was simply an extension of his longstanding environmental efforts 200 miles upstream from Mobile Bay, where a small tributary, Hurricane Creek, enters the Black Warrior River on its way to the Gulf of Mexico.

John Wathen has done a commendable job of putting Hurricane Creek center stage and shining a spotlight on it. A video on the Friends of Hurricane Creek website (www.hurricane-creek.org) shows him in a canoe with his dog, Smokey Joe, as they travel along the beautiful creek, “the crown jewel of Alabama.” His environmental message comes through loud and clear, with no mistaking whom he views as perpetrators of habitat destruction and degradation. “As you head downstream, you paddle through steep canyons and high rock bluffs with spires that extend along the banks. As beautiful as they are, it's unfortunate that a lot of these rock bluffs have been undermined for the coal and (then) ... abandoned.” He goes on to say, “There's still a great deal of active strip mining in the watershed tearing down our mountains and pushing the rubble over into the valleys. ... Our streams look like bleeding messes.”

As John says, our natural streams “are not just industrial waste conduits. They are the life and blood of the earth, and they must be protected at all cost.” He does not indict just the coal mining industry for irresponsible environmental behavior. On the video, he notes that “as bad as the coal mines are for the watershed, there's more trouble downstream.” Here, he transfers blame to the Alabama Department of Transportation, which he says is “known as the single largest contributor of sediment to the state's waterways.”

Paddling along the part of the creek known as the M-bend, he points out that ALDOT is trying “to put a four-lane bridge through this section of the creek where I am ... now.” “This section” of the creek is a stretch of unsurpassed beauty that will never be the same if bridge construction is allowed to go forward. John believes that construction sediment in public waterways, bridges that spoil extraordinarily beautiful sites, and other destructive environmental practices are unacceptable. Perhaps his efforts will eventually inspire a public outcry, loudly and vehemently protesting the ruin of that portion of their natural heritage.
“This land,” as Woody Guthrie reminds us, “belongs to you and me.” Our natural habitats do indeed belong to the people — to you and me. Organizations such as Wild South work to instill “a reverence for our public lands and the native natural life they support.” I applaud individuals like John Wathen, people who are committed to realizing that vision, and organizations like Wild South that give such people the recognition they deserve.

Send environmental questions to ecoviews@gmail.com.

John L. Wathen, Hurricane CREEKKEEPER of Friends of Hurricane Creek accepts the Roosevelt Ashe Society Award for "Journalism in Conservation"

The nominees were as listed...
Outstanding Journalists
Bill Finch (The Nature Conservancy – AL)
Don Hendershot (Smoky Mountain News – NC)
John Wathan (Friends of Hurricane Creek – AL)
Pat Byington (Bama Environmental News- AL)
Silas House and Jason (“Something’s Rising: Apalachains Fighting Mtn Top Removal” – KY)
Susan Andrew (Mountain Xpress – NC)

One Year After Deepwater Horizon - Greg Palast Interview

2011-04-24T00:00:00.000-05:00

Uploaded by MidweekPolitics on Apr 22, 2011

--Investigative journalist Greg Palast joins us to discuss the state of the Gulf of Mexico one year after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

--On the Bonus Show Senator Carl Levin wants to prosecute Goldman Sachs executives, Stephanopolous and Bachmann settle birther dispute, heinous killing in Florida, more.

The David Pakman Show is an internationally syndicated talk radio and television program hosted by David Pakman

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24/7 Voicemail Line & Studio Number: (219)-2DAVIDP

The Voice of Doomm is heard

2011-04-22T21:04:00.004-05:00

The Voice of Doomm is heard

Kenneth Feinberg (AKA Black Heart Feinberg) Came to New Orleans on the anniversary of the BP disaster. Mr. Feinberg, who works FOR BP spent most of his time with pep rally type speech making. When it came time for "public question and answer" time he was getting some pretty hot questions. When he saw the line-up he said just a couple more questions and called Drew Landry to the mic. After Drew was Paul Doomm, a young man confined to a wheelchair since the end of Summer 2010 after swimming in the Gulf. After all, the government said it was safe.

A lot of controversy has surrounded Paul's illness. That doesn't give Black Heart Feinberg the right to ignore him.

Destroying our gulf shouldn't be a tax write-off.

2011-04-22T14:24:00.000-05:00

Destroying our gulf shouldn't be a tax write-off. Tell BP to pay their fair share.

UPDATE: Wednesday afternoon, we learned that BP's tax break will be even bigger than was first reported - an outrageous $13 billion!¹ A BP spokesman wouldn't say if the company is paying any U.S. taxes at all this year. It could even be getting a refund. Please take action to hold BP accountable.
One year ago, on April 20, 2010, BP's oil began to pour into the Gulf of Mexico. It did not stop for 87 days.
Today, economic and environmental devastation remain. Thousands of Gulf Coast residents cope with massive health problems from oil and toxic dispersants.
BP, on the other hand, just scored a nearly $10 billion dollar credit on their 2010 federal tax return, by writing off their "losses" incurred from the tragedy.²
That's the equivalent of the entire annual budget of the EPA, whose funding was just slashed in the continuing resolution. It is almost one third of all the cuts in the continuing resolution.
Americans shouldn't have to endure massive budget cuts because BP took a $10 billion tax deduction for destroying our gulf. Tell BP: Amend your tax return and pay your fair share.
Responding to BP's monumental catastrophe cost a massive amount of resources from local, state and federal governments. Now, BP is dealing another massive blow to our nation's tax revenue.
The $10 billion savings comes after BP wrote-off the $32.2 billion it set aside to cover clean-up costs, fines, and a $20 billion victim compensation fund (which has been notoriously slow and stingy in responding to claims, paying out less than 4 billion so far.³)
But there is an excellent precedent that says BP did not have to deduct these costs for tax advantages. Last year, Goldman Sachs waived a tax deduction it could have claimed as a result of paying $500 million in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission for giving bad information to mortgage investors.⁴
BP has cost our nation enough already. It shouldn't be rewarding itself with huge tax savings.
BP's $10 billion tax credit slashes its liability by one third - at every US taxpayer's expense. Tell BP to amend their tax return and pay their fair share.
Over the weekend, hundreds of Gulf Coast residents attended the Powershift conference in Washington, DC and told stories of oil still remaining on beaches, of its smell still permeating the air, of legions of dead dolphin, turtles and fish, of neighbors who are sick or jobless. They said that BP hasn't done nearly enough to make it right.
Meanwhile in Washington, BP just restarted political contributions⁵ to the Republicans who continue to push for expanded offshore drilling, oppose lifting oil spill liability caps,⁶ and do everything in their power to keep our nation addicted to dirty crude, as millions of Americans literally drain their paychecks into their gas tanks every day.
To take our nation off of dirty, dangerous, expensive fossil fuels, we must force polluters to pay for the damage they do.
One year ago, BP brought us what would become the worst environmental disaster in our nation's history. We don't owe BP a tax-credit. BP owes us our gulf back. The least it could do is pay its fair share.
Please sign the petition now.
1. "BP To Cut Tax Bill By $13B But Won't Say What It's Paying IRS For 2010," Talking Points Memo, April 20, 2011
2. "BP Scores $10B Tax Credit by Offsetting Cash," CBS News, July 27, 2010
3. "Gulf-Spill Fund Pays $3.8 Billion; Total May Be 'Higher'," Bloomberg, April 18, 2011
4. "Goldman Waives Tax Deduction on SEC Settlement," Bloomberg, July 16, 2011
5. "A year after spill, BP gives political contributions to GOP leaders," The Hill, April 19, 2011
6. "A Year After Gulf Tragedy, Offshore Oil Companies Still Shielded by Liability Limits," ProPublica, April 19, 2011

BP to provide $1 billion toward early restoration projects in the Gulf

2011-04-22T12:45:00.000-05:00

Coastal marshes, like these in Louisiana, could be restored with this funding.

Under an unprecedented agreement, BP has agreed to provide $1 billion toward early restoration projects in the Gulf of Mexico. This is the largest agreement of its kind ever reached. These projects will begin to address impacts to natural resources caused by the Deepwater BP oil spill.

Early restoration is restoration that can beimplemented prior to the completion of the natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) process to achieve restoration faster. So, this agreement can be seen as BP's down payment toward the yet-to-be determined full cost of the damage to the Gulf Coast.

The agreement does not affect the ultimate liability from the spill for BP (and the other responsible parties) but provides an opportunity to help restoration get started sooner. This money will put people to work restoring the Gulf without having to wait for the results of the NRDA and pending litigation.

Restoration also will address the lost use of natural resources by the people living, working, and visiting the area. Project selection will follow a transparent process, overseen by the trustees.
Types of restoration that could be funded include:
rebuilding of coastal marshes,
replenishment of damaged beaches,
conservation of sensitive areas for ocean habitat for impacted wildlife, and
restoration of barrier islands and wetlands that provide natural protection from storms.
BP will continue to fund the NRDA and, together with the other responsible parties, ultimately will compensate the public for all the impacts from the spill.

Learn more in this press release issued by the trustees or read the full text of the agreement (pdf).

Got this e-mail as a forward? Subscribe to our e-mail list and directly receive updates about the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process.

BP oil spill effects still being seen

2011-04-22T08:35:00.000-05:00

April 20, 2011 10:06 AM CST

BP oil spill effects still being seen

Students perform a flash mob in the Ferguson Center on Wednesday to demonstrate the effect that the BP oil spill had on the environment. / CW | Drew Hoover

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the largest oil spills in history.
The impact of the spill continues to affect those who live and work on the Gulf coast even though the well was capped in July.
Elizabeth Gravlee, a junior from Fairhope, Ala., said the spill affected the Gulf coast economy including the real estate, tourism, seafood and retail industries within the past year.
Gravlee’s parents’ businesses were directly impacted from the oil spill because they both rely on business from tourists. In the past year, she said there were not as many customers.
“I think everyone is starting forget about the oil spill because there are not any visible effects now,” Gravlee said. “However, we will probably still see effects from the spill years down the road.”
Gravlee said Gulf coast residents have tried to move on from the spill and hope everything will be back to normal soon.
“I am curious to see if the tourism will pick up during the upcoming summer months,” she said.
John Wathen, the Hurricane Creekkeeper, recently won an award for the blog he started after visiting Mobile right after the oil rig sank.
Wathen said since there was a lot of news coming in quickly, he kept the blog to help him remember everything and save links.
“To be honest, I didn’t feel like we were being told the truth,” Wathen said. “I created the BP Slick blog in order to catalog the news as it came in as an archive and supplement it with my own reports, photographs and videos.”
Matthew Jenny, an assistant professor in the department of biological sciences, said the extent of the effects to the Gulf of Mexico are still being studied and scientists are still trying to determine the oil’s impact on the ecosystem.
However, Jenny said, scientists are confident that the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem will recover from the spill in time.
“Every ecosystem is different and therefore the effects of an oil spill will be different for every ecosystem,” Jenny said. “While a specific time frame cannot be determined, I think there is a good chance of full recovery within the next decade.”
Wathen, who just visited the coast last weekend, said right now, 99 percent of the Gulf is open for fishing and has supposedly tested safe for consumption, but the fishermen won’t eat their catch.
Wathen said the effects of the spill are still evident along the coast.
“There’s oil in the shrimp, there’s oil in the crabs,” Wathen said. “We’ve got dolphins washing up on our beaches in unprecedented numbers with unprecedented lesions on their skin. This is not normal.”
Doctors are also starting to see sick people with lesions on their skin, Wathen said. They are being treated for Staph infection, but the antibiotics aren’t working.
Wathen said these lesions are coming from a genetically engineered bacterium that has been released in the Gulf to consume the oil.
“If you think about oil and human beings,” Wathen said, “we’re both carbon-based features on the earth, and if it eats carbon, it eats us as well. Getting in the Gulf right now, in my personal opinion, is not a wise thing to do whether you can see oil or not.”
However, Jenny said no bacteria were released into the Gulf to eat the oil.
“There are naturally occurring bacteria in the Gulf of Mexico that are capable of efficiently degrading the oil, and they have been there for about as long as the Gulf has existed,” Jenny said. “They have no detrimental effects on animals or humans.”
Jenny said the Gulf is safe for swimming because most of the inshore oil along the coast is likely buried in sediment and will continue to degrade.
Gravlee also said she thinks the Gulf is safe for swimming and also fishing and other activities.
Olivia Bensinger, a member of the University of Alabama Environmental Council, said right now, students need to have the right information about the spill.
“We need to start putting out an effort to make BP pay for the rest of the clean up and for them to stop using toxic dispersants,” Bensinger said. “The clean up workers are getting sick, not just from the oil, but from the chemicals used to clean it. We just need to stay strong against BP and not forget the people that are still fighting for their lives today.”
Bensinger said she would not recommend students going to help with the clean up effort because regulations are not being followed and people are getting sick.
Instead, she said students should continue to keep pressure on those responsible.
Like Bensinger, Wathen said accountability is an absolute must.
In addition to accountability, Wathen said there needs to be total transparency with all aspects of information.
“The American public needs to have immediate access to all information coming out of the Gulf of Mexico so we can make educated decisions in the nation’s breadbasket about whether to take a vacation and subject our grandchildren to what could be a toxic cocktail,” he said.
Wathen also encouraged people to start voting their environmental conscience instead of voting the same way as their parents.
Just because Alabama, Louisiana, Florida and Mississippi are historically red states, Wathen said there is no reason they should remain that way if the existing political structure allows disasters like the BP spill to happen.
“I’m not a Republican, and I’m not a Democrat,” Wathen said. “I am an American who votes for the person who hurts me the very least.”
Most importantly on the anniversary of the BP oil spill, Bensinger said it is important to remember the eleven brave men who lost their lives on the oilrig.
“I would like students to remember this day as mournful for the lives lost, but not in an apathetic way,” she said. “This anniversary should call people to action. There are still people being affected, and on this day we need to remember them.”

10 Reasons to Still Be Pissed Off About the BP Disaster

2011-04-22T08:03:00.000-05:00

10 Reasons to Still Be Pissed Off About the BP Disaster

Photo: John Hazlett

Your guide to the worst oil spill in US history, one year later.

— By Kate Sheppard

Tue Apr. 19, 2011 12:01 AM PDT

1. BP is gunning to get back to drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. When the Department of Interior issued its first deepwater permit since the Deepwater Horizon disaster, it was for a well that BP owns half of. Earlier this month, company officials also announced that they are seeking an agreement with the US government to resume drilling at their 10 deepwater wells in the Gulf this July, arguing that they will follow tougher safety rules, the New York Times reported earlier this month. This comes even as the government is said to be considering manslaughter charges against the oil giant for the deaths of 11 workers last year.
2. People are sick. Nearly three-quarters of Gulf coast residents that the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental justice group, polled this year reported health concerns that they believe are related to the spill. Of the 954 residents in seven coastal communities, almost half said they had experienced health problems like coughing, skin and eye irritation, or headaches that are consistent with common symptoms of chemical exposure. While the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is conducting health monitoring for spill cleanup workers, residents in the areas closest to the spill are concerned that their own health problems have gone unattended.
3. Fish and other sea life in the Gulf are still struggling after the disaster. The death toll for dolphins and whales in the Gulf may have been 50 times higher than the number of bodies found, according to a recent paper in Conservation Letters. Earlier this year, a large number of dead dolphin calves were found on the coast, and scientists have linked many of those deaths to the oil disaster. Anglers are also reporting dark lesions, rotting fins, and discoloration in the fish they're catching in the Gulf, as the St. Petersburg Times reported last week.
4. While those most affected by the spill are still waiting for payments, some state and local officials have been making bank off the disaster. As the Associated Press reported recently, some local governments have been using the $754 million from BP to buy iPads, SUVs, and laptops. Meanwhile, BP just gave another $30 million to Florida to help entice tourists onto its beaches this summer.
5. Congress hasn't changed a single law on oil and gas drilling in the past year. A year later, the liability cap for companies that cause a major spill is still just $75 million, companies with dismal safety records can still obtain new leases, and they can still avoid compensating families when workers die on rigs. In January, the National Oil Spill Commission released 300 pages of findings and recommendations that Congress has largely ignored.
6. GOP House members want more drilling off all our coasts with less environmental review. The Natural Resources Committee is considering a trio of bills that would open new areas for drilling in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans for drilling, speed up the process of approving permits, and force the Department of Interior to move forward with lease sales in the central Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Virginia without further environmental review. And, for good measure, the legislation would even create economic incentives for oil companies to use seismic technology to survey for oil reserves, letting taxpayers cover half the cost.
7. "Fail safe" technology isn't fail safe. The blowout preventer (BOP), the device that was supposed to stop a catastrophic spill after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, failed due to a faulty design and a bent piece of pipe, according to a report released in March. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement contracted the Norwegian firm Det Norske Veritas to conduct a forensic examination of the BOP. The blind shear rams, which were supposed cut through and close off the well, failed because a pipe had buckled, the 551-page report concluded—a problem that casts doubt on all the other BOPs in use today.
8. The country's offshore regulator has a new name, but it's still got plenty of problems. The much-maligned Minerals Management Service (MMS) got a branding overhaul and is now known as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE). And while it's made a number of changes in the past year, there are still plenty of concerns about whether the agency is up to the task. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and BOEMRE head Michael Bromwich acknowledge that it will take years of reforms to ensure that drilling is safe for workers and the environment.
9. Fewer than half of people who have filed claims from the spill have been paid. The Gulf Coast Claims Facility, under the direction of administrator Kenneth Feinberg, has approved approximately 300,000 claims out of the 857,000 it has received from individuals and businesses, totaling $3.8 billion. The claims facility cited the "unprecedented magnitude of the task" in its announcement marking the year since the spill. A number of residents have grown frustrated with the process and say they would rather sue than wait on the claims facility.
10. BP still doesn't want you to see its tar balls. That's right—even a year later, BP is still blocking reporters from the beaches.

Louisiana Musician Finds His Own ‘Solution to Pollution’

2011-04-20T11:49:00.000-05:00

Louisiana Musician Finds His Own ‘Solution to Pollution’

Richard Ziglar - KRVS - Lafayette, LA

Entry Date: April 19, 2011
Total Time: 00:07:47

Drew Landry’s "BP Blues" helped focus attention on the plight of fishermen and oilfield workers after the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Now Landry is collaborating with blues man Dr. John on a CD of environmental songs. A sampler will be released April 20, the one-year anniversary of the oil spill, during a New Orleans concert. You can find details of the concert at http://guitarsforthegulf.com.

