39 Responses to BP Engaged in Massive Coverup of Oil Damage, Human Health Crisis

1. Rayne June 15th, 2010 at 8:24 am «

   Of course one of the earliest efforts to hide the damage from the spill was the use of dispersants, at sea level and at the point of the leak itself. Once dispersed into the water column and spread by current, it’s difficult to tell exactly how much oil has been spilled.

   Hoping Dr. Ott gets the support she needs to continue her work in the Gulf.
• Michael Whitney June 15th, 2010 at 8:34 am «

  Totally right. It helps both for images of oil not showing up on shore, and to hide the extent of potential liability.
2. cbl June 15th, 2010 at 8:46 am «

   In addition, BP continues to deny that residents, let alone cleanup workers, are exposed to dangerous toxins from exposure to crude oil.

   those mysterious guys with flashlights must be picking up a ton of dead WH crickets every night
3. spocko June 15th, 2010 at 9:01 am «

   Here is one action you can take. Join the Facebook group,

   BP, We Demand Respirators for ALL clean up Workers

   I’ve been talking to the largest oil clean up company in the west coast to get info on what kind of respirators are needed.

   I’ve contacted the distributor of masks and got prices and availability.

   I’ve spoken to environment health people who specialize in clean up of toxic waste.

   I’ve found that one critical roadblock for getting respirators for people is the EPA. The monitoring stations aren’t on the level of the workers. And they don’t do real time monitoring. Without this type of data the EPA will never get the true level of toxicity. Air in a field 1000 yards inland is not the same as air on the water at the boom worker level.

   This week I’m working with Johnny Colt, the former bassist of the Black Crowes who is on the ground doing stories about worker safety and the need for respirators. Hopefully he will get some visuals of the locations that the EPA are monitoring simply to not they are NOT with the workers.

   Check out his videos at my Facebook group or at the CNN iReporter site.
• cbl June 15th, 2010 at 9:06 am «

  Inst. for Southern Studies picks up the worker safety drumbeat

  thanks Spocko
• spocko June 15th, 2010 at 9:26 am «

  Thanks CBL2 I linked that story to the group.
• CTuttle June 15th, 2010 at 1:39 pm «

  On last night’s LLN I mentioned this KO interview to you…! ;-)
4. spanishinquisition June 15th, 2010 at 9:27 am «

   Dr. Riki Ott, a marine toxicologist, former commercial fisherman, and Exxon Valdez survivor, appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night to discuss what she called a massive coverup by BP of all aspects of the disaster.

   Yeah, along with Obama taking part in the cover-up.
   
   In addition, BP continues to deny that residents, let alone cleanup workers, are exposed to dangerous toxins from exposure to crude oil. Residents in four states report identical symptoms, including “headaches, sore throats, nausea, dizziness, stuffy noses” – typical symptoms of exposure to crude oil.

   Again this goes back to Obama. The Obama administration is the one who has denied it:
   http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/52868
5. Teddy Partridge June 15th, 2010 at 9:50 am «

   It’s great to see Dr Ott get this kind of exposure. The major network news broadcasts need to pick up her testimony as well; she speaks with great authority on the devastation this catastrophe is producing, given her Valdez credibility.

   Thank you, