What a long strange trip it's been!

I will be making my public debut here in NZ on Wed. It is an honor to be representing My friends and family in the Gulf and my brothers and sisters of the Waterkeeper Alliance. 

A local radio station here interviewed me today and I told them the truth. We had thousands of people, hundreds of ships, boats and even Corexit and we failed miserably at keeping it off of our shores and our people got sick then and still today are sick from that failure!

This was in the local paper here in Wellington today.

Eye witness shares stories of oil spill Photojournalist in Kaikoura

Last updated 13:41 01/05/2013

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Kaikoura bound: Environmentalist, John Wathen is holding a presentation of Wednesday next week about the Gulf oil disaster

Kaikoura

 

An American photojournalist will share his eye-witness account of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster at a free seminar in Kaikoura on Wednesday next week.
The community is invited to John Wathen's presentation, which will include a short film and discussion.
The evening is hosted by No Drill Kaikoura and Greenpeace, and will include an update on deep sea oil drilling proposals in New Zealand.
Mr Wathen is an environmental photojournalist from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He chartered a plane to fly over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, capturing images of the spill as it developed.
Since 2010, Mr Wathen has continued to document the after-effects and the impacts on coastal communities.
Mr Wathen is a member of the International Waterkeepers Organisation that campaigns for the protection of waterways, and was the recipient of the Waterkeeper's River Hero of the Year Award in 2012.

For more information contact: Ralph Hogan 03 319 6637.
The seminar is at 7pm in the Memorial Hall supper room.

BP SLICK IN NEW ZEALAND!

IT'S OFFICIAL FOLKS

Your Hurricane Creekkeeper in New Zealand??!!

Hurricane Creekkeeper on Hurricane Creek, Photo by Ken Robinson

As your Hurricane Creekkeeper I've had the privilege of being the advocate for one of the most beautiful places on Earth, Hurricane Creek. Kenneth Robinson will be standing in as Your Hurricane Creekkeeper while I am away. Let Ken know if you see anything that needs attention... kennethrobinson1@netzero.com (205-310-0995)

 

Through my involvement in groups like the Citizens Coal Council and Waterkeeper Alliance I have become associated with some of the worlds most passionate water advocates.

Waterkeeper Alliance in Baja

Part of being your Hurricane Creekkeeper is the ability to capture evidence and present it in a way that is both passionate and not sensationalized. What I see is sensational enough without making it bigger than it is. That process has taken me to some of the largest man-made disasters in history. I took my cameras to Kingston Tenn. to document the coal ash pond disaster there with my sister Waterkeeper, Donna Lisenby.

Donna Lisenby, Upper Watauga Riverkeeper  documents dead fish

We were given the bums rush out of the river by TVA goons with trucks, boats, and helicopters! You would have thought we had committed some heinous crime instead of collecting evidence in what was at that time the largest spill of any toxic material into a river in American History.
We were actually given citations for paddling a canoe and a kayak in a Waterway of The US.

Officer John B. Neal issues citation to Upper Watauga Riverkeeper

John L. Wathen, Sandra Diaz, and Donna Lisenby proudly display our citations

Little did I know then that the Kingston coal ash disaster would follow me home to Alabama in a subtle and devious manner of it's own.

Enter Perry County

The ash was not cleaned up but only transferred to Perry County, Alabama in a whirlwind of toxic issues of it's own.

Then in April, 2010, America suffered another huge man-made disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Gulf of Mexico, 05/07/2010

Again, I had a front row seat for the largest man-made disaster in our history! This one was the most dramatic spectacle of callous greed and deceit I had ever encountered. Media was intimidated to a point where they were afraid to report anything. BP had goons all over the place trying to keep the story down using any methods available to stop the truth. I went over their heads, so to speak by using a flight service named SouthWings.

John Wathen, SouthWings pilot, Tom Hutchings, and Industrial Scars photographer, Henry Fair

It has now come to me to put these disasters to good use.

I have been asked to come to New Zealand for a month to work with Green Peace New Zealand.

It will be my honor to meet and greet with environmental groups and tribal elders of the Maori People  to share what I have seen and experienced in both the coal and oil industries in my journeys across America's oil and coal fields.

Follow me on this new and fabulous adventure where I will attempt to put all of this horror story of American Extraction technology to good use informing the people of New Zealand of what can be expected if they allow deep water drilling in their sacred tribal waters.

The wells in New Zealand will be almost twice as deep as BP's Deepwater Horizon, with bigger pipes, and only 3 (THREE) oil response vessels that can't even leave the harbors because they are so small the waves will capsize them. Imagine what will happen if (when) the have a disaster like ours! We had hundreds of boats, planes, people on the ground and "supposedly" well trained responders.