GULF RESIDENTS RALLY BEHIND THE SICK AT TIPITINA’S FRENCH QUARTER LOCATION & SHED BBQ JOINTS IN COASTAL STATES

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Dirty Cajuns

Tipitina’s French Quarter location, Shed BBQ & Blues Joints across the Gulf Coast, and venues around the country are throwing concerts to honor the 11 that died in the explosion & help the Louisiana Environmental Action Network get symptom sheets to folks that have fallen ill from exposure to oil and the record amounts of dispersants sprayed in Gulf waters. Here are the events we have planned. Please let people know how they can be part of the Solution to Pollution. We are asking folks to donate guitars of some value. These instruments will be signed by artists & all the money collected from their sale and proceeds will help Louisiana Environmental Action Network continue to help those sick from toxic conditions in the Gulf and Louisiana artists finish the Solution to Pollution project.

New Orleans events on 4/20

-5PM Future of the Gulf Town Hall Meeting 5PM- 7:30 Upstairs @ Tipitina’s French Quarter

-6PM Free Show/Press Conference @ the Louisiana Music Factory with Drew Landry (acoustic)

-6:45PM SECONDLINE FOR THE GULF leaves from the Louisiana Music Factory

Rev. Goat Carson’s 2nd Line w/ the Kinfolk Brass Band Mardi Gras Indians/Native Americans… Fi Yi Yi, Dancing Man 504, The Grayhawk Band, and many more roll into Tipitina’s in the Quarter at 7:30

-7:30PM THE SOLUTION TO POLLUTION CONCERT w/ Dr. John, The Treater Band, Drew Landry, Shannon McNally & the entire Second Line.

THE SOLUTION TO POLLUTION PROJECT/GUITARS FOR THE GULF 4/20

The ‘Solution to Pollution Project’ was Bobby Charles’ vision for introducing children at an early age to sustainability through music and environmental lesson plans. “Bobby Charles left behind some of the best songs of all time, but his real passion was the three song tape & lesson plan he created called ‘Solution to Pollution’,” said Louisiana singer/songwriter Drew Landry. Mac Rebennack, better known as Dr. John, a lifelong friend of Bobby Charles, believes the deep water disaster can be a catalyst for changing the way we treat our planet. Mac decided it was time to bring back the ‘Solution to Pollution’ and Wish Nails donated time for the Project at Dockside Studio where Bobby recorded the original Solution to Pollution EP. Louisiana musicians will showcase some of these songs at the one-year spill memorial concert.

A five song EP featuring Dr. John singing the songs of Bobby Charles & Drew Landry along with many other Gulf Coast musicians will be available at the concert and for sale at the Louisiana Music Factory. Funds collected at the concert and from the Deep Water Memorial EP will go toward completing a full-length album and implementing Bobby Charles’ environmental ideas and a few of our own in local communities.
Advance tickets $25 available at www.tipitinas.com, or $30 tickets at the door.

One year later, we are STILL waiting for action from Congress

2011-04-20T08:29:00.002-05:00

One year ago tomorrow, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, killing 11 workers and sending an estimated 4.9 million gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.

One year later, we are STILL waiting for action from Congress, while the national media has largely moved on.

Join in solidarity with Gulf Coast communities as they stand up and say: "The Oil Is Still Here, and So Are We!"

Late last week, two bills (S.861 and S.862) were introduced in the Senate calling for 80 percent of Clean Water Act fines from the BP oil disaster to return to the Gulf Coast. While this is an encouraging step, much more needs to be done to finally address the recovery needs of struggling Gulf communities.

Here's how you can help:

Call your senators and tell them we demand action NOW on legislation to restore the Gulf Coast, prevent future oil disasters, and end the billions in taxpayer handouts to negligent Big Oil companies.

Stand with Gulf Coast communities on Facebook as they counter Big Oil spin by telling the world "The Oil Is Still Here, and So Are We"

It's time to restore the Gulf Coast and protect all coastal communities from future tragedies. It's time to stop the billions in subsidies Big Oil receives every year while they continue to pollute our communities and endanger our health. And it's time to ensure that we never face another catastrophic spill by ending our dangerous and deadly addiction to oil.

Don't let politicians and the media forget the devastation caused by the BP oil disaster -- spread the word about tomorrow's one year anniversary.

Thanks for all that you do to protect the environment.

Sarah Hodgdon
Sierra Club Conservation Director

Gulf Coast Health Forum April, 2011

2011-04-20T07:48:00.000-05:00

Gulf Coast Health Forum
April, 2011

SkyTruth, SouthWings and Waterkeeper Alliance Launch Gulf of Mexico Monitoring Consortium

2011-04-20T07:11:00.000-05:00

For Immediate Release

April 19, 2011 12:00 pm EDT

Contact: John Amos, President, 304.260.8886, John@skytruth.org

SkyTruth, SouthWings and Waterkeeper Alliance Launch Gulf of Mexico Monitoring Consortium

Shepherdstown, WV. - Today, SkyTruth, SouthWings, and Waterkeeper Alliance launch the Gulf Monitoring Consortium: an innovative partnership that is systematically monitoring oil pollution in the Gulf of Mexico with satellite images and mapping, aerial reconnaissance and photography, and on-the-water observation and sampling. This unique effort led by three non-profit organizations will collect and publish images, observations and sampling data of the Gulf of Mexico to rapidly respond to reported and suspected oil pollution incidents. SkyTruth, SouthWings and the Waterkeeper Alliance worked collaboratively during the 2010 Gulf disaster to use their unique expertise to bring the truth about the spill to the public. The natural fit of the services and tools of these organizations working together will help ensure that future disasters are quickly discovered and documented, and that the story is fully presented to the public. This newly formed alliance will actively bear witness to current, ongoing, and future oil pollution to fill the information gap exposed since the tragic BP / Deepwater Horizon explosion one year ago tomorrow.

During the BP spill SkyTruth, SouthWings and the Waterkeeper Alliance detected and documented an unrelated, chronic leak from a platform destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004. For several days following an oil spill that came ashore March 20 in Grand Isle, Louisiana, government officials provided little information to the public on the source or severity of the pollution. Concerned citizens, NGOs and the media scrambled to figure out what was happening, requesting help from our organizations.

“Damaging rumors and speculation take hold in the absence of good information, leading people in Gulf communities still reeling from the BP disaster to fear the worst: another major offshore spill” said John Amos, President of SkyTruth. “And the official government pollution reports, in many cases submitted by the polluters themselves, don ’t match what we observe on satellite images. That’s why we’ve formed an alliance with SouthWings and Waterkeeper, to systematically evaluate reported or suspected pollution incidents in a coordinated approach from space, from the air, and on the water, so we can fill the dangerous information gap that currently exists.”

“Waterkeepers are on the frontline of suspected pollution holding both the government and industry accountable. This partnership allows us to collect and distribute information quickly that might otherwise take us days or even weeks to do so, allowing us to better stand up for our waterways and our communities” said Renee Blanchard, Save Our Gulf Coordinator for the Waterkeeper Alliance and Gulf coast native. “In the wake of the BP oil disaster there is a heightened interest in the number and size of Gulf coast oil spills. Gulf coast communities currently must navigate cumbersome governmental databases often with a large lag time to gather information on Gulf coast oil discharges.”

Of the Gulf Monitoring Consortium, Southwings Executive Director Hume Davenport states, “SouthWings’ volunteer pilots enable agents of change a view of environmental degradation, from a vantage point generally unavailable to non-profit organizations. This Alliance provides our colleagues as well as governmental decision makers and industry executives a go-to resource for accurate information on oil pollution incidents. We believe the data and imagery we capture and compile through this collaborative effort will result in better informed decisions to protect the Gulf of Mexico.”

The Gulf Monitoring Consortium is a rapid response alliance that collects, analyzes and publishes images and other information by space, air and water in order to bring truth to oil pollution incidents that occur in the Gulf of Mexico.

SkyTruth uses satellite and aerial images to investigate and illustrate environmental incidents and issues. SkyTruth’s President, John Amos, testified on the risks posed by offshore drilling at a November 2009 hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources. SkyTruth is headquartered in Shepherdstown, WV, and champions the use of imagery to investigate and monitor the management of public lands and waters.

SouthWings enables those we fly to better understand, from an otherwise inaccessible vantage point, the globally significant ecosystems of the Southeast. Through the aerial perspective, SouthWings' service provides experiential understanding of environmental challenges and opportunities for conservation. This perspective fosters understanding of scale/magnitude, and the relationships of cumulative and compounding environmental effects. We provide a means to educate the public and elected officials, media, community leaders, researchers and conservation organizations.

Waterkeeper Alliance provides a way for communities to stand up for their right to clean water and for the wise and equitable use of water resources, both locally and globally. The vision of the Waterkeeper movement is for fishable, swimmable and drinkable waterways worldwide. Our belief is that the best way to achieve this vision is through the Waterkeeper method of grassroots advocacy.

Gulf Monitoring Consortium Spokespeople:

SkyTruth – John Amos, President, 304-260-8886 mobile / 304-885-4581 office

SouthWings – Hume Davenport, Executive Director, 828-225-5949

Waterkeeper Alliance – Renee Blanchard, Save Our Gulf Coordinator, 202-370-3704

Louisiana BAYOUKEEPER goes to London to protest BP

2011-04-19T11:21:00.000-05:00

Louisiana BAYOUKEEPERs Mike Roberts and Tracy Kuhns traveled to London to attend BP stockholder meetings WITH PROXIES. Neither was allowed to enter by authority of PB=Been Peed on!

I love being a part of this WATERKEEPER family! Congratulations to Mike and Tracy for their heroic attempt to bring reason to BP.

Mike told me " I can't speak in front of cameras" when I filmed the video below this CNN take. I have to disagree! Mike and Tracy personify the voice of the Gulf Fishermen

http://bpoilslick.blogspot.com/2010/05/bp-slick-and-life-on-bayou-barataria.html

Fishing For Answers In The Gulf

2011-04-19T08:49:00.003-05:00

Fishing For Answers In The Gulf
Dean Blanchard speaks out about the fishing situation in the Gulf of Mexico
http://www.hulu.com/nbc-nightly-news-with-brian-williams

What lies Beneath: Oil Still Lurks Under Surface

2011-04-19T07:53:00.000-05:00

Clean Water Act Fines Must Be Returned To Gulf Coast States!April 18, 2011

Dear Friends,

It's time to stand with our Gulf Coast Waterkeepers and demand that Congress return all Clean Water Act penalties to the Gulf Coast.

Write To Your U.S. Congressional Representative Right Now!

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon well exploded 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana. The explosion killed eleven men and triggered the biggest environmental disaster our nation has ever seen. Between April 20 and July 18, it is estimated that 250 million gallons of oil were discharged into our environment.

The number of gallons discharged is extremely important, not just to help us understand how much oil we have left to clean up, but also to help the government determine an accurate penalty for violating the Clean Water Act. There is no federal legislation requiring BP's Clean Water Act fines are returned to the Gulf Coast where they belong.

If a disaster similar to this were to happen in your community, there is no guarantee that any of the resulting penalties would return to your community to help with restoration. When you cut your finger, the place to put the Band-aid is on your finger. When an oil company damages the Gulf of Mexico with a major oil spill, the place to put the fines is back in the states along the Gulf Coast.

We need your help to keep the pressure on Congress to make sure that BP pays to restore the Gulf of Mexico and Gulf communities. One year later, the Gulf Coast still needs your help. The BP oil disaster is not over. The oil is not gone. Gulf communities have still not been made whole again.

Click To Write Your U.S. Congressional Representatives Right Now

Please take action right now to stand with your Gulf Coast neighbors!

Sincerely,

Your Friends At Waterkeeper Alliance
The Voice of the World's Water

Waterkeeper Alliance
17 Battery Place, Suite 1329
New York, NY 10004

o. 212.747.0622

f. 212.7470.611

email: info1@waterkeeper.org

Web: www.waterkeeper.org

"5 Million Barrels of Oil Does Not Disappear": Author, Activist Antonia Juhasz on the BP Spill, One Year Later

2011-04-18T12:44:00.000-05:00

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the worst maritime oil spill in history. Last year on April 20 an oil rig leased by oil giant BP exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and releasing nearly 200 million gallons of oil, tens of millions of gallons of natural gas and 1.8 million gallons of chemicals. We speak to Antonia Juhasz, author of the new book, Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill. Juhasz attended the BP shareholders meeting in London last week and spoke on behalf of Gulf Coast residents denied entry. [includes rush transcript]

It's Not Over / by Steve Bartlett

2011-04-18T07:43:00.000-05:00

The disaster that started on April 20th, 2010 when the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform erupted into flames continues.

Sick fish suggest oil spill still affecting gulf

2011-04-16T11:46:00.000-05:00

Sick fish suggest oil spill still affecting gulf

By Craig Pittman, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Sunday, April 17, 2011

Fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico have caught red snapper with bacterial infections that have eaten through skin. Scientists say it’s a sign a toxin has compromised the fish’s immune system.
	[Courtesy of Jim Cowan, Louisiana State University]

A year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster spewed oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida beaches are relatively clean, the surf seems clear and the tourists are returning. But there are signs that the disaster is continuing to affect marine life in the gulf far from where humans can observe it.
Over the winter, anglers who had been working the gulf for decades began hauling in red snapper that didn't look like anything they had seen before.
The fish had dark lesions on their skin, some the size of a 50-cent piece. On some of them, the lesions had eaten a hole straight through to the muscle tissue. Many had fins that were rotting away and discolored or even striped skin. Inside, they had enlarged livers, gallbladders, and bile ducts.
"The fish have a bacterial infection and a parasite infection that's consistent with a compromised immune system," said Jim Cowan, an oceanographer at Louisiana State University, who has been examining them. "There's no doubt it's associated with a chronic exposure to a toxin."
He believes the toxin in question is oil, given where and when the fish were caught, their symptoms, and the similarity to other incidents involving oil spills. But he is awaiting toxicology tests to be certain.
Cowan said he hasn't seen anything like these fish in 25 years of studying the gulf, which persuades him that "it would be a pretty big coincidence if it wasn't associated with the oil spill."
If he were a detective, he'd be ready to make an arrest.
"It's a circumstantial case," he said, "but at the same time I think we can get a conviction."
Red snapper are reef fish that feed on mantis shrimp, swimming crabs and other small creatures found in the sediment on the gulf floor. Anglers catch them at anywhere from 60 to 200 feet deep. In addition to the snapper, some sheepshead have turned up with similar symptoms, Cowan said.
The fish with lesions and other woes have been caught anywhere from 10 to 80 miles offshore between Pensacola and the mouth of the Mississippi River, an area hit hard by last year's oil spill, Cowan said.
"They're finding them out near the shelf edge, near the spill site," said Will Patterson, a marine biology professor at the University of West Florida.
Patterson, who has been studying reef fish in the gulf for past two years, has sent some of the strange catches to a laboratory for toxicology tests. He suspects Cowan is correct about the oil being the culprit but is withholding judgment.
Red snapper are a popular seafood, with a delicate sweet flavor whether served broiled, baked, steamed, poached, fried or grilled. Asked whether the sick fish might pose a hazard to humans who ate them, Cowan said nobody would want to touch these, much less cook them.
"It's pretty nasty," Cowan said. "If you saw this, you wouldn't eat it."
Most of the fishermen who caught the weird snappers tossed them back, weighed anchor and moved to another spot, he said. But a few dropped their suspect catch into a box separate from the healthy fish and brought them to shore to show to scientists.
Several of those scientists discussed the disquieting discovery at a conference at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg recently.
"We're seeing fish anomalies, strange-looking fish," said Richard Snyder, director of the Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation at the University of West Florida, who has accompanied fishermen going out to collect samples for study. "Wound-healing is becoming an issue."
The key is what happened to the livers and bile, said Ernst Peebles of the University of South Florida, who is far more cautious about attributing the lesions and discoloration to the spill because they could be caused by something else.
The liver, gallbladder and bile system filter out hydrocarbons — oil components — that the fish might consume while eating their prey. If those systems are enlarged, that means they have become stressed out. That, Peebles said, "is very consistent with the impacts of oil."
If those systems quit working, that would compromise the immune system, Cowan said.
Does that mean the crustaceans and other prey that the red snapper have been eating are contaminated with oil? "I don't think anybody's looked," said Cowan.
However, University of South Florida scientists have found some microscopic organisms called "foraminifera" — forams, for short — that are also showing signs that something troubling is going on in the gulf. Forams live on the gulf bottom and are eaten by worms, crustaceans and fish.
Ben Flower of USF said they have found forams in the gulf "with deformed shells. . . . It was striking." There is evidence of hydrocarbons from oil in the sediment, but test results that could show if that's the cause of the deformity are still in the works, he said.
The symptoms displayed by the red snapper are similar to something that happened four years after the 1989 Exxon-Valdez spill in Alaska. In 1993 the herring fishery in Prince William Sound crashed. The herring succumbed to fungus and a virus — their immune systems had been compromised.
However, a 1999 report noted that "the extent to which the exposure to oil contributed to the 1993 disease outbreak is uncertain."
Gil McRae, director of the state's marine science laboratory in St. Petersburg, said he thought it was "irresponsible" for scientists to be attributing the red snapper's symptoms to the spill without further testing and analysis.
All of the scientists involved said they were nervous about what impact this might have on the gulf's seafood industry, which still has not recovered from the shutdowns and bad publicity during last year's crisis. Peebles pointed out that any premature release of information could also scare fishermen away from helping the scientists investigate what was going on.
"Now we're hiding information because political and economic interests don't want you to say anything because it would affect economic interests," said William "Bill" Hogarth, a former federal fisheries official who now oversees the Florida Institute of Oceanography. "But fishermen, they're seeing fish that are deformed."
Craig Pittman can be reached at craig@sptimes.com.

[Last modified: Apr 16, 2011 12:21 PM]

2010-2011 Cetacean Unusual Mortality Event in Northern Gulf of Mexico

2011-04-13T08:43:00.000-05:00

2010-2011 Cetacean Unusual Mortality Event in Northern Gulf of Mexico

Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 (as amended), an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) has been declared for cetaceans (whales and dolphins) in the northern Gulf of Mexico (Texas/Louisiana border through Franklin County, FL) from February 2010 through the present.
Note: These numbers are preliminary and may be subject to change. As of April 10, 2011, the UME involves 418 Cetacean "strandings" in the Northern Gulf of Mexico (4% stranded alive and 96% stranded dead). Of these:

Cetaceans Stranded	Phase of Oil Spill Response	Dates
113 cetaceans stranded	prior to the response phase for the oil spill	February 1, 2010- April 29, 2010
115 cetaceans stranded or were reported dead offshore	during the initial response phase to the oil spill	April 30, 2010- November 2, 2010
190 cetaceans stranded	after the initial response phase ended	November 3, 2010- April 10, 2011

FAQs on the investigations of the ongoing dolphin die-off and the potential impacts of the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill on marine mammals are available.

All stranded cetaceans (dolphins and whales) from Franklin County, FL to the Texas/ Louisiana border.
NOTE: Historical data from 2002-2009 excludes 2 previous UMEs in the panhandle of Florida (March-April, 2004 and Sept. 2005-April 2006). Historical data from 2008 through present are unvalidated and numbers may be subject to change as more information becomes available. Data include any strandings reported on or before April 10, 2011. Data from 2010 and 2011 are considered preliminary and may be subject to change as more information becomes available. Raw historical data are also available.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apl	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Average (2002-2009)	6.6	6.9	17.9	11.5	5.1	3.6	4.1	3.5	4.0	4.0	2.6	3.8
2010 Total	5	11	62	40	35	29	10	19	17	5	11	12
2011	24	62	63	18

All stranded bottlenose dolphins from Franklin County, FL to the Texas/ Louisiana border.
NOTE: Historical data from 2002-2009 excludes 2 previous UMEs in the panhandle of Florida (March-April, 2004 and Sept. 2005-April 2006). Historical data from 2008 through present are unvalidated and numbers may be subject to change as more information becomes available. Data include any strandings reported on or before April 10, 2011. Data from 2010 and 2011 are considered preliminary and may be subject to change as more information becomes available. Raw historical data are also available.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apl	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Average (2002-2009)	5.4	6.6	16.6	10.4	4.8	3.1	3.3	2.8	2.0	3.3	1.8	2.8
2010 Total	3	9	56	37	35	22	9	17	14	5	8	11
2011	23	59	62	17

Stranded bottlenose dolphins from Franklin County, FL to the Texas/ Louisiana border with reported actual or estimated lengths less than 115 cm. Bottlenose dolphins <115 cm in total length are either premature, stillborn, or neonatal.
NOTE: Historical data from 2002-2009 excludes 2 previous UMEs in the panhandle of Florida (March-April, 2004 and Sept. 2005-April 2006). Historical data from 2008 through present are unvalidated and numbers may be subject to change as more information becomes available. Data include any strandings reported on or before April 10, 2011. Data from 2010 and 2011 are considered preliminary and may be subject to change as more information becomes available. Raw historical data are also available.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apl
Average (2002-2007)	1.0	2.2	6.3	2.2
2010 Total	0	1	11	10
2011	6	36	20	6

Cetacean (Dolphin and Whale) Strandings in the Northern Gulf of Mexico from January 1-April 10, 2011

Documented 2011 cetacean strandings in the northern Gulf of Mexico through April 10, 2011
Bottlenose dolphins are shown as circles and other species as squares. Bottlenose dolphins with reported actual or estimated lengths of less than 115 cm are shown as a circle with a black dot inside. Pink markers show the most recent week of data while green markers are all other cases since January 1, 2011.

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Defense Department considers military resort on Dauphin Island

2011-04-11T10:38:00.000-05:00

Defense Department considers military resort on Dauphin Island
The Department of Defense is considering building a resort on Dauphin Island for active duty and retired military personnel, according to town officials and documents circulated among members of the island’s property owners association.
The Pentagon has a number of similar facilities scattered around the country, typically designed to appeal to service members and their families, offering reduced rental rates compared to commercial establishments.
Representatives from the defense department have visited the island twice, studying the possibilities, island mayor Jeff Collier said. The next step, he said, is for the government to conduct a cost-benefit analysis.
“We’ve heard all this talk from politicians about getting this BP fine money and using it for this and that on the Gulf Coast. Well, none of that has happened,” Collier said. “This is a potential way for the island to attract some new visitors and provide a little rest and relaxation for the people out there risking their lives for all of us every day.”
For years, the U.S. Coast Guard maintained a popular group of cabins on the island for use by active duty members and their families. The Coast Guard cabins were destroyed by Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, said Bruce Jones, Property Owners Association president, leading to a reduction in the number of visitors on the island.
“There has been a lot of interest in getting something similar back. What we are looking at now is a little broader,” Jones said. “The Armed Forces Recreation Center would perhaps be bigger, with better amenities.”
Isle Dauphine golf course might come into play
Jones said the Isle Dauphine golf course, owned by the association, might come into play, along with other land owned by the group.
Documents circulated among the property owners suggest the facility might be created through a partnership between the town of Dauphin Island and a private entity that together would “finance, construct and operate the AFRC hotel/recreation complex.”
The documents propose using a number of beachfront parcels adjacent to the golf course and owned by the island residents.
Jones said a majority of the association’s board members favored going forward with the project.
There are some members opposed, he said.
Some members contacted the Press-Register anonymously and expressed reservations about losing access to the golf course, as well as other concerns.
“Bottom line, our golf course needs more players,” Jones said, discussing the cost of running the club. “We’re looking into going forward for the good of the island and the good of the course. The defense department might come with a proposal we love. Or maybe with one we’ll not like at all.”
Collier said any facility that came to the island would have to fit in with existing building codes — which prohibit the giant multi-story condos and hotels seen on other Gulf of Mexico beaches.
He said island officials had provided information that the Department of Defense requested, including a list of available amenities, such as charter boats, fishing guides, golf courses, tennis courts, boat ramps, restaurants, public parks and the beach facilities.
“If we can do something to bring economic development to the island, bolster our local businesses and do something for our military men and women, how much better can it get?” Collier said.
“We’re at the point of wading in slowly to see what they are thinking. We are not committed to anything so far, and neither is the Department of Defense. There will be plenty of time for considering our options.”

AP IMPACT: BP buys Gulf Coast millions in gear

2011-04-11T08:57:00.000-05:00

Apr 11, 9:14 AM EDT

AP IMPACT: BP buys Gulf Coast millions in gear

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, MIKE SCHNEIDER and MELINDA DESLATTE
Associated Press

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- In the year since the Gulf oil spill, officials along the coast have gone on a spending spree with BP money, dropping tens of millions of dollars on gadgets, vehicles and gear - much of which had little to do with the cleanup, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The oil giant opened its checkbook while the crisis was still unfolding last spring and poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Gulf Coast communities with few strings attached.

In sleepy Ocean Springs, Miss., reserve police officers got Tasers. The sewer department in nearby Gulfport bought a $300,000 vacuum truck that never sucked up a drop of oil. Biloxi, Miss., bought a dozen SUVS. A parish president in Louisiana got herself a top-of-the-line iPad, her spokesman a $3,100 laptop. And a county in Florida spent $560,000 on rock concerts to promote its oil-free beaches.

In every case, communities said the new, more powerful equipment was needed to deal at least indirectly with the spill.

In many cases, though, the connection between the spill and the expenditures was remote, and lots of money wound up in cities and towns little touched by the goo that washed up on shore, the AP found in records requested from more than 150 communities and dozens of interviews.

Florida's tourism agency sent chunks of a $32 million BP grant as far away as Miami-Dade and Broward counties on the state's east coast, which never saw oil from the disaster.

Some officials also lavished campaign donors and others with lucrative contracts. A Florida county commissioner's girlfriend, for instance, opened up a public relations firm a few weeks after the spill and soon landed more than $14,000 of the tiny county's $236,000 cut of BP cash for a month's work.

The April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and spawned the nation's worst offshore oil spill. As BP spent months trying to cap the well and contain the spill, cities and towns along the coast from Louisiana to Florida worried about the toll on their economies - primarily tourism and the fishing industry - as well as the environmental impact.

All told, BP PLC says it has paid state and local governments more than $754 million as of March 31, and has reimbursed the federal government for another $694 million.

BP set few conditions on how states could use the money, stating only that it should go to mitigate the effects of the spill. The contracts require states to provide the company with at least an annual report on how the money has been used, BP spokeswoman Hejdi Feick said. But it's unclear what consequences, if any, the states could face if they didn't comply.

Some of the money BP doled out to states and municipalities hasn't been spent yet, but the AP's review accounts for more than $550 million of it. More than $400 million went toward clear needs like corralling the oil, propping up tourism and covering overtime.

Much of the remaining chunk consists of equally justifiable expenses, but it's also riddled with millions of dollars' worth of contracts and purchases with no clear connection to the spill, the AP found.

William Walker, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, said it's clear now that communities bought more equipment than they wound up needing. But he doesn't regret handing out BP's money freely.

"At the time we were making these decisions, there were millions of gallons of oil going into the Gulf of Mexico with no clear idea when it would stop," Walker said. "We didn't wait. We tried to get (grant money) into circulation as quickly as possible. We didn't have any extra time. We needed to move when we moved."

---

When oil from the ruptured Macondo well began to lap at Louisiana's marshes, BP deployed an army of workers to sop it up and hired contractors who specialize in disaster cleanup.

Even with BP and the federal government taking the lead, many communities weren't content to rely on equipment they had before the spill.

Lafourche (luh-FOOSH') Parish President Charlotte Randolph billed BP for an iPad, saying she needed it in addition to her parish-paid Blackberry to communicate with staff and other officials during the crisis. But she didn't buy the iPad until Aug. 26, a month and a half after the well was capped and several weeks after the federal government said much of the oil had been skimmed, burned off, dispersed or dissolved.

"Just because it wasn't streaming from the well any longer doesn't mean it wasn't approaching our shore," Randolph told the AP. "My work is very important. Perhaps one day you could follow me somewhere and learn what my work involves. I must be in contact at all times."

Lafourche Parish spokesman Brennan Matherne, who bought a new Dell laptop and accessories for $3,165, said working on the spill had worn out the computer he got just a year earlier for $2,700.

Biloxi, home to a strip of casinos overlooking the Mississippi Sound, bought 14 sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks, two boats, two dump trucks and a backhoe loader with its $1.4 million share of BP grant money.

Mayor A.J. Holloway, who drove a city-owned 2006 GMC Yukon before the spill, now has one of the vehicles the city purchased with the BP grant - a black 2011 Chevy Tahoe 1500 LT that cost more than $35,000. The city's public works director and chief engineer also are driving SUVs bought with BP money.

Holloway declined to answer questions about his new vehicle. City spokesman Vincent Creel said the mayor has used it to travel to "countless meetings" about the spill and to gauge the city's response with his own eyes.

"The mayor also uses the vehicle in the normal course of his duties, just as other BP equipment is used in the course of day-to-day business," Creel wrote in an email.

Walker, the state official, said he didn't know about the mayor's use of the vehicle but doesn't object.

Some Mississippi communities took a conservative approach in using their share of the money. Bay St. Louis received $382,461 to buy safety vests, street barricades, radios and other gear, but decided against buying a vacuum truck or other expensive equipment. City Clerk David Kolf said local officials trusted BP's word it would handle all the cleanup, so they didn't see a need to buy a "bunch of new toys."

"They had a lot of heavy equipment already staged here," he said. "We don't have the training. We don't have the personnel."

---

Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama each got an initial $25 million from BP, followed by the array of payments for tourism marketing, seafood monitoring and cleanup programs.

More than $300,000 of BP money went to Kenny Loggins, the Doobie Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd for a pair of rock shows to promote the state's oil-free beaches; BP shelled out another $260,000 in concert-related costs.

In Alabama, the state Emergency Management Agency distributed $30 million to local governments without rejecting a single request.

Mississippi gave money to 14 counties and cities along the coast, which was dotted with tar balls but never saw the heavy bands of oil that choked south Louisiana's marshlands. In early August, after the well was capped and the oil threat seemed to abate, the state instructed counties and cities to stop spending BP's money without prior approval from state officials.

"We were trying to make the change from protection to restoration and recovery, and that's where we are now," Walker said.

Louisiana doled out its initial $25 million to state agencies, including $10 million for the attorney general's office to devise its legal case against BP and the companies involved in the spill. State agencies spent nearly $9 million more on equipment, including boats, air monitoring units, mobile radios and life vests.

Local government leaders in Louisiana were left to lodge their requests for money directly with BP. Gov. Bobby Jindal's top budget adviser, Paul Rainwater, said the state's deal with BP specified that the money Louisiana got wasn't meant to replace anything that was supposed to go to the parishes.

Blue-collar Plaquemines Parish, which has absorbed some of the spill's worst environmental damage, has received slightly more than $1 million in BP money, of which $998,405 went to cover oil-related overtime and other payroll expenses.

"I didn't run up bills. I treated their money like I treated our own," said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, an outspoken critic of BP and the federal government's response to the spill. "Maybe down the road I'll look and say we should have stockpiled."

---

When BP was heavily under attack from the top down for its response to the rapidly growing environmental disaster, the company started throwing huge sums of money at the problems it had in the water and on land. Cutting checks to governments along the coast addressed both issues, even if it meant waiting until later to figure out details like how officials would have to account for the cash.

"We recognized the importance of getting funding to the states, parishes and counties quickly, and therefore provided advance funding to help kick start their emergency response," Feick, the BP spokeswoman, said in an email.

The payments to governments gave BP the kind of good PR it desperately needed, said Daniel Keeney, president of a Dallas-based public relations firm. By giving money to communities and allowing them to spend it largely as they saw fit, BP also put a buffer between itself and any questionable spending.

"Whether the funds could be perceived as being wasted or not really reflects on the organization accepting the money rather than BP," Keeney said.

Louis Skrmetta, one of the tens of thousands of business owners and individuals still waiting to get a share of a $20 billion claims fund established by BP, finds the state and local governments' spending galling, even if it's almost all BP's money.

Skrmetta runs a three-boat fleet that has a contract with the National Park Service to ferry day trippers to Ship Island, a recreation area about 10 miles offshore from Gulfport, Miss. He can't understand why BP paid so much to governments while businesses were suffering.

"I didn't think there was much logic in it," Skrmetta said. "Now, looking back in retrospect, it was a way to win over politicians, a way to win over the media."

In February, BP asked Louisiana parishes that received up to $1 million in advance payments in May for a detailed summary of how that money has been spent. Parishes were warned they must exhaust the advance money before they can make any new claims.

Some parishes, however, have banked that money and already billed BP for expenses on top of it. Terrebonne Parish says it hasn't spent any of its $1 million advance, yet BP has paid it an additional $927,842, mostly for contractors and payroll costs.

Parish President Michel Claudet said he isn't concerned that BP will try to recover unspent advance money.

"The agreement from the beginning was that it was nonrefundable," he said.

---

The oil spill drove away tourists and sapped tax revenues, but it was a boon for private contractors and consultants. Governments have spent more than $19 million of BP's money to hire contractors, according to the AP's review.

The Louisiana attorney general's office has spent $4 million and counting of BP's money to hire outside lawyers and accountants to help piece together litigation against the company. Five of the seven law firms hired and their attorneys have poured more than $80,000 total into Attorney General Buddy Caldwell's campaign coffers in recent years.

Amber Davis, who lives with Gulf County, Fla., Commissioner Bill Williams, incorporated Statecraft LLC less than a month after oil began streaming into the Gulf. Three months later, Statecraft won a monthlong, $14,468 contract to perform public information and government liaison work for the county of about 15,000 people.

Davis, who has worked in marketing and community relations, said she had planned to form her company before the spill. She also had volunteered for the county's emergency operations center for three months before she was given the contract.

"There is a perception of a conflict of interest in just about anything that anybody does," Davis said. "I guess my statement to that was that I volunteered anywhere from 15 to 18 hours a day for three months and never received a penny."

Williams said he consulted the county attorney and an ethics commission, and neither saw a problem with awarding the contract to Davis.

Gulf County awarded an identical one-month, $14,468 contract - this one for monitoring beach pollution - to Florida Eco Services, a company founded days after the rig explosion by Patrick Farrell, whose wife is on the board of the local Chamber of Commerce. Farrell says he has a background in managing and maintaining properties, as well as beach restoration.

County Attorney Jeremy Novak, who also is an attorney for Florida Eco Services, said it was a matter of giving business to locals rather than out-of-state contractors.

"It sounds like a bias, and it is, but I'm glad people in Gulf County got work and actually had the ability to feed their families," Novak said. "I don't see it as profiteering. I see it as obviously doing what you can because what you're doing for a living isn't available to you."

---

Local authorities could have taken even fuller advantage of BP's largesse had the company or state officials not nixed some requests that had no clear connection to the oil. Police in D'Iberville, Miss., for instance, were denied a $245,000 mobile command unit, a $140,000 hazardous materials vehicle and a $19,000 Harley-Davidson.

"If we had to establish barricades, they thought it would be more maneuverable," City Manager Michael Janus said of the motorcycle. "It was a bit of a reach, obviously."

Although BP footed the bill for other pricey acquisitions, some officials concede they may have to use taxpayer money to maintain them.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries spent $5 million for 22 boats and the accompanying trawls, nets and hauling vehicles.

"Nobody asked me for a space shuttle or anything," said Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham.

BP money will cover the costs of maintaining the vessels, leasing dock space and buying fuel for at least three years, he said. Whether taxpayers will be forced to pick up these costs after that hasn't been decided.

"They don't run for free," Barham said.

---

Schneider reported from Orlando, Fla. Deslatte reported from Baton Rouge, La. AP videojournalist Jason Bronis in Gulfport, Miss., and Associated Press writers Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Miss., Brian Skoloff in Ocean Springs, Miss., and Harry Weber and Troy Thibodeaux in New Orleans contributed to this report.