 

 It is my sincere hope that what happened in the Gulf of Mexico will be a warning to the Maori of what is more likely to happen to their pristine waters than not. I will also be working to start up a Waterkeeper New Zealand program to further support world wide clean water that is Fishable, Drinkable, Swimmable, any where in the world.

You can keep up with my trip and it's success by adding BP Slick to your reading list.

Here's an example of what I have been told to expect...

(turn on the closed captions for English translation)

Babs "Roaming Buffalo" Bagwell, Voice from the Gulf

Babs "Roaming Buffalo" Bagwell, Voice from the Gulf

Babs is from the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha, Choctaw people in, Louisiana.

Babs like so many has become an activist out of necessity. Listen to her account of living with big oil before and after the BP, Deep Water Horizon disaster. For more information about the Isle de Jean Charles visit...  www.isledejeancharles.com

 

Dr. Wilma Subra, Voices From The Gulf

Dr. Wilma Subra, Voices From The Gulf

Dr. Wilma Subra

WILMA SUBRA

PRESIDENT, SUBRA COMPANY

P. O. BOX 9813

NEW IBERIA, LA 70562

SUBRACOM@AOL.COM

Committed to protecting the environment and the health and safety of citizens, Wilma Subra

started Subra Company in 1981. Subra Company is a chemistry lab and environmental

consulting firm in New Iberia, LA. Mrs. Subra provides technical assistance to citizens, across the United States and some foreign countries, concerned with their environment by combining technical research and evaluation. 

This information is then presented to community members so that strategies may be developed to address their local struggles.

 Utilizing the information gained from community involvement, the needs identified are

translated into policy changes at the State and Federal level through service on multi-stake holder committees. She has just completed a seven year term as Vice-Chair of the Environmental Protection Agency National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy and Technology (NACEPT), a five year term on the National Advisory Committee of the U. S. Representative to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation and a six year term on the EPA National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) where she served as a member of the Cumulative Risk and Impacts Working Group of the NEJAC Council, and chaired the NEJAC Gulf Coast Hurricanes Work Group.

Mrs. Subra holds degrees in Microbiology/Chemistry from the University of Southwestern Louisiana. She received the MacArthur Fellowship, Genius Award from the MacArthur Foundation for helping ordinary citizens understand, cope with and combat environmental issues in their communities and was one of three finalist in the Environmental Category of the 2004 Volvo for Life Award. 

I wish to thank Dr. Subra for taking time to make this message available.

BP Slick Is Back!

After a long absence due to personal and disaster related matters I have decided that the public needs to hear the truth about what's happening in our Gulf of Mexico.

I have been honored with an invitation to visit the people of New Zealand to help expose big oil for what it is.  A ticking time bomb capable of destroying entire lifestyles in a single "incident"

What better way to do that than to let the people of the Gulf of Mexico in America speak directly to the Maori through BP Slick interviews with real people in a real life energy sacrifice zone.

BP disaster 05/07/2010 by JLW

The first in the series "Voices From The Gulf" is Cherri Foytlin. Cherri is a mother of 6 beautiful children who was thrust into an activist roll by the Deep Water Horizon disaster of 2010. She later took matters into her own hands and walked from Rayne La. to Washington DC. (more than 1,400 miles)

To my new friends in New Zealand, Kia Ora... Meet Cherri.

The Gulf is still UNDER ATTACK!

It's been a while since I have posted here due to local demands on me at home in Tuscaloosa Al.

I have to bring you up to speed on what is STILL happening in the Gulf of Mexico.
 THE OIL IS STILL IN THE GULF!  and so are the people.

I got a call a few days ago saying that there was more oil in the Gulf and would I come down to fly with SouthWings to document a report given to us by John Amos at Sky Truth. After the 2010 Deep Water Horizon disaster we decided to create a response team for these type incidents. For years these type "leaks" have been occurring under the guise as "natural seeps" and reports of miniscule losses by the industry. We can now tell you that that is not always the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

This latest incident was due to a leak thought to come from the same source reported to you back in June of 2010. It was called "Diamond Offshore" back then and was leaking from damage to the well during Hurricane Ivan back in 2004. The well has been problematic and causing sheen like this off and on ever since.

Why is the American government still subsidizing this errant industry?

It is time for the American People to wake up and be able to hear and see the truth. Extraction technology, coal, oil and gas are depleting and dirty resources. If the entire price for the deaths, health, safety, environmental cost to the communities were properly assessed to the responsible industries there would be more incentives for naturally renewable energy resources like wind, solar, and Geo-thermal.

 How long will Americans settle for half truths and outright lies about the true cost on carbon energy sources. It is not an overnight process but we MUST begin to realize that defending a depleting resource is like the Ostrich with it's head in the sand. While our heads are in the sand, our arses are in the air and it's not pretty what's happening back there out of sight!

 

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

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