The Tipping Point

2011-04-11T08:37:00.001-05:00

the tipping point

A year ago, a top Louisiana fishing guide trusted oil companies and was skeptical of environmentalists. Now, in the aftermath of the BP oil spill, that has reversed.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

By Bob Marshall

Staff writer

year after the Deepwater Horizon exploded 60 miles south of his Buras hunting and fishing lodge, Ryan Lambert can distill his opinion of BP and the oil industry down to one word: liars.
It's an opinion he never thought he'd have.
"The fishing industry has always lived side by side with the oil industry down here in Plaquemines Parish. And they've always told us that if anything happened, they would take care of the problem -- they would repair the damages and they would make us whole -- and I believed them," said Lambert, whose Cajun Fishing Adventures Lodge is one of the state's largest recreational fishing operations.
"Well, they lied. About everything. They didn't take care of the problem, and they're not taking care of us. Guys in my business weren't made whole. A lot of them are starving. And now that the national media is gone, BP couldn't care less.
"I'm sick of it, and I'm telling the whole country about it -- on national TV, in magazines and in front of Congress."
As soon as BP's flood of crude began flowing toward the coast last year, Lambert, 52, knew change would rock the business he'd spent nearly half his life building into a regional powerhouse.
He expected his income to plummet, and it has. The peak spring-summer season was down 94 percent from his average, a drop he says cost him $1.1 million.
He expected the 22 families that depend on his business for their livelihoods -- a lodge staff of eight, plus 14 guides -- to take a financial wallop, and they did. Only five of the guides were hired in the cleanup effort. The rest were "calling me daily hoping for work -- which I still don't have for them," he said.
He expected the economic hangover to carry into 2011, and it has. His bookings for May and June are down 55 percent from a normal year, and he has nothing beyond that.
But two changes occurred he never saw coming.
First, the help BP said was on the way to repair damages inflicted on businesses and the environment never came, he said.
That event led to a second unanticipated change: His long trust in the oil industry and skepticism of environmental groups were turned upside-down. He has become a willing volunteer for national green groups, among them the National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Ducks Unlimited, the Green Group and the Izaak Walton League.
In fact, today he leaves on his second trip to Washington as a guest of the Natural Resources Defense Council to tell his personal story of loss and disappointment.
"Originally, I was using (the spill) as an opportunity to tell them about the real problem we have here: coastal erosion," said Lambert, who has been involved in that cause for years.
"But the bad experiences we've had with all the lies and broken promises in this disaster have really opened my eyes. And I want everyone in the country to know about it ... know you can't trust what (the oil industry) promises you."
Not made whole
Lambert said the bad experiences didn't start immediately. Like many charter and marina operators, he received a quick $5,000 check from BP in the first weeks of the disaster. That was hardly enough to make up for the losses at his idled 14,000-square-foot operation, but Lambert was encouraged when President Barack Obama got BP to put up $20 billion to establish the Gulf Coast Claims Facility.
Since then, he said, things have gone downhill.
He paid his accountant $7,000 to supply financial records proving his losses would total $1.1 million, but received checks for only $211,000.
"In order to apply for payment, you had to keep your business open so you could help mitigate the final cost, so that meant I had to keep staff and pay operating expenses through the end of the year," Lambert said. "But after all that, I'm still out $904,000 in lost income."
He said he was told he should apply again to be made whole.
"Well, I'm tired of reapplying, because it never does any good," he said. "I'm tired of paying my CPA. Now I'm paying a lawyer."
He plans to file suit.
Lambert, vice president of the Louisiana Charter Boat Association, said his anger deepens when he thinks about the estimated 600 other charter captains in the state. He said the only members who have settled up with BP are those who took a flat $25,000 "quick payments" from claims administrator Kenneth Feinberg.
"The only ones who took that were guys who had no other choice because of their situation," he said. "They had house notes or boat notes or medical expenses and no business coming in. Well, now that money is gone, and they still don't have any business -- and they're just screwed.
"I don't know of any of the guys who have been made whole like they promised."
Lambert said his suffering pales next to his colleagues, because he owns his property and has other business interests to help pay bills. That's not the case for most charter fishers, he said.
"They're independent contractors who work by themselves," he said. "Everyone talks about the ones who made a killing in the cleanup, but not all of them got those jobs. Only five of my 14 guides were hired."
Long-term effects
Lambert is also worried about the long-term impacts on the ecosystem that provides his livelihood. He suffered through the leanest speckled trout winter ever, seeing only three of the fish brought to his cleaning tables from spots that traditionally produce daily limits of 25 fish in the cold-weather months. And while speck fishing has improved this spring, he's seen none of the small trout representing last year's spawning class, which entered the estuaries when oil was coming ashore.
State fisheries biologists said tests to determine impacts on last year's spawning class were not complete, and ongoing tissue samples of fish from the impacted areas have shown no signs of hydrocarbon contamination or other ill effects from the spill.
Lambert wishes the rest of the country was convinced of that.
"The attitude outside this area is that everything here is contaminated," he said. "I've done something like 15 TV shows since the spill, and the guys doing the shows tell me people ask them, 'Why are you going fishing down there -- you can't eat the fish.'
"The only out-of-state bookings I'm getting are old customers who just want to show their support."
Tarnished by BP
That new business has dried up, even after Lambert's Cajun Fishing Adventures was named one of the Top 5 fishing lodges in the nation by Sport Fishing magazine.
Even the thrill of that honor was tarnished by BP, he said.
"BP had the audacity to put that on their website, like it was a positive thing showing the Gulf Coast was coming back -- thanks to all their efforts," Lambert recalled. "That just made me crazy.
"What we people should know is that all the millions they spent on those TV and newspaper ads about making things right is a lie.
"And what people in this state should ask themselves is: If a giant like BP isn't making us whole, what do they think is going to happen when the smaller fish in that business have an accident?"
That was a question Lambert said he never asked himself before last April. Now, he says, he thinks he knows the answer.
. . . . . . .
Bob Marshall can be reached at rmarshall@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3539.

PRESS CONFERENCE / FILM SCREENING: “Stories from the Gulf: Living with the Oil Disaster”

2011-04-09T21:41:00.000-05:00

Kindra Arnesen

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?created&&note_id=178160642233313#!/notes/kindra-arnesen/dc/178160642233313

I land in DC tommorrow, will be meeting with several different offices Monday & Tuesday. This has been put together by NRDC partnered with Storycorps. This is giving me the chance to speak directly to the men & women who need to hear what we are dealing... with. PRESS CONFERENCE / FILM SCREENING: “Stories from the Gulf: Living with the Oil Disaster” A year after the worst oil spill in America, people whose livelihoods depend on a clean, vibrant Gulf of Mexico continue to suffer. To tell their stories, the Natural Resources Defense Council invites you to a special screening of “Stories from the Gulf: Living with the Oil Disaster” on Tuesday, April 12. The 22-minute film will make its worldwide debut on Discovery Communications’ Planet Green on April 23. At Tuesday’s sneak preview, you will also have the opportunity to meet and speak with Gulf residents who are still reeling from the disaster. WHO: Frances Beinecke, NRDC president & member of the national oil spill commission Ryan Lambert, president of Cajun Fishing Adventures and vice-president of the Louisiana Charter Boat Association Kindra Arnesen, commercial fisherwoman turned community activist after the BP Gulf oil disaster WHEN: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 TIME: 10 a.m.-11 a.m. WHERE:Room 430, Dirksen Senate Office Building 1st and C Street NE, Washington DC To view trailers of the film, please see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8BYBjsWvAk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87oYOXgT6YM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBytM0DxQ-QSee More

By: Kindra Arnesen

Scientists unsure why dolphins washing up dead

2011-04-08T10:24:00.000-05:00

Scientists unsure why dolphins washing up dead

By Vivian Kuo, CNN

April 8, 2011 1:56 a.m. EDT

Hundreds of dead bottlenose dolphins are washing ashore on the Gulf Coast.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Since February 2010, 406 dolphins have been found dead or stranded
Sensitivity about marine life in the area is high after the BP oil disaster
Scientists are also concerned about sea turtle strandings

RELATED TOPICS

(CNN) -- Dead baby bottlenose dolphins are continuing to wash up in record numbers on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, and scientists do not know why.
Since February 2010 to April 2011, 406 dolphins were found either stranded or reported dead offshore.
The occurrence has prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to designate these deaths as an "unusual mortality event" or UME. The agency defines a UME as a stranding incident that is unexpected or involves a significant loss of any marine mammal population.
"This is quite a complex event and requires a lot of analysis," said Blair Mase, the agency's marine mammal investigations coordinator.
Mase said NOAA is working closely with a variety of agencies to try to figure out not only why the bottlenose dolphins are turning up in such large quantities but also why the mammals are so young.
"These were mostly very young dolphins, either pre-term, neonatal or very young and less than 115 centimeters," she said.
Marine mammals are particularly susceptible to harmful algal blooms, infectious diseases, temperature and environmental changes, and human impact.
"The Gulf of Mexico is no stranger to unusual mortality events," Mase said.
Sensitivity surrounding marine life in the area is particularly high after the BP oil disaster that sent millions of barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico nearly a year ago.
The incident occurred on April 20, 2010, when a Deepwater Horizon rig leased to BP exploded, killing 11 workers and leading to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
As recently as two weeks ago, scientists documented a dead dolphin with oil on its remains, Mase said.
Since the start of the oil spill, a total of 15 bottlenose dolphins have been found with either confirmed or suspected oil on their carcasses.
Even after the gushing well was capped, the agency said nine oiled dolphins have been found since November 2, 2010.
Of those nine, six were confirmed to contain oil from the incident; one was found with oil that did not match the Deepwater Horizon samples, and two have not yet been tested.
The dolphin deaths may be completely independent from the oil spill, Mase said.
"Even though they have oil on them, it may not be the cause of death," she said. "We want to look at the gamut of all the possibilities."
The agency said bottlenose dolphins are actually the most-frequently found stranding marine mammal.
Scientists say they are equally concerned about the number of sea turtle strandings.
Similar to the dolphin deaths, an abnormally high number of turtles have been found either floating close to shore or washed up on shores in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
"The vast majority of these are dead, with states in moderate to severe decomposition," said Barbara Schroeder, NOAA Fisheries national sea turtle coordinator.
The majority of them are Kemp's ridley sea turtles, an endangered species since 1970. But some strandings included loggerheads, which are also endangered.
"Since January 1st, we've had just under 100 strandings," Schroeder said. "About 87 of those have been documented since the middle of March."
Only about a third of those found were in good enough shape to perform necropsies, she said. Seven turtles showed indications that they had been in accidents involving watercrafts, while another displayed injuries consistent with being caught on a hook.
Results from the rest appeared to indicate they had drowned near the bottom of the Gulf -- possibly either from forced submergence or an acute toxic event.
NOAA Fisheries Stranding Program Coordinator Dr. Teri Rowles said tissue samples from both turtles and dolphins are being carefully documented due to the civil and criminal litigation ongoing with BP.

"We are looking at what is the impact of the oil spill and the response activities to the oil spill event, and what impact they had on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem," she said. "We did not say that the dolphins have died because of the oil, just that they have come back with oil on them."

BP buys east beach of Cat Island

2011-04-08T09:43:00.000-05:00

BP buys east beach of Cat Island

By KAREN NELSON - klnelson@sunherald.com

E-Mail Print Reprint or license

GULFPORT -- BP bought part of Cat Island last week.
A company spokesman confirmed the sale Thursday in an interview with the Sun Herald.
It bought the east-facing beach from the Boddie family, which owned a great deal of the island. The family still owns island acreage and there are about 30 private lots on another part of the island.

TIM ISBELL/SUN HERALD The eastern-facing beach of Cat Island forms the top of the T-shaped barrier island. BP confirmed Thursday it purchased this land from the Boddie family last week.

Cat is 2,000 acres, named for raccoons mistaken for cats by early explorers.
The other major land holder is the National Park Service’s Gulf Islands National Seashore, which has about 1,000 acres under federal protection. It is part of the National Seashore chain.
“We have bought much of the private land,” said Ray Melick, BP spokesman, “the whole stretch of beach that faces east.”
The island is shaped like a T, with the east-facing beach being the top of the T.
Melick said the company hasn’t decided what it will do with the land, but the purchase will help it expedite cleanup of the islands in the wake of the BP oil spill.
“It’s easier to deal with it when it’s not privately owned,” Melick said.
More than 1,700 tons of tar, oily sand and oiled debris had been collected from the chain of barrier islands as of early March.

EDITORIAL: John Wathen gets environmental accolades

2011-04-05T07:12:00.000-05:00

Tuscaloosa News

EDITORIAL: John Wathen gets environmental accolades

Published: Tuesday, April 5, 2011 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, April 4, 2011 at 9:52 p.m.

Hurricane CREEKKEEPER by P. Batson, flight by SouthWings

John Wathen, the CREEKKEEPER for Friends of Hurricane Creek, is an ubiquitous figure in these parts in his efforts to protect his fragile watershed feeding into the Black Warrior River.

If someone is perceived to be polluting Hurricane Creek and others creeks that feed into it, Wathen is usually there within hours with his cameras and knowledge of environmental law. He has also been known to go a few public rounds with local and state agencies charged with protecting the environment throughout West Alabama.

But his receipt of the Wild South's

Roosevelt-Ashe Society Conservation Award for Outstanding Journalist in Conservation had less to do with his local efforts than it did his indefatigable work for the national Waterkeeper Alliance following the oil spill nearly a year ago in the Gulf of Mexico.

The award is given to people who have contributed to the environmental movement during the year by Asheville, N.C.-Wild South, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to inspire people to enjoy, value and protect the wild character and natural legacy of the South. Wathen was chosen as a nominee for the media work that he does based around environmental issues.

“We all have the same premise that these are our waters, and people don't have a right to deprive us of those clean waters,” Wathen said.

In addition to his photographic and video documentation of ongoing conditions in the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the blow-out of the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon well last April, Wathen is a prolific blogger who can be found on the web by searching for “BP Slick.” He said the blog is a group effort of more than 300 people along the Gulf Coast over the last year and has had well over two million Internet visitors.

Nelson Brooke, the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, nominated Wathen for his work at the Gulf and at home.

“John is an amazing advocate and activist,” Brooke said. “(He) has done an incredible job in the past number of years giving up his personal time to get out and document major, national, environmental catastrophes and put the word out there in the form of blogs, photos and videos so that the masses can see what's going on out there from the ground and from the air. He's giving a viewpoint that's just not being given by the general media.”

But Wathen said despite the prestigious award he received, the attention should be elsewhere.

“I got an award for journalism and for just telling the story of people who are in pretty dire straits down there on the coast,” Wathen said. “It's their story. “

And sadly, as those touched by the spill struggle to recover, it is a story that is likely to continue for quite some time.

2011-04-04T10:45:00.000-05:00

New aerial images deepen concerns about Gulf seafood safety

Facing South

New aerial images from the Gulf of Mexico are deepening concerns about whether seafood currently being harvested from those waters is safe to eat.

Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen of Alabama flew over the Gulf on March 19 and 20 on a flight provided by On Wings of Care and videotaped what he saw. Though Wathen works for the Waterkeeper Alliance, he did this work on his own and does not speak for any group in the video.

His conclusion is sure to prove controversial.

"In my opinion," Wathen says, "nothing that's being caught in these waters today is safe for human consumption."

The federal Food and Drug Administration insists that Gulf seafood is safe to eat. "Although crude oil has the potential to taint seafood with flavors and odors caused by exposure to hydrocarbon chemicals, the public should not be concerned about the safety of seafood in stores at this time," the FDA states on its BP oil spill update page.

Wathen's flight took him from Alabama down to the Mississippi coast and west along the Louisiana coast. When he got to the Gulf, he witnessed the same strange purple color he saw in the water back in July and August of last year. He also caught faint whiffs of oil.

"Sheens coming in on the horizon that were miles long, rainbow on the water and this funny color of purple deep down inside," he says. "And yet there it was -- a shrimp boat with its nets in the water, catching shrimp to send to a table somewhere in Middle America where nobody sees what I see."

Wathen -- who recently received Wild South's Roosevelt-Ashe Society Conservation Award for Outstanding Journalist in Conservation -- says he's taken flak for talking publicly about what he's seeing and what he thinks it means. In his video, he assures viewers that it's not his aim to hurt fishermen or the Gulf region's economy.

But at the same time, he doesn't want people to be hurt by eating unsafe seafood.

"I think that whoever's responsible for this should be paying these people to take their boats out of the water until we can figure out what's going on," he says.

You can watch his video here:

Wathen isn't alone in raising concerns about recent images coming out of the Gulf. In a post made last week to its blog, the nonprofit group SkyTruth shared Google Earth photos that suggest shrimp trawlers are churning up oil that settled to the seafloor:

Meanwhile, Vietnamese-American shrimpers in Mississippi have pulled up nets full of oil from the seafloor and "have had to decide whether to report the oil to the Coast Guard, which would mean dumping their day's catch, or pretend they don't see the oil," according to Courthouse News Service.

(Photo at top is a still from Wathen's latest video from the Gulf.)

By Sue Sturgis on April 4, 2011 11:03 AM 0 Vote 0 Votes

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Wathen honored for his attention to Gulf oil spill, Hurricane Creek

2011-04-04T07:48:00.000-05:00

Wathen honored for his attention to Gulf oil spill, Hurricane Creek

Staff file photo | The Tuscaloosa News

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John Wathen, the Hurricane Creekkeeper from Friends of Hurricane Creek, has received the Wild South’s Roosevelt-Ashe Society Conservation Award for Outstanding Journalist in Conservation.

By Patty Vaughan Special to the Tuscaloosa News

Published: Monday, April 4, 2011 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, April 3, 2011 at 11:13 p.m.

John Wathen, the Hurricane Creekkeeper from Friends of Hurricane Creek, has received the Wild South’s Roosevelt-Ashe Society Conservation Award for Outstanding Journalist in Conservation.

Wathen was recognized for his research on last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill, according to a Friends of Hurricane Creek news release.

“It’s given to various volunteers and people who have contributed to the environmental movement through the year,” Wathen said. “I was chosen as a nominee for the media work that I do based around environmental issues here in Tuscaloosa County, but primarily for my work in the Gulf of Mexico last year.”

Wathen cares for the watershed and is the enforcement for polluters at Hurricane Creek. For the Gulf Coast, he works with the Waterkeeper Alliance, an international federation of groups.

“We all have the same premise that these are our waters, and people don’t have a right to deprive us of those clean waters,” Wathen said.

By traveling to the coast off and on for about a year, Wathen was able to take photos and video of the oil spill and post all of it on his blog, BP Slick.

“I got an award for journalism and for just telling the story of people who are in pretty dire straits down there on the coast,” Wathen said. “It’s their story. It was for my continued writing, photography and videography in the Gulf. That blog site, BP Slick, is a chronological record of everything I did in the Gulf of Mexico from the day I got there.”

Nelson Brooke, the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, nominated Wathen for his work at Hurricane Creek, but also his work in the Gulf.

“John is an amazing advocate and activist,” Brooke said. “(He) has done an incredible job in the past number of years giving up his personal time to get out and document major, national, environmental catastrophes and put the word out there in the form of blogs, photos and videos so that the masses can see what’s going on out there from the ground and from the air. He’s giving a viewpoint that’s just not being given by the general media.”

Wathen said his group, SouthWings, was flying over the Gulf in airplanes and bringing back pictures and video that were refuting what the U.S. Coast Guard was reporting at the time.

OIL in the Chandeleur Barrier Islands By JLW

“(Commandant Adm.) Thad Allen said one day that there was ‘Potential oiling at the Mississippi River.’ We photographed massive oil slicks covering the islands out there, and the Mississippi River was literally weeping oil out of it,” Wathen said. “The next day, Thad Allen upgraded his statement to say that the situation was far more grave than he had been told the day before.”

Laurie Johns, president of the board of Friends of Hurricane Creek, said the organization hires him to specifically keep the creek clean.

“He does a great job of evidence gathering and documenting the violations that he finds,” Johns said. “While this award came to their attention primarily for his work he did in the Gulf, John is working as hard as he possible can to get the word out that actually everything is not OK down there.”

Wathen said his blog site has more than 2 million followers.

“I’m not trying to take an extreme amount of credit for just being a storyteller, but if there hadn’t been storytellers like myself and others down there, you would have never heard the truth about what really happened in the Gulf of Mexico and it’s still happening today,” Wathen said. “Our waters are not safe, and our seafood is not safe.”

Wathen said he has photographed shrimp boats hauling shrimp from oil-stained water.

Shrimp boat pulls nets through fresh oil By JLW

“Our people are eating this stuff, because the government says it’s safe, and we’re looking at oil all over the fishing grounds,” he said.

Wathen said anyone willing to just take a camera, a cell phone video or a recording device can tell a story of what’s happening in their area and people will listen.

“You don’t have to be a credentialed journalist or a newspaper reporter to be able to tell a story,” Wathen said. “Everybody has that capability, and with today’s technology, it’s really amazing that more people don’t do it. Anybody can do it, and everybody should be doing it.”

BP Worker admits to threat of firing for wearing respirator.

2011-04-03T07:06:00.000-05:00

Louisiana offshore oil work, Clayton Matherne, describes health problems he is experiencing due to the effects of the BP oil spill.

I've talked to too many clean-up workers who all attest to the fact that BP said they would be terminated if caught using a respirator.

Clayton Matherne from Blackbird Media on Vimeo.

DISPATCH: Tucker Mendoza, Gulf Truth Activist Shot. Developing…

2011-04-02T21:02:00.000-05:00

DISPATCH: Tucker Mendoza, Gulf Truth Activist Shot. Developing…

Dispatch by Lana Duncan 4-2-2011 The Hive Daily
Tucker Mendoza, a gulf truth activist, was shot early this morning 4 times through the door of his home in Laplace. He was hit 3 times in the chest and once across the forehead. With him was a niece, he reports she was struck in the neck and bottom.
Tucker has been able to communicate via his phone and post to FB on the events. Please pray for him and his niece, for a full recovery and include the entire family. They are being treated at University Hospital in New Orleans. Further details as yet are unknown.
Tucker has a couple of videos, songs about the gulf disaster…flashes of his resume are in this one below.

Shrimp Trawling Re-Suspending BP Oil?

2011-04-02T20:56:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Shrimp Trawling Re-Suspending BP Oil?

Way back last autumn I had a nagging thought: once oil impacted areas of the Gulf were re-opened to fishing in the wake of the BP / Deepwater Horizon spill, would shrimp trawlers repeatedly churn up oil that had settled on the seafloor?

Google Earth panoramic image showing sediment plumes raised by bottom-trawl fishing for shrimp along the Louisiana coast. More images here.

As the federal government proceeds with a long and complicated legal and scientific process, the Natural Resources Damage Assessment, they are holding a series of public meetings to get input and comments from affected Gulf-area residents. At a meeting last week in Biloxi, Mississippi,

Vietnamese shrimpers said they have pulled up nets full of oil from the seafloor and have had to decide whether to report the oil to the Coast Guard, which would mean dumping their day's catch, or pretend they don't see the oil.

John Lliff, a supervisor with NOAA's Damage Assessment Remediation and Restoration Program, said no one knows how much of the seafloor is covered in oil.

Until the oil totally disappears, it seems highly likely that this will continue. But we don't have a clue how long the oil will linger, or what the impacts of this would be on the health of fishermen, the recovery of the Gulf ecosystem, or the safety of seafood.

Meanwhile, some of our politicians seem to be ignoring the fact that the world's worst accidental oil spill happened here in our own back yard less than a year ago, and are intent on returning to business as usual without assuring the public that drilling is any safer than it was last April. Does anybody else see this as a recipe for another disaster?

BP Oil Update by Your Emerald COASTKEEPER

2011-04-02T15:42:00.000-05:00

Emerald Coastkeeper
April 1, 2011


Proud member of the Waterkeeper Alliance

In the past couple weeks I have attended 3 meetings related to response and recovery from the BP oil discharge. Below is a summary of what was discovered at each meeting.

The Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) meeting with Natural Resource Damages Assessment (NRDA) Trustees: Florida Trustees are in the process of assessing the ecological damage incurred from oil. Water, soil and tissue samples continue to be collected and will be compared to baseline sampling which occurred before the discharge. Things being assessed: water column, fishery resources, seagrasses, subtidal offshore environments, shoreline habitats, wetlands, birds, marine mammals, other terrestrial wildlife and human uses. Some examples of restoration given at the meeting include: creation of habitat, sand replacement, law enforcement to protect endangered species, boat ramps/piers and acquiring property. There are 4 steps which must be defined and supported in order to call something an injury: release of harmful substance (proven), pathway that substance took (partly known), exposure to that substance (in the process of analyzing) and finally a quantifiable injury (to be determined).

Remember, NRDA is a legal process set up in the Oil Pollution Act 1990. It is a lengthy process and due to the legal nature, data and chain of custody information is much slower to be released to the public than under other circumstances. This has unfortunately added to many questions folks have about the safety of our beaches and seafood; which is a perfect segue to the next meeting.

BP and response agencies held a town hall meeting to discuss the current situation in northwest Florida. First the good news: response agencies and UWF/CEDB have restarted their weekly water and sediment sampling at northwest Florida beaches and so far continue to get non-detect values for hydrocarbons, PAHs and dispersant. What this means is that even though oil product continues to wash up on our beaches as a tar like substance we have yet to see any data which shows that this oil product is dissolving into the water column. This has led to the health department issuing statements that our beaches are safe and clean.

The not so good news: There are at least a dozen areas in northwest Florida where offshore tar mats exist. As long as these tar mats exist we will continue to see oil product washing ashore on our beaches. Now, according to currently released data, as long as you physically avoid the oil/tar you should not be at risk of accumulating the toxins which exist in it. However, a very disturbing quote from response agencies at this community meeting: “the technology to remove these offshore mats in a safeway does not exist and therefore the benefit for removing these tar mats does not outweigh the risk involved”. Now I will be the last one to insist that that worker safety be ignored in order to remove all of the oil impacting the Gulf, however, there are 3 serious problems I see with this statement:

1.       All northwest Florida counties are pushing hard for beach renourishment to be the first and foremost project for restoration in Florida and insisting that this should happen sooner than later. However, we have no idea where most of the offshore oil is (recall at least ¾ of the oil discharged last summer has yet to be accounted for), and even if we do diligent studies to find a proven clean supply of sand, where is the logic in bringing that sand onshore while we are still having oil impacts every time a storm passes? Don’t get me wrong, BP should be forced to replace the sand we are having to remove due to it being soiled with oil; however this should not be done until we stop seeing tar washing ashore.
2.       How is it possible that response agencies can go to Washington touting the response to the BP discharge (using dispersant to sink the oil) as highly successful and pushing for the same response in future events and at the same time they are in our communities telling us that there is no safe way to remove sunken oil which continues to wash ashore.
3.       Aquatic species cannot be warned to avoid the oil, they are definitely at risk of accumulating the toxins found in the dispersed, sunken oil. In addition, many locals eat much more seafood than the national average, and FDA has yet to address this fact in their assessment of seafood safety.

Finally, last night I attended a meeting with the Ecosystem Restoration Task Force in Mobile. The objective of the task force is different than that of NRDA Trustees. The Trustees are charged with defining the damage/injuries incurred from the BP discharge and creating a restoration plan to address those injuries. The Task Force is charged with defining a broad, Gulf of Mexico wide restoration plan. The Gulf has suffered from declining health of coastal ecosystems, water quality and fisheries for decades, yet has received very little attention and funding to address these issues (especially compared to other regions of the US, like the great lakes for example). The executive order which created this task force was very clear in the charge for local input and involvement in a Gulf wide restoration plan. This plan is due to the Obama administration on October 5, 2011. The Task Force is holding meeting throughout the Gulf to get input on priorities for restoration and to define what the impediments are which have kept this restoration from happening sooner. If you have input into restoration priorities that you would like for me to address at these meetings let me know. Otherwise I will continue to push for creation of oyster/seagrass habitats and stormwater improvements as top priorities for restoration in the Gulf region.

As always if you would like to get involved we look forward to hearing from you. We are still monitoring shoreline areas for oil and could use mroe volunteers to help with that effort. We are also waiting for results from our second round of oyster sampling.

Chasidy Fisher Hobbs
Coastkeeper
Emerald Coastkeeper

Un Freakin Believable!

2011-04-02T09:53:00.002-05:00

Transocean Execs Get Bonuses for ‘Best Year in Safety,’ Despite Gulf Disaster

April 2, 2011 7:07 am

By Jeff McMahon
Forbes
Original Article

Transocean Ltd., owner of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, awarded millions of dollars in bonuses to its executives after “the best year in safety performance in our company’s history,” according to an annual report and proxy statement released yesterday.
Eleven people were killed, including nine Transocean employees, in the April 20 explosion and collapse of the rig, which gushed crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 86 days.
“Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico, we achieved an exemplary statistical safety record as measured by our total recordable incident rate and total potential severity rate,” Transocean states in the filing. “As measured by these standards, we recorded the best year in safety performance in our Company’s history, which is a reflection on our commitment to achieving an incident free environment, all the time, everywhere.”
Transocean President and Chief Executive Officer Steven L. Newman received about $4.3 million in cash bonuses and stock and option awards. With other compensation — such as pension increases and cost of living, housing, and automobile allowances — Newman earned $6.6 million in 2010, almost $1 million more than in 2009.
His base salary, $900,000 in 2010, will increase 22 percent to $1.1 million in 2011.
Transocean built and staffed the Deepwater Horizon. It was leased by BP, which denied most executives bonuses in 2010. In justifying the bonuses, Transocean cites the increased burden on executives of responding to the spill:

Although in 2010 we made significant progress in achieving our strategic and operational objectives for the year, these developments were overshadowed by the April 20, 2010 fire and explosion onboard our semi-submersible drilling rig, the Deepwater Horizon, off the Louisiana coast that resulted in the deaths of 11 of our colleagues, including nine Transocean employees, and the uncontrolled flow of hydrocarbons from the well for an extended period (the ‘‘Macondo Incident’’). As a result, many of our senior executive officers… dedicated a significant portion of their time in 2010 following the Macondo Incident to responding to the needs of the victims’ families, coordinating the involvement of additional resources required to stem the flow of hydrocarbons, including drilling rigs and personnel to drill relief wells and other operations as requested by the Unified Area Command, cooperating with the numerous federal, state, and local reviews and investigations into the incident, overseeing our internal investigation of the incident, and managing other demands stemming from these activities, in addition to performing their normal responsibilities.

In the proxy, Transocean’s directors also ask shareholders to shelter “the Board of Directors and the executive management From liability for activities during fiscal year 2010.” The company is being sued by some shareholders for failing to monitor risk leading up to the spill.
Transocean contends it has no liability:

It remains our view that Transocean is contractually indemnified against all claims stemming from the environmental and economic impacts of the hydrocarbons spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the Macondo well after the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon.”

At the other end of that contract, however, BP contends Transocean shares liability for the disaster.
The world’s largest builder and operator of oil rigs, Transocean was incorporated in the Cayman Islands but now keeps its executive offices in Vernier, Switzerland.
Transocean released its Annual Report and Proxy Statement middawy Friday, and the bonuses were first reported by Sheila McNulty of The Financial Times (paywall).

2011-04-02T09:19:00.002-05:00

Watchdog analysis suggests recent Gulf oil spill was major

Sue Sturgis, Facing South

The same watchdog group that showed the federal government was low-balling the estimate of last year's BP oil spill rate is now saying that the size of the latest oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was also underestimated.

SkyTruth, a West Virginia-based nonprofit, analyzed recent satellite imagery of the spill that was first reported on March 18. Assuming the thickness of the 2,427 square-kilometer slick was only 1 micron or one-millionth of a meter, the organization concludes the slick held at least 640,728 gallons of oil.

"That would make it a major spill (more than 100,000 gallons), and a heckuva lot more than the 4 gallons in total that was reported to the National Response Center," SkyTruth states on its blog.

Following last April's explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, BP and the U.S. government claimed the well was leaking about 1,000 barrels of oil a day. But SkyTruth's analysis of satellite imagery concluded the flow rate had to be at least 5,000 barrels a day and probably far more, leading the government to revise its own estimate upward.

Oil samples from this latest spill were tested by a Louisiana State University scientist who concluded that it matched the chemical fingerprint of the crude oil taken from an Anglo-Suisse Offshore Partners well damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Houston-based Anglo-Suisse was trying to plug the well when the spill occurred, but it has disputed it was responsible for all of the oil spilled.

The worrisome news about the latest spill's magnitude comes as the region's commercial fishing industry is already reporting problems related to last year's BP oil disaster. Karen Hopkins of Dean Blanchard Seafood on Louisiana's Grand Isle told the Natural Resources Defense Council that catches are way down:

During the first three months of this year, Dean Blanchard bought just 5,281 pounds of sea bob, small shrimp often caught in the winter, compared to 35,740 pounds during the same period in 2009. Karen says catches of black drum, sheephead and vermilion snapper are down significantly this year too. And she worries this may not be the end of it. "Boat captains are terrified this will be like the Exxon Valdez. They had decent catches for several years until some species couldn't reproduce and everything crashed."

(Photo of oil from the recent spill washing up on Grand Isle from the Louisiana Bucket Brigade. To see more of their photos of the spill, click here.)

By Sue Sturgis on March 29, 2011 11:44 AM

U.S. lawyers say BP, spill partners harmed cleanup crew

2011-04-01T08:35:00.000-05:00

U.S. lawyers say BP, spill partners harmed cleanup crew

Stocks

Bp PLC

BP.L

467.05p

+13.05+2.87%

8:17am CST

Nalco Holding Co

NLC.N

----

Workers clean booms stained with oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill in Waveland, Mississippi July 8, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Lee Celano

BANGALORE | Thu Mar 31, 2011 7:08am EDT

BANGALORE (Reuters) - BP Plc and other companies who had used chemical dispersants to fight the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill should compensate the cleanup crew and residents harmed by those toxic chemicals, lawyers suing the firms said in a court filing.
To date, BP and its contractors have used more than 1.8 million gallons of Nalco Holding's chemical dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico in connection with the oil spill, according to the complaint. Nalco was also named in the complaint.
Lawyers said many plaintiffs, who were assisting in the effort to prevent oil slicks from reaching the shore, or cleaning oil spill residue from the beaches, came into contact with crude oil, chemical dispersants and other toxic chemical mixtures.
The complaint has sought unspecified compensatory damages from BP and the other companies involved in the clean up act. The lawsuit has also sought damages for medical screening and monitoring.
BP in London declined comment.
The Case is in re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the Gulf of Mexico, on April 20, 2010, Case No. 2:10-md-02179-CJB-SS, U.S. District Court, Eastern District Of Louisiana.
(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Hans Peters)

True toll of Deepwater disaster may be 50 times worse than thought

2011-03-31T07:06:00.002-05:00

True toll of Deepwater disaster may be 50 times worse than thought

by ClickGreen staff. Published Wed 30 Mar 2011 12:15, Last updated: 2011-03-30

Dolphin deaths may be 50 times worse than official estimate

The recorded impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on wildlife may have severely underestimated the number of deaths of whales and dolphins, according to a new report.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster of 2010 devastated the Gulf region ecologically and economically. However, a new study published in Conservation Letters reveals that the true impact of the disaster on wildlife may be gravely underestimated. The study argues that fatality figures based on the number of recovered animal carcasses will not give a true death toll, which may be 50 times higher than believed.

"The Deepwater oil spill was the largest in US history, however, the recorded impact on wildlife was relatively low, leading to suggestions that the environmental damage of the disaster was actually modest," said lead author Dr Rob Williams from the University of British Columbia."This is because reports have implied that the number of carcasses recovered, 101, equals the number of animals killed by the spill."

The team focused their research on 14 species of cetacean, an order of mammals including whales and dolphins. While the number of recovered carcasses has been assumed to equal the number of deaths, the team argues that marine conditions and the fact that many deaths will have occurred far from shore mean recovered carcasses will only account for a small proportion of deaths.

To illustrate their point, the team multiplied recent species abundance estimates by the species mortality rate. An annual carcass recovery rate was then estimated by dividing the mean number of observed strandings each year by the estimate of annual mortality.

The team's analysis suggests that only 2% of cetacean carcasses were ever historically recovered after their deaths in this region, meaning that the true death toll from the Deepwater Horizon disaster could be 50 times higher than the number of deaths currently estimated.

"This figure illustrates that carcass counts are hugely misleading, if used to measure the disaster's death toll," said co-author Scott Kraus of the New England Aquarium "No study on carcass recovery from strandings has ever recovered anything close to 100% of the deaths occurring in any cetacean population. The highest rate we found was only 6.2%, which implied 16 deaths for every carcass recovered."

The reason for the gulf between the estimates may simply be due to the challenges of working in the marine environment. The Deepwater disaster took place 40 miles offshore, in 1500m of water, which is partly why estimates of oil flow rates during the spill were so difficult to make.

"The same factors that made it difficult to work on the spill also confound attempts to evaluate environmental damages caused by the spill," said Williams. "Consequently, we need to embrace a similar level of humility when quantifying the death tolls."

If the approach outlined by this study were to be adopted the team believe this may present an opportunity to use the disaster to develop new conservation tools that can be applied more broadly, revealing the environmental impacts of other human activities in the marine environment.

"The finding that strandings represent a very low proportion of the true deaths is also critical in considering the magnitude of other human causes of mortality like ship strikes, where the real impacts may similarly be dramatically underestimated by the numbers observed" said John Calambokidis, a Researcher with Cascadia Research and a co-author on the publication.

"Our concern also applies to certain interactions with fishing gear, because there are not always systematic data with which to accurately estimate by-catch, especially for large whales", noted Jooke Robbins, a co-author from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. "When only opportunistic observations are available, these likely reflect a fraction of the problem."

"While we did not conduct a study to estimate the actual number of deaths from the oil spill, our research reveals that the accepted figures are a grave underestimation," concluded Dr. Williams. "We now urge methodological development to develop appropriate multipliers so that we discover the true cost of this tragedy."

Did BP LOSE YOU? BP computer with personal info missing

2011-03-30T07:36:00.000-05:00

National Briefing | South

Louisiana: BP Loses Personal Data

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: March 29, 2011

A BP employee lost a laptop containing personal data belonging to thousands of residents who filed claims for compensation after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a company spokesman, Curtis Thomas, said Tuesday. Mr. Thomas said the company mailed letters on Monday to roughly 13,000 people whose data was stored on the computer, notifying them about the loss and offering to pay for their credit to be monitored. The company also reported the missing laptop to law enforcement, Mr. Thomas said. The computer was password-protected, but the information was not encrypted. The data included a spreadsheet of claimants’ names, Social Security numbers, phone numbers and addresses. Mr. Thomas said the company did not have any evidence that the personal information had been misused.

Sea Turtle Deaths Anger Mississippi Residents

2011-03-29T10:32:00.002-05:00

Rocky Kistner’s Blog

Sea Turtle Deaths Anger Mississippi Residents

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Posted March 28, 2011 in Curbing Pollution, Health and the Environment, Moving Beyond Oil

Tags:: gulfspill, oceans, oilpollution, turtles

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As a resident of coastal Mississippi for more than 30 years, Shirley Tillman is used to seeing a few drum fish, sea gulls or jelly fish wash up on nearby sandy shores. It’s a fact of life living by the sea. But in the past few weeks Shirley has come across something she’s never seen before; dead sea turtles washing up on beaches near spring break vacationers.
They are part of a growing number of dead fish, animals and birds she and other Mississippi residents have photographed washing in with the tides in recent weeks. For Shirley, a trip to the beach no longer provides the same relaxing refuge as before.
“It’s very upsetting,” says Shirley, a grandmother and wife of a Pass Christian home builder. “I have never found anything like this until after the oil spill. It used to be if you found a dead dolphin or turtle it was front page news around here. Now it’s no big deal.”

Dead turtle found March 25, near Pass Christian MS         photos by Shirley Tillman
Gulfport's Institute for Marine Mammal Studies reports it has collected 38 dead or stranded turtles in Mississippi this year, most in the past few weeks. As is the case with dolphin strandings this year, turtle tissue samples are turned over to the The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which does necropsies and further testing.
NMFS is investigating the deaths of these turtles and has increased surveillance, according to Blair Mase-Guthrie, a southeast regional stranding coordinator. “We are treating this very seriously,” she said. Possible causes could range from infectious disease, sudden shifts in water temperature, biotoxins such as red tide or the impact from the BP oil that polluted the area. "We're not ruling out any factor."
An NMFS spokeswoman in Washington confirmed agency experts are reviewing the data, but cautioned that turtle strandings tend to happen in the spring. NMFS records show there have been 13 turtle strandings in Mississippi so far this year, a number that will rise as databases are updated.
Even 13 dead turtles is an unusually high number in March. In the past three years, NMFS reports no turtles were stranded in Mississippi until the beginning of April. The only other Gulf state to report a rise in on-shore turtle deaths this year is Texas with 48, more than twice the number counted in 2009--the year before the BP oil blowout. That year, the total number of on-shore turtle deaths in the Gulf shot up to 248, nearly five times the number from the previous year.
All five turtle species found in the gulf are endangered or threatened, including the Kemp Ridleys and the Loggerheads often seen near shore. Federal protection and tracking programs are in place to try to preserve habitat and learn more about the lives of some of the most fascinating and revered reptile species in the world.

Dead turtles found recently in Long Beach, MS                    photos by Laurel Lockamy
Shirley Tillman and other residents nearby say in some cases they have been appalled by the lack of response in their communities. On Friday, Shirley found a dead sea turtle and reported it to authorities. She was told to leave it on the beach, so she called in the coordinates and dragged it off the shoreline, leaving it by a wall marked off with orange cones. She says the next day the turtle was still there, decomposing.
“I’m really mad. I’m finding dead turtles, birds, giant fish and other animals all over the beach. No one comes by to clean them up right away and people come down here and let their kids play next to them. And the water looks like chicken broth.”
"It's so sad," says Mississippi coastal resident Laurel Lockamy who found a dead sea turtle over the weekend wrapped in orange tape, ready for retrieval.
Turtles are just the latest sea life deaths to get federal attention. So far this year, at least 134 dolphins have been found stranded along the Gulf coast, about four times the average number. Nearly half of the dolphins were newborns or juveniles. Earlier this year NOAA issued an Unusual Mortality Event for dolphins, which triggers a federal investigation into the deaths.
Recently, dolphin tissue samples from independent marine labs were  confiscated and sent to federal labs for analysis due to a federal investigation into their cause of death. NMFS is continuing to do testing on the turtles and dolphins but test results aren’t expected soon. Scientists say it may be impossible to know if dolphin and turtle strandings are due to the BP oil blowout. And some say the increased numbers of dead dolphins and turtles could be due to increased surveillance of the area after the oil washed in.
That’s not very reassuring to residents who have already lost trust in government officials and the BP claims process. Science may take a long time to solve these mysterious deaths, but people like Shirley feel they already know the answer. She and others blame ongoing health problems from exposures to oil and dispersants, something the medical establishment has yet to confirm. That's not surprising, Shirley says. "If they don't have a decent system to track and find out what's happening to dolphins and turtles, then why should they have one for people?"
Whether or not the oil had anything to do with the dead turtles washing up on the beaches, people here simply want answers. They want their lives—and their ocean—back. They want it back the way it used to be.

Outstanding Journalist in Conservation John Wathen

2011-03-29T08:43:00.000-05:00

For Immediate Release

Outstanding Journalist in Conservation
John Wathen (Friends of Hurricane Creek – AL)

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release – March 28, 2011

Contacts:
Benjamin Colvin: 828-258-2667 ben.colvin@wildsouth.org
Tracy Davids: 828-258-2667 tracy@wildsouth.org

Local Group Announces 2011 Conservation Awards Nominees

ASHEVILLE, NC –Wild South’s Roosevelt-Ashe Society announced today the winners for its annual Roosevelt-Ashe Society Conservation Awards. The awards honor outstanding conservation work in the South and recognize heroes for their contributions to protect the South’s wild places.
“These awards exist for people who believe they can move a mountain,” said Randy Talley, co- owner of The Green Sage Coffeehouse and Cafe. “The award winners are champions for all of
us to believe we can change this world, we can change our destructive behaviors, we can make a difference.”

The Roosevelt-Ashe Conservation Award Winners are:

Outstanding Business in Conservation
Earth Fare (Roger Derrough, Founder)
Outstanding Small Business in Conservation
Higher Ground Roasters (Alex Varner, co-owner- AL)
Outstanding Volunteer-Advocate in Conservation
Jay Leutze (Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy-NC, TN)
Outstanding Philanthropist in Conservation
Philip Blumenthal (Blumenthal Foundation- NC)
Outstanding Journalist in Conservation
John Wathen (Friends of Hurricane Creek – AL)
Outstanding Educator in Conservation
Hilary Hargrove (Riverdale High School, TN Env. Educ. Assoc. –TN)
Outstanding Youth in Conservation
Cole Rasenberger (Davidson Elementary School –NC)
Outstanding Conservationist
Brad Wyche (Upstate Forever –SC)

The Award winners were selected by an independent committee made up of highly respected conservationists from across the South. Their task was difficult and unenviable due to the this year’s amazing pool of nominees. On Friday night, Wild South’s Roosevelt-Ashe Society held its annual Green Tie Gala, a “Green Oscars” event where the award winners were announced and honored.

“I’ve seen my mentors and heroes receive these awards in years past,” said Jay Leutze, Outstanding Volunteer-Advocate in Conservation award winner with the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, “and I am honored to receive recognition alongside them tonight.”

“It was fun to see our guests walk down “The Green Carpet” at this year’s Gala and have such a great time,” said Tracy Davids, Wild South’s Executive Director. “It took a village to make the Gala the smash it was and I thank all of the Asheville area businesses that contributed to it.”

The 2011 Green Tie Gala Event and Reception were sponsored by: The Green Sage Coffeehouse and Café, Earth Fare, Hickory Nut Gap Farm, Banfi Wines and Empire Distributors, Inc., HandMade in America, Gallery Minerva, Pisgah Brewing Co., Blackbird Frame & Art, Luella’s Bar-B-Que, Greenlife Grocery, Short Street Cakes, French Broad Chocolate Lounge, Bluewater Seafood and Wine Market, Dynamite Roasting Co., Aaron Wilson (French Broad Brewing Co.), Classic Event Rental, Firestorm Cafe and Books, REI, Mast General Store and other friends of forests.

Wild South is a non-profit organization whose mission is to inspire people to enjoy, value and protect the wild character and natural legacy of the South.

Mother of 6 WALKS to Washingto DC from New Orleans La.

2011-03-28T02:44:00.003-05:00

On The Road to Washigton

With Cherri Foytlin and Drew Landry

Photo by Hartwell Carson

On March 25th, 2011, I received a very prestigious award from the Roosevelt / Ashe Society in Asheville, North Carolina for “Outstanding Journalist in Conservation, 2010”. I was honored beyond belief since the list of people I was up against are some of my friends and mentors from years past.

I cannot in all honesty take this award as a technical journalist. I am just a story teller who knows how to use cameras and video to tell those stories. The stories are about real events and real people, not about me. I was given a gift and that is the ability to share stories like this one.

It is a story about a lady who became so frustrated by the treatment of her family and friends in the Gulf after the BP disaster that she had to make a statement. She and many others have tried for the last many months to get the American public to realize that the disaster is not over.

In fact, it has just begun.

People are sick with unexplained illnesses like chemically induced flu and lesions that look and act like Staph infection but antibiotics used on Staph will not work on their sores. There are many reported cases of respiratory distress among fishermen and vessel of opportunity workers used in the cleanup and multiple rounds of steroids to no avail. People all over the coast that have tested high for Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) VOCs are dangerous forms of gases and heavy metals that accumulate in the blood stream causing a wide variety of illnesses including cancer, none of them good!

Due to dire financial circumstances everywhere, people who were once good friends are now enemies if they say or do something the other doesn't like. Industry shills are well skilled in inserting just enough language to get one fighting with the other. It is the oldest trick and military strategy in the books... "Divide and Conquer"!

Here is an opportunity for everyone to put aside differences and support this lady carry a unified message from the Gulf people that we still have a long way to go before all is well.

Cherri Foytlin walking into Atlanta by JLW

Cherri Foytlin is a mother of 6 who has taken on the task of making a statement so bold that it must be heard. She left her home South of New Orleans and started walking to Washington D. C. spreading the word that the crisis in the Gulf is far from over.

Along the way she hopes to meet up with coal activists to learn from them what is happening in our communities and tell us about her experiences since the BP, Deep Water Horizon disaster on Apr. 20, 2010. She has an idea that we can all work together to formulate a single message for Power Shift. That message is similar to the one we cry from coal country. Her husband works in the oil field and depends on the rigs for a living. We all know what that is like since most coal-field people have relatives in the mines. Ultimately the goal is Clean Energy but in the mean time we must have safe working conditions and enforcement of all environmental laws governing the industry.

Just like in the coal field, if this nation spent as much money on researching renewable resources as we do defending extraction technology, coal and oil, we would have an economic boom in the is country that would put the Silicon Valley to shame.

Drew Landry, photo by JLW

Drew Landry is something of a local celebrity around South Louisiana until he had the audacity to take his guitar into the commission investigating the BP disaster. “Mr. Landry stone cold busts out his guitar during the open mic portion of the first town hall hosted by the Presidential Oil Spill Commission”

(You Tube poster)
He is now highly thought of through out the Gulf region.

It is the same song featured in the video above.

He is playing a series of concerts in the near future along the coast and up the mountains. Proceeds will go to the “Save Our Gulf” group of WATERKEEPERS located along the Gulf of Mexico.

Help Cherri and Drew along the way if you see them. Walk a few miles or a few minutes with them but go hear their stories. It would be great to gather outside DC to walk into town with her.

Keep up with her on Facebook at “The Road to Washington” and on the web at “The Road to Washington"

Enjoy the video. Most of the photos are mine, all of the video and editing are mine entirely and copyrighted. Contact me here for usage.

To purchase a copy of the song "BP Blues" visit I-tunes or this link to purchase.

Buy this song: AmazonMP3

Flights were provided by,

SouthWings, Conservation Through Aviation

and

On Wings of Care, Saving Lives and Habitat

Ongoing Disaster In The Gulf 1 year later

2011-03-24T23:07:00.001-05:00

Ongoing Disaster In The Gulf 1 year later

Horn Island Mississippi by JLW flight by On Wings of Care

The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is far from over. Fishermen are put in the position of being FORCED to go out into water they know in their hearts is not safe for sale. Many of the fishermen I know personally will not eat the catch from their own boats. If they speak out they are chastised by their fellow fishermen for putting their jobs in jeopardy. These people should be compensated for every day they have to stay out of the fishing grounds until the waters are truly safe for human consumption.

All photos, video, editing and opinions stated are mine and mine alone!

It is heartbreaking what is happening in Louisiana but that is not all of the story. Reports surfaced of oil in Alabama, Mississippi. Because the brunt of the main impact was seen first in Louisiana the rest of the oil has been ignored for the most part.

I saw oil on two flights on two days well over 100 miles apart and in currents that will not allow the so called sediment / algae bloom to travel upstream to Mississippi and Alabama!

No one expect the responses to be perfect to these incidents but we demand the truth about them when they happen.

What is happening to the communities effected by this is almost criminal. The oil industry has basically declared them an energy sacrifice zone with no recourse but to play by the rules, leave, or die trying to survive. Fishermen must either fish in contaminated water and sell their catch to unsuspecting Americans or go without means to survive themselves.

John L. Wathen

Slides from the March 19, 2011 flight with On Wings of Care

Slides from the March 20, 2011 flight also with On Wings of Care.

Officials remain baffled over source of oil slick as Louisiana coastline is oiled again

2011-03-22T21:16:00.000-05:00

Tue Mar 22, 11:06 am ET

Officials remain baffled over source of oil slick as Louisiana coastline is oiled again

By Brett Michael Dykes

Photo by John L. Wathen

Days after observers spotted a massive oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico, no one in a position of power seems to yet know where it's coming from. So far, official reports are sketchy and contradictory, as New Orleans Time-Picayune reporter Mark Schleifstein notes in reviewing a statement from the U.S. Coast Guard:

"At this point, the dark substance is believed to be caused by a tremendous amount of sediment being carried down the Mississippi River due to high water, possibly further agitated by dredging operations," the Coast Guard release said.

A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, however, said none of the three dredges operating near the mouth of the Mississippi River has reported any oil in the material they're removing from the river bottom to keep the channel deep enough for ocean-going ships.

But as Louisiana officials and the Coast Guard conduct tests to determine the source, an all-too-familiar scene is developing over a 30-mile stretch of coast: Oil and oil byproducts such as tarballs have come rolling in. And teams of workers are rolling out a containment boom—the fencelike structures designed to keep oil from washing ashore—as oil-skimming vessels try to intercept the oil on the water's surface. And where the oil has landed, cleanup crews are scouring up the petroleum mess.
"We have 10,000 feet of hard boom and 9,000 feet of five-inch sorbent boom ordered into the area. We have 5,000 feet of each boom already delivered and staged in Grand Isle," Coast Guard Capt. Jonathan Burton said in a statement.
Meanwhile, residents of the Louisiana Gulf community of Grand Isle, who thought they'd finally turned the page on the nightmare of last year's BP spill, have noticed crude invading once again.
"I was out there from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. yesterday and the stuff came in in waves onto the island and through Caminada Pass," Grand Isle resident Betty Doud told the Times- Picayune. "There were these orange, nasty waves and black oil mixed with it. The oil was in the rocks along the pass."
You can watch a a video report on the new oil concerns from WWL in New Orleans below:
(Photo via: John Wathen's Photobucket page)

Louisiana doctor suspects patients' ill health caused by spill

2011-03-22T14:08:00.000-05:00

Louisiana doctor suspects patients' ill health caused by spill

Chris Miller Reporting

Blindness, nosebleeds, bleeding ears, memory loss. Is this what's happening to people exposed to leaking radiation in Japan? No, it's the symptoms a Louisiana doctor says his patients are dealing with more and more since the BP oil spill.

Dr. Mike Robichaux, an ear, nose and throat specialist and a former state senator, has shared his information with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network. LEAN director Marylee Orr says it's compelling.

"We are gathering evidence that I don't believe you can dismiss," Orr told members of the news media. "You may wonder about it, but you're going to find that all these folks have very high levels of the ten chemicals that we're testing for."

Dr. Robichaux says chemicals found in oil dispersants can have nasty effects on the human body.

"Ethylene glycol is antifreeze. Methanol is wood alcohol," Dr. Robichaux said. "10 ccs blinds you, 30 ccs kills you."

Dr. Robichaux says one spill cleanup worker lost his sight, and other patients have had trouble with their memory.

"People out here are losing their memories. They're having headaches and losing their memory," he said. "This is happening to hundreds and hundreds of people."

Dr. Robichaux says while BP has offered money to people who lost work because of the spill, nothing has been done for people sickened by it.

"There are no resources to help these people," he said. "Nothing, nothing, nothing at all, and they've lost everything."

Dr. Robichaux said it can't be a coincidence that it's happening so close to the spill zone.

Source of 30-mile oil spill in Gulf puzzles officials

2011-03-22T12:11:00.000-05:00

Source of 30-mile oil spill in Gulf puzzles officials

Published: Monday, March 21, 2011, 11:00 PM

By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune
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Emulsified oil, oil mousse and tar balls from an unknown source were washing up on beaches from Grand Isle to West Timbalier Island along the Gulf of Mexico, a stretch of about 30 miles, and it was still heading west Monday afternoon, a Louisiana official said. The state is testing the material to see if it matches oil from last April's BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.

Michael DeMocker, The Times-PicayuneIn a split-field photograph, a fisherman looks down at the surface oil in a tidal pool near a breakwater in Grand Isle on Friday..

Oil spill response workers under the direction of the U.S. Coast Guard and state officials were scrambling to block more of the material from coming ashore. ES&H Corp. has been hired to oversee the cleanup.
"We are working with our state and local partners to mitigate any further environmental impact while continuing to facilitate the safe movement of marine traffic to the fullest extent possible," Capt. Jonathan Burton, the federal on-scene coordinator for the response, said in a news release late Monday.
"To avoid delays in resource availability and delivery, we have taken a forward leaning approach and authorized ES&H to procure whatever additional boom and resources they need," Burton said.

The news release said that when all areas where the material has washed ashore are combined, about a half-mile of shoreline was affected.
Workers have deployed about 10,000 feet of containment and sorbent boom to prevent damage to environmentally sensitive areas; two MARKO skimmers are being moved to the area and another two are available; and two barge boats and two drum skimmers are at the scene.
The state has requested more boom, sorbents, skimmers and other equipment from the Coast Guard, said Garret Graves, coastal adviser to Gov. Bobby Jindal.
"Currently, boom is deployed in the Elmers/Caminada area and we're looking at one gap closure" in that area, Graves said. "We have multiple independent tests under way to determine the source."
On Sunday, Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts reported that a Coast Guard official had said the oil might be from a project to plug and abandon a well just offshore of Grand Isle. But Coast Guard officials said they're still waiting for tests of material collected in that area to determine where it came from.
A Coast Guard news release said a second, much larger area of sheen south of Grand Isle in the Gulf of Mexico contained small amounts of oil constituents mixed with sediment that seemed to be coming from the Mississippi River. The Coast Guard Cutter Pompano was deployed and gathered samples, which contained only trace amounts of petroleum hydrocarbons, oil and grease.
The samples were tested against state Department of Enviromental Quality standards, which call for no more than 65 parts per million of hydrocarbons and just under 10,000 ppm of oil and grease. One sample contained 8 ppm of total petroleum hydrocarbons and 86 ppm of oil and grease. A second contained 5 ppm of total hydrocarboms and 15 ppm of oil and grease.
"At this point, the dark substance is believed to be caused by a tremendous amount of sediment being carried down the Mississippi River due to high water, possibly further agitated by dredging operations," the Coast Guard release said.
A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, however, said none of the three dredges operating near the mouth of the Mississippi River has reported any oil in the material they're removing from the river bottom to keep the channel deep enough for ocean-going ships.
The Mississippi River had risen to 12.5 feet in New Orleans on Monday, up from only 3 feet above sea level three weeks ago, an indicator that the river contains a heavy load of sediment from upstream.
Betty Doud, a Grand Isle resident who volunteers with the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, said she monitored the oil moving along Grand Isle on Sunday.
"I was out there from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. yesterday and the stuff came in in waves onto the island and through Caminada Pass," she said. "There were these orange, nasty waves and black oil mixed with it. The oil was in the rocks along the pass."
Doud collected a sample of the material for Jefferson Parish President John Young, who was inspecting the area, and Young told her it would be tested at a laboratory in Lafayette. Doud has sent other samples to the Bucket Brigade, which will have them tested independently to determine if the oil matches that released last year from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The tests also will determine whether the oil contains cancer-causing oil constituents, or Corexit, the dispersant used last year to break up oil from the BP well.

Grand Isle again battles oil near shores

2011-03-22T11:51:00.000-05:00

Grand Isle again battles oil near shores

wwltv.com

Posted on March 21, 2011 at 6:13 PM

Katie Moore / Eyewitness News

GRAND ISLE, La. -- Workers combed the beach on Elmer’s Island in Jefferson Parish Monday, cleaning up oil that washed ashore over the weekend. State and federal officials began testing it, trying to determine the source of the oil.
Almost a year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Grand Isle and Elmer’s Island residents experienced a bit of deja vu.
“When it first happened, I'll be honest with you, they were very concerned. I got a lot of calls and people thought, you know, here we go again,” said Grand Isle Volunteer Fire Chief Aubrey Chaisson.
He and parish leaders flew over the area Sunday and spotted a sheen on the water two miles off the island.
“We found what they call wind roves, light sheening, rainbow sheening, kind of emulsified. It reacts with the surf, kind of like a protein mousse, they call it,” Chaisson said.
The U.S. Coast Guard laid fresh boom Monday, both hard and soft, to protect three key cuts into the marshes. It's an area that Chaisson said the massive BP oil spill never touched.
“We fought very hard during the whole spill to protect what we could and we accomplished something here and we don't want to lose it. That's the most important thing,” he said.
Jefferson Parish leaders called in the Coast Guard to handle the incident. They used the same command out of Houma that handled the BP clean up last year.
“It's definitely a hydrocarbon. It has an odor and the characteristics of oil in some of those areas,” said Coast Guard Commander Mark McManus, commanding officer of the Marine Safety Unit in Houma.
More than 50 workers scoured the beach with shovels and plastic bags Monday.
“The primary oiled areas were on Elmer's Island and Fouchon Beach,” McManus said.
State wildlife and fisheries agents said they began "fingerprinting" samples of the sheen in the Gulf of Mexico and from the beach on Elmers Island to find out if it's residual oil from the BP spill, or another source.
Chaisson and McManus said there’s no more oil washing ashore on Grand Isle, and what is already there is weathered.
“I think it's well under control,” Chaisson said.
Wildlife and fisheries expects LSU researchers to have the test results completed by Tuesday.

Oil washes ashore in Grand Isle

2011-03-22T00:06:00.000-05:00

Oil washes ashore in Grand Isle

Reported by: Allison Braxton, Reporter
Email: abraxton@fox8tv.net
Contributor: Phin Percy, Photographer
Last Update: 3/20 11:37 pm

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Oil washes ashore in Grand Isle

Oil washes ashore in Grand Isle

Oil has washed ashore in Grand Isle (Phin Percy, FOX 8 News)

Grand Isle families enjoy a lazy day at the beach.

But, Saturday evening, Grand Isle resident Kathy Michel noticed something floating in the water, just as you enter onto the island.

A layer of sheen and oil thick like peanut butter.

"I just wanted to break out crying this is probably going to happen the rest of our lives," says Michel.

But the oil did not come from the Deep Water Horizon Explosion.

Coast Guard Commander John Burton of Morgan City has confirmed a plug and abandonment project that occurred south of Grand Isle yesterday.

Commander Burton says oil was released into the water for about four to six hours and the source is now secured.

"This is definitely oil; you can smell it. You can feel it; it's not algae," says Jefferson Parish President John Young.

Young immediately contacted, the Coast Guard to put out boom.

"West of the beach coming in, right here is what you see. We're trying to keep that from getting past Elmer Island into the marsh and wetlands. That's why we've made a call to the Governor's Office to block off that last little cut," says Young.

Residents are wondering how this will impact summer tourism because they were on the verge of making a comeback after last year.

"We like to have our tourists come down here, they come from all over the place. But I don't know what's going to happen," says Michel.

In the meantime, it's a race to keep the water safe.

Matterhorn or not???

2011-03-21T19:49:00.000-05:00

This rig is sitting where the Matterhorn is supposed to be. Matterhorn is nowhere to be seen from the plane.

Photo by JLW

The name on this rig is the Nobel Amos Runner. There were as many as 30 heavy winches that all had cables in the water.

There are rumors flying that this rig had a problem capping and blew oil for a while. I need to find someone to substantiate this to do a complete story.

Louisiana BAYOUKEEPER talks about recent oil in the Gulf.

2011-03-21T13:04:00.002-05:00

Over the past few weeks, there were numerous reports of dead dolphins across the Gulf, including a report of 5 dead dolphins near Rattlesnake Bayou on the east side of Barataria Bay, LA. As part of our basin patrol program, we planned a fly over of the Barataria Basin, with Bonnie Schumaker, http://www.OnWingsOfCare.org , to look for dead/stranded dolphins and other wildlife.

Tracy Kuhns, Louisiana BAYOUKEEPER

After receiving reports Saturday, March 19, 2011, of oil and strong petroleum odors 23 miles south of Grand Isle, we decided to fly over the Gulf. We flew from New Orleans, south along the Mississippi River and across the east side of Barataria Bay toward the Gulf of Mexico. At first we didn't see anything out of the ordinary, brown heavily silted waters coming from the muddy Mississippi River dumping into the Gulf. Typical spring high river water. We flew a little to the east and found more of the same. We turned to the southwest, heading toward the reported oil sighting south of Grand Isle, LA. Almost immediately we began seeing, what appeared to be, large areas of oil just below the surface along with streaks of multicolored "sheen" on the surface. The smell of petroleum was thick in the air. We flew southwest, to approximately 40 miles south of Grand Isle and followed the "plumes" and "sheen" north all the way in to Grand Terre Island and Grand Isle. The "sheen" appeared to be flowing into Barataria Bay through Four Bayou Pass and Grand Isle Pass.

Photo by JLW

We saw only a few birds, one large, dead Red Fish and only three dolphins during the entire fly over. Mike Roberts, Louisiana Bayoukeeper, reported what we were seeing to the Coast Guard, as we were flying in.

03/19/2011 Photos By John Wathen, Hurricane Creekkeeper

It was surreal. Is the BP Well leaking again? Is this more, larger waves of old dispersed oil washing in from the BP Well, which has been ongoing since the original spill? Could it be a blow out on another rig? Is the force of the spring river flowing off of the continental shelf pushing dispersed oil back up from the water bottoms? Is it something else all together? As we flew inland, across Barataria Bay, heading back to the New Orleans Lakefront Airport, all I could think was "Please Lord, not again! This can't happen again, they still haven't finished cleaning up the mess from the last one!"

The fly overs help us identify problems and their locations in the water. The next day, Sunday, March 20, 2011, we left Lafitte/Barataria in the Bayoukeeper Patrol Vessel to collect samples. The wind was blowing from the south and we began smelling petroleum around Wilkinson Canal. It could have been coming from Bay Jimmy, as clean up from the BP spill is ongoing in this area. We continued south of Bay Jimmy into Barataria Bay. The petroleum smell became stronger and we began to see foam and what appeared to be small globs of weathered oil/dispersant. We grabbed samples of the water and globs. The wind and current was kicking up waves and making it very choppy. We came across thick streams of red/brown foam in the current lines at Coup Au , Four Bayou Pass and Grand Isle Pass and grabbed samples. It was too rough in front of the Islands for our boat to get samples from the uninhabited beaches. We will make another trip to collect samples when it calms down. We will post the results of our sampling as soon as we get them back.

Photo by Kenny Robinson

Our Councilman, Chris Roberts has been and continues to monitor this incident; as well as, the ongoing impacts from the BP Spill. Here is a link to a WWL report. http://www.wwl.com/Jefferson-official-on-reported-oil-slick/9437034

Bonnie Schumaker, http://www.OnWingsOfCare.org , is a fantastic pilot and committed advocate. She donates her plane, time and 50% of the fuel for the fly overs she has taken us on. We are grateful for all she does. We hope you will take the time to go to her website.

Tracy Kuhns
Louisiana Bayoukeeper, Inc
Fishing Community Family Support Center
P.O. Box 207
Barataria, LA 70036
504-689-8849 Office
504-689-7687 Fax
bayoukeeper@cox.net

Oil from well being plugged may be cause of beach pollution

2011-03-21T12:11:00.001-05:00

Oil from well being plugged may be cause of beach pollution

By Stephen Babcock, The Times-Picayune
Oil was released into the Gulf of Mexico south of Grand Isle for four to six hours Saturday, the apparent source of oil that washed ashore on Louisiana beaches Sunday, a Jefferson Parish Council member said.
The source of the leak has been secured, Councilman Chris Roberts said in an email.
There have been reports that Grand Isle and other barrier islans had been polluted by the oil.
Roberts said Coast Guard Capt. John Burton, the commanding officer of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit in Morgan City, said a drilling site was being plugged when the leak occurred.
On Saturday, the Coast Guard received varying reports detailing a sheen between three and 100 miles long, starting about six miles off the coast of Grand Isle. However, the Guard apparently is investigating that as a separate incident.
The Coast Guard had investigated the sheen by sending out a cutter to collect samples, Coast Guard spokeswoman Casey Ranel said.
The Coast Guard said the samples contained "only trace amounts of petroleum hydrocarbons, oil and grease."

The Coast Guard said "the dark substance (in the Gulf) is believed to be caused by a tremendous amount of sediment being carried down the Mississippi River due to high water, possibly further agitated by dredging operations."

The Guard said it is deploying boom to protect areas where "an oily substance was washing ashore on Elmer Isle, Fourchon Beach and Grand Isle." (What a contradiction!, it's sediment but we are placing oil boom everywhere!)((JLW))

The Guard is treating the the beach oilings as separate from the sheen it said contained only trace amounts of hydrocarbons.
"We have 10,000 feet of hard boom and 9,000 feet of five-inch sorbent boom ordered into the area. We have 5,000 feet of each boom already delivered and staged in Grand Isle," Burton said.
A company has been hired to clean up the impacted shorelines, the Coast Guard said.
"Samples have been taken from the shoreline impacts for testing, but the oily substance is not, at this time, suspected to be residual oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill," the Coast Guard said in a press release.
Grand Isle Fire Chief Aubrey Chaisson said he saw the substance up close Sunday aboard a boat and also viewed it from a helicopter. He said the substance, which covered about a two to three-mile area, looked like "emulsified oil."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Large new oil spill under investigation off Louisiana's coast

2011-03-21T11:49:00.000-05:00

Large new oil spill under investigation off Louisiana's coast

The U.S. Coast Guard is investigating a large oil sheen off the Louisiana coast about 20 miles north of the site where the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up last April.

Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathen of the Waterkeeper Alliance first heard reports about the slick on Saturday and flew over the site for a firsthand look. He shot the photo at right, and more images from his flight can be seen here.

"It was hard to believe I was seeing as much oil in the South Louisiana area again," he wrote on his blog yesterday. "It was even harder to believe that our so called government watchdogs have not closed these fishing grounds!"

Wathen says he hasn't seen so much oil in the Gulf since last July. Rocky Kistner of the Natural Resources Defense Council reports that a helicopter pilot sighted the slick on Friday, and a fishing boat captain who sailed through it that same day said it was strong enough to make his eyes burn.

According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the first call about the spill came in to the National Response Center at about 11 a.m. on Saturday, with the caller describing a sheen about a half-mile square. A couple of hours later, another caller reported a sheen about 100 miles long originating from the same area and spreading west.

The Coast Guard says it collected samples from the slick that showed trace amounts of petroleum hydrocarbons, oil and grease. It speculates that the pollution could be caused "by a tremendous amount of sediment being carried down the Mississippi River due to high water, possibly further agitated by dredging operations." The agency says it does not believe the pollution is coming from the Deepwater Horizon spill site.

On Sunday, officials with Louisiana's Jefferson Parish said an oil well south of Grand Isle had released oil for four to six hours before being plugged, the Daily Comet reports.

The Coast Guard was also notified yesterday that an "oily substance" was washing ashore on Elmer Isle, Fourchon Beach and Grand Isle on the Louisiana coast. Boom is being laid to protect environmentally sensitive areas.

2011-03-21T11:07:00.000-05:00

Sorry to be a bringdown, but we have a NEW oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. [/slap]

Posted: March 18, 2011 by summerburkes in The Ladies' Guide to the Apocalypse
Tags: 28th Amendment for the Separation of Corporation and State, agent orange, Alabama, algae biofuel, America, America's wetlands, apocalypse, BP, cajuns, community, corexit, current events, deepwater horizon, dolphins, evolution, fish kills, Florida panhandle, Gulf Coast, Halliburton, Hurricane Creekkeeper, John Wathen, life, Lisa Nelson, Louisiana, Mac MacKenzie, Matt Simmons, Mississippi, Monsanto, Mycoplasma mycoides, Nalco, New Orleans, news, NOLA ER, non-profit, oil spill, oilpocalypse, Paul Doom, Riki Ott, Synthetic Genomics, Transocean, W&T, white sands beaches

March 20, 2011: Deja vu horror in Grand Isle, Louisiana

Yep … It’s called the “Matterhorn Field,” and it’s owned by W&T, whose stock tanked Friday afternoon … they say they stopped it already, but whatever. We’ll believe it when we see it. … ::sighs heavily:: … Apparently it’s 100 miles long by 5 miles wide, even though the Coast Guard is saying it’s “3 to 100 miles long.” [GAAAAH - ed.] Of course the Coast Guard dismissed it at first as sediment, and then “sheen,” and then, even as Louisianans began to weep, the Coast Guard “tested” it and said it was a mixture of oil and sediment.
HA F**KING HA. Jerks. Having been up close enough to test Louisiana crude myself, I can vouch that the smell of oil is UNMISTAKABLE and OVERPOWERING. Especially when you’re SURROUNDED BY IT. Under pressure, though, you can “test” water to show anything you like. You can test water samples in such a way that your commanding officer breathes over your shoulder and hangs a picture of Matt Simmons (RIP) on the wall inside your cubicle, and then magically, you don’t see hardly any oil at all. Is how this bullshit is playing out now.
Authorities also state vaguely that the oil near the shore (unmistakably oil, to everyone who lives there & witnesses it) is from a different “well-plugging operation” than the 100-mile-long, rainbow-sheeny ribbon of “sediment” our citizen journalists photographed in the air. Well, rainbow-sheen might appear on the surface of the water if some old Deepwater oil they sank with Corexit had been dredged up, but so far that cocktail combination has just turned to muck, foam, and snot — all rainbow-less. And as far as our i-reporters can research, no dredging projects are currently being conducted in the area — especially none which could cause a 100-mile ribbon of rainbow sheen. But we should give them the benefit of the doubt. Big Oil LOVES (*to rape) Louisiana. It was an accident. They didn’t mention. For 2 days while they tried to cover it up. And are still lying about. What’s not to trust?

all ground photos (c) the heroic Mac Mackenzie of NOLA ER dot org, who rushed down to Grand Isle and took pictures on Sunday March 20

Of course my tinfoil hat says they did it on purpose, to feed the algae. Regardless, this Spring Break, those Mycoplasma mycoides, oil-eating synthetic bacteria of Craig Venter’s, named “Synthia,” with a “computer program for a parent” — see links below — those Franken-bacteria will be going crazy at the lunch counter, sucking up oxygen in the process, which creates tons more algae that should NOT be there, in the COLD, washing up onto once-white Florida panhandle beaches like a bad sci-fi horror movie. Conveniently, this algae, which they hope kills the Gulf of Mexico as a tourist and fishing entity forever, will be used to power the military’s vehicles with synthetic algae-based biofuel which has already been unleashed into the world’s oceans. F*@#$!)@(*&%K!! Do yall get the quantum leap of f**kery between “genetically-modified” organisms and straight-up SYNTHETIC ones? … Disaster capitalism MUST END. This constitutes MOBSTER-style f**king around with the natural order of things, courtesy the Gangster Party. These are OUR beaches and marshes. NOT THEIRS.
And nevermind the huge sticky underwater tarmats and beach-hugging oil-slicks being served up on a platter and stuck to the feets of Spring Breakers this week, who cluelessly bound out into the same surf that put Paul Doom in a wheelchair. As C-130s and helicopters continue to buzz Gulf Coast houses while they spray Corexit (and copper, iron, phosphorus, and whatever else feeds that Franken-bacteria) in low-flying night missions, pre-dawn workers spirit away the stillborn baby dolphins and other carcasses from massive fish kills, which would otherwise serve to annoy capitalists on the boardwalk who would rather pretend everything was hunky-dory, as if their lives depended on it, which they do.

all air photos (c) the heroic John Wathen, Hurricane Creekkeeper

So many people have died for this fuel — rather, for the protection of this military-industrial complex, and diametrically opposed to the interests of the flesh-and-blood people it’s meant to serve — and now, on top of the first wave of springtime FAIL and SAD HEARTBREAKING DEATH caused by the Deepwater, we have a new oil spill with horrifying photos to kick the PTSD back in. Woooo, Spring Break! 28th Amendment for the Separation of Corporation and State!
(You can do it, ya know. Start in your own town. Get your city council to adopt a resolution calling for a Constitutional Amendment to end corporate personhood, like Richmond, CA did. They’re an oil town, BTW.)
And an aside, to lighten it up with some mystery … While we were going to unconstitutional war with Libya, and Japan was desperately throwing the kitchen sink at their “virtually indestructible” nuclear reactors, a huge BOOM-ROAR-noise set northern Florida aflitter. People could hear and feel it for 100 miles, and they thought it was an earthquake but it didn’t register as one, and it wasn’t a tornado or high winds, and it wasn’t a jet breaking the sound barrier, because it lasted for 20 minutes. Here’s some scary home-filmed footage, and when you watch it, remember, this isn’t Cloverdale, this is real life. It sounds an awful lot like the Earth singing — skip to 4mins of the latter link if you want the good kind of chills, and to be reminded of the beauty of this ride. Here’s another, of Jupiter singing. You won’t get demoralized, will you? If you do, the terrorists have won. And we need you. The show’s about to start. Everybody’s tuning up, even the JERKS who don’t give a shit if they slowly kill all my relations in Dixie while they try to NUKE AND PAVE THE GULF FOREVER.
28th Amendment for the Separation of Corporation and State, please. Please. ::stabs pillow::

screengrab of maritime activity March 17-ish, 2011. Sure looks like boats applying the poisonous dispersant/accelerant/anti-personnel weapon Corexit in circles, is why the eagle-eye watchdog screengrabbed it in the first place, before we knew about any of this bullshit. Say it with me: HANDS OFF OUR LAND AND WATER, F**KTARDS

And now, here are a metric ass-ton of latest Gulf Coast / Gangster Party-centric links in red, pointing to the fact that ONLY WIND, WATER, SOLAR, AND HEMP WILL NOT TURN AROUND AND BITE US IN THE ASS. I collected these before the recent Japan / Libya / new Gulf spill triple-whammy … and now more than ever it seems appropriate to decentralize government, money, and power, and to imagine a world where humanity powered itself with fuel that didn’t kill anyone:
SunHerald.com: Infant dolphins dying in high numbers – Gulfport – Feb. 20, 2011 (so they’ve already started to lie about the numbers … but the Gulf Coast activist community has counted about 200 aborted dolphin fetuses washed ashore in two months. The normal count by this point in the year is TWO.)
AL.com: 9 dead dolphins found since Saturday in Alabama and Mississippi (Also, 32 human miscarriages were confirmed in the Plaquemines Parish area of LA alone, including one woman whose fetus was dead inside her for a month, so it gave her toxic septicemia and she is no longer with us. So if you figure in the number of women who won’t talk about their miscarriages, and multiply that by the surface area of the Gulf Coast, no doubt hundreds of expectant mothers were crushed this year by the loss of their children-to-be. Thanks, BP! … )
Gulf Restoration Network: Are House Republicans waging a war on the Gulf? please read, and then call the White House and tell them what you think…

Algal Biomass.org: Alternative Energy: Why the President’s portfolio approach will make us leaders –

The U.S. Air Force is the largest consumer of petroleum in the military. Every day, it burns more than 7.0 million gallons of oil. And where do we get that oil? In 2010, the U.S. spent more than $300 billion to import 4.2 billion barrels of oil, largely to make fuels needed to meet military and civilian transportation demands. One of the greatest threats to our economic and national security is the need to secure foreign oil. So, when President Obama confirmed a commitment to develop domestically renewable petroleum replacements from biomass, also known as bio-crude, he put a stake in the ground that alternatives are not just good for the environment, they’re critical to our national and economic security. Bio-crudes are compatible with the DoD’s current fleet of tanks, ships, and planes, which will be in use for the next 30 years.”

Detection of Viral Hemmorhagic Septicemia Virus
FOSL: Chemist: Dispersant was found in self-contained fish pond 1/2 mile from Alabama coast; all fish died — owner drained, restocked pond and second batch of fish died
ScienceNews: Gulf floor fouled by bacterial oil feast
Examiner.com: Gulf bioterrorism: Bioengineered super-bug jumping species heads global

FOSL: Shock: Well-known LSU coastal scientist dies at 54 from unknown illness – Often spoke about how oil was going to be “coming back” (that brings the total to EIGHT suspicious deaths by outspoken and/or Deepwater-connected scientists who wouldn’t shut up because of BP hush-money)
Planetsave.com: Newest Gulf report – Oil, soot, and dead animals on sea floor
Yahoo News: WWF – Russia, BP offshore oil drilling in protected national park
BBC News: Gulf spill’s effects ‘may not be seen for a decade’
Synthetic Genomics: BP FAQs

The initial phase of the BP/Synthetic Genomics deal will focus on identifying and describing the naturally occurring organisms and their natural biological functions that thrive in subsurface hydrocarbon formations, including petroleum, natural gas, coal, bitumen, shale, and carbon dioxide. Synthetic Genomics will utilize unique technologies including environmental genomics and multiplex microbial culturing techniques. The overarching goal is to explore and understand subsurface microbial processes. Such an understanding would enable hydrocarbon quality enhancement or increased production. BP and Synthetic Genomics will seek to jointly commercialize the bioconversion of subsurface hydrocarbons into cleaner energy products. The second phase of the BP/Synthetic Genomics program will be a series of field pilot studies of the most promising bioconversion approaches.”

Synthetic Genomics: Hydrocarbon Recovery (read this carefully and connect the dots. they are experimenting with methods to “grow” hydrocarbons in their beds. think about this in connection with the Macondo “Well from Hell,” and the reports of the first well drilled and capped months before the Deepwater rig blew. Why did it buck and snort and blow up real good? hmmm)
Synthetic Genomics: Press Release June 13, 2007 – Synthetic Genomics, Inc. and BP to explore bioconversion of hydrocarbons into cleaner fuels
RediceCreations.com: Craig Venter — Programming algae to pump out oil (MEET DR. MOREAU)

Gulf BioTerrorism: A Silent & Deadly Enemy Among Us (Part II) — The Gulf Blue Plague –

“Rhamnolipids are surfactants, or oil dispersants, and they are not restricted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). How interesting. … Rhamnolipids are secreted from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a bacterium. In case you don’t remember the significance of Pseudomonas, let me quote Dr. Riki Ott once again:
“To make things a little scarier, some of the oil-eating bacteria have been genetically modified or otherwise bio-engineered to better eat the oil – including Alcanivorax borkumensis and some of the Pseudomonas.” — September 17, 2010; Bio-Remediation or Bio-Hazard? Dispersants, Bacteria and Illness in the Gulf .
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common bacterium which can cause disease in animals, including humans. The symptoms of such infections are generalized inflammation and sepsis. If such colonizations occur in critical body organs, such as the lungs, the urinary tract, and kidneys, the results can be fatal. It is also able to decompose hydrocarbons and has been used to break down tarballs and oil from oil spills.”

WEAR – ABC 3: Top stories – Coast Guard Report Says Stop Cleaning Oil
Reuters: Gulf Coast dolphin death toll rises to nearly 60 (now it’s up to more like 170, and they’re still washing up on beaches like Destin and Navarre, much to the chagrin of Spring Break-loving Boss Hoggs who consider profit above health)
FOSL: Cleanup worker having SEIZURES after diagnosed with benzene poisoning — Coughing up chunks of meat, black stuff coming out of nose & ears, lost half of eyesight
“Feeling More and More Like It Can’t Be Fixed” – by Denise Rednour, tireless citizen journalist and BP muck-filmer:

NWF Daily News: LETTER – A Serious Situation (“Recently I read an article concerning sick individuals on the Gulf Coast. On a whim, I got $300 together and went to have my blood tested. I completely expected to find out I had wasted my money and was looking in the wrong direction — but I received test results that made me sit down in shock.”)
Nola.com: BP reneges on deal to rebuild oyster beds, repair wetlands, Louisiana officials say
ProjectGulfImpact: Selling shrimp with oil in their lungs, at the Gulf State Pier in Gulf Shores. 2-22-11
FOSL: Tears: “There are no crabs, you know. There are no crabs!” says daughter of crab-processing plant owners
Yahoo News: Indigenous Ecuadoran woman humbles US oil giant
“Oil drilling into a Salt Dome: Catastrophic failure – evidence – Lake Peigneur 1980 BP Disaster”:

Nola.com: Kenneth Feinberg’s releases go too far, violate oil spill law, plaintiffs argue
GulfBlog.UGA.edu: Gulf Oil Blog — You don’t belong here. (gossip about seafloor anomalies from UGA)
OilSpillAction: PHOTO UPDATE FROM HORN ISLAND: Too many dead horseshoe crabs to count; remnant oil both on the beach surface and buried as deep as 4 feet
NY Times: Maker of controversial dispersant used in Gulf oil spill hires top lobbyists (from June ’10; still relevant)
Crooks And Liars 05/10: BP Deepwater Horizon well permitted for 18,000 ft. but drilling as deep as 25,000 ft.
Common Dreams: Friends of the Earth briefs Congress on billions in potential savings from ending polluter giveaways (“Moglen called attention to the billions that can be saved by eliminating giveaways to the oil and coal industries and other polluters. … “Being fiscally responsible and environmentally conscious are not mutually exclusive; we can save money by protecting the environment — we can save over $15 billion dollars a year by ending subsidies for fossil fuels,” Moglen said. “If funding is going to be cut from the budget, let’s do it there, and not by taking away nutritional support from little kids.”)

NOLA.com editorial: Deepwater Horizon explosion stemmed from a failure of management (wow, what a cavalcade of blunders)
YouTube: Animal Death Investigations – Corexit (wow, 2 cute robots talking about serious Shi’ite)
WWMT.com: Former worker says Enbridge simply covering up oil (in the Kalamazoo River)
Above Top Secret: First tests released using BP’s actual crude mixed with Corexit
MotherJones: “They were purposefully trying to deceive everyone” (FINALLY an honest scientist — watch this please — prayers for his safety!)
BP Pays a Crony (“BP’s much publicized compensation fund for Gulf oil spill victims has received over 91,000 requests for final damage settlement payments from people and businesses across the Gulf but has only issued one. Give them credit, it was for a hefty sum of $10 million dollars but it comes with one caveat; the recipient is an existing BP business partner that was paid only after BP intervened on their behalf.”)

2011-03-21T10:56:00.001-05:00

Rocky Kistner

Media associate, NRDC

Posted: March 19, 2011 05:18 PM

Oil Spill Reported Near Deepwater Drilling Site in Gulf

Update March 20, 2011: A Coast Guard officer with a command center in Morgan City, LA, said today the Coast Guard has confirmed that oil is not coming from the Deepwater Horizon well but that they have found what appear to be smaller oil slicks in the Gulf. Their investigation into reports of large oil slicks is continuing. Additional photos and information from pilots John Wathen and Bonnie Schumaker who flew over the area yesterday are expected to be released today.

The Coast Guard is investigating reports of a potentially large oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico not far from the Deepwater Horizon site. According to a knowledgeable source, the slick was sighted by a helicopter pilot on Friday and is about 100 miles long. A fishing boat captain said he went through the slick yesterday and it was strong enough to make his eyes burn.

Photo by JLW Gulf Shrimp Boat Oiled

According to the Times Picayune, the Coast Guard has confirmed they are investigating a potentially large 100 mile slick about 30 miles offshore. They are going to a site near the Matterhorn well site about 20 miles north of the BP Deepwater Horizon site, according to the paper. The Matterhorn field includes includes a deepwater drilling platform owned by W&T Technology. It was acquired last year from TotalFinaElf E&P.
Independent pilots are attempting to reach the slick today. Bonnie Schumaker with Wings of Care reported she saw a slick two days ago and is attempting to reach the site.

Photos of oil slick in Gulf off Grand Isle, LA, March 18-19, 2011
Jerry Moran / Stuart Smith   oilspillaction.com

Also, another Louisiana fisherman reports that fresh oil is coming ashore near South Pass, LA, and that cleanup crews are laying new boom near the beach. He also reports that cleanup crews in four-wheeled vehicles were patrolling the beaches near the marsh filled coast spraying a substance on the beach.
Cleanup crews are still operating along the marshes and beach areas of Louisiana and other gulf states. The Bay Jimmy of Louisiana's Barataria Bay remains heavily oiled.
Oil is also being discovered in more populated areas too. With spring break coming, students and tourists are already heading to the Gulf to escape the winter up north. Recently a group of Missouri college kids came across oil off the beaches of Pensicola. "We were fishing with nets for shells, we call it shelling, and it was just brown, I thought it was shark poop at first," one incredulous student told local Pensacola station WEAR-TV.
"It kind of did surprise me with all the efforts I thought BP was making to clean up but obviously as you can see, there's still so much to do," said another.
Check out the entire TV report here.
More spring breakers will likely come in contact with oil as they migrate in greater numbers to the Gulf. Residents across the coast complain they continue to see oily sheen and a white dispersant like mix washing in, leaving unusual blobs of brown foam that sometimes shine like tiny rainbows on the shore.

BP Slick

Oil is resurfing again not far from the location of the BP Macondo Wel

Cherri Foytlin tells of her arrest at the BP Protest in NOLA

Gulfport councilman slams BP

BP Oil and Chemicals Still Pollute Alabama Back Bays

BP Oil and Chemicals Still Pollute Alabama Back Bays

Gulf Coast environmentalist, Sea Lab director tangle over Gulf's post-oil spill condition

Gulf Coast environmentalist, Sea Lab director tangle over Gulf's post-oil spill condition

Gulf Coast Leadership Summit or Feinberg Evades Answers

Gulf Bacteria is for targeting people, not oil - It was never about oil - Its legal Genocide

Gulf Bacteria is for targeting people, not oil - It was never about oil - Its legal Genocide

Do NOT flush or toss out old medicine!

Corexit solvent poisoning finally comes to light in the Gulf

Available Hunting For Oil

Texas City BP plant loses power, issues shelter-in-place alert

Ecoviews: Wild South honors conservationists for their efforts

Ecoviews: Wild South honors conservationists for their efforts

By Whit Gibbons

Published: Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 3:30 a.m.

One Year After Deepwater Horizon - Greg Palast Interview

The Voice of Doomm is heard

The Voice of Doomm is heard

A lot of controversy has surrounded Paul's illness. That doesn't give Black Heart Feinberg the right to ignore him.

Destroying our gulf shouldn't be a tax write-off.

BP to provide $1 billion toward early restoration projects in the Gulf

BP oil spill effects still being seen

BP oil spill effects still being seen

10 Reasons to Still Be Pissed Off About the BP Disaster

10 Reasons to Still Be Pissed Off About the BP Disaster

Louisiana Musician Finds His Own ‘Solution to Pollution’

Louisiana Musician Finds His Own ‘Solution to Pollution’

Richard Ziglar - KRVS - Lafayette, LA

Entry Date: April 19, 2011Total Time: 00:07:47

One year later, we are STILL waiting for action from Congress

Gulf Coast Health Forum April, 2011

SkyTruth, SouthWings and Waterkeeper Alliance Launch Gulf of Mexico Monitoring Consortium

SkyTruth, SouthWings and Waterkeeper Alliance Launch Gulf of Mexico Monitoring Consortium

Louisiana BAYOUKEEPER goes to London to protest BP

Fishing For Answers In The Gulf

"5 Million Barrels of Oil Does Not Disappear": Author, Activist Antonia Juhasz on the BP Spill, One Year Later

It's Not Over / by Steve Bartlett

Sick fish suggest oil spill still affecting gulf

Sick fish suggest oil spill still affecting gulf

2010-2011 Cetacean Unusual Mortality Event in Northern Gulf of Mexico

Defense Department considers military resort on Dauphin Island

AP IMPACT: BP buys Gulf Coast millions in gear

The Tipping Point

the tipping point

PRESS CONFERENCE / FILM SCREENING: “Stories from the Gulf: Living with the Oil Disaster”

Scientists unsure why dolphins washing up dead

BP buys east beach of Cat Island

BP buys east beach of Cat Island

EDITORIAL: John Wathen gets environmental accolades

EDITORIAL: John Wathen gets environmental accolades

New aerial images deepen concerns about Gulf seafood safety

Wathen honored for his attention to Gulf oil spill, Hurricane Creek

Wathen honored for his attention to Gulf oil spill, Hurricane Creek

BP Worker admits to threat of firing for wearing respirator.

I've talked to too many clean-up workers who all attest to the fact that BP said they would be terminated if caught using a respirator.

DISPATCH: Tucker Mendoza, Gulf Truth Activist Shot. Developing…

DISPATCH: Tucker Mendoza, Gulf Truth Activist Shot. Developing…

Shrimp Trawling Re-Suspending BP Oil?

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Shrimp Trawling Re-Suspending BP Oil?

BP Oil Update by Your Emerald COASTKEEPER

Un Freakin Believable!

Transocean Execs Get Bonuses for ‘Best Year in Safety,’ Despite Gulf Disaster

Watchdog analysis suggests recent Gulf oil spill was major

U.S. lawyers say BP, spill partners harmed cleanup crew

U.S. lawyers say BP, spill partners harmed cleanup crew

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Sea Turtle Deaths Anger Mississippi Residents

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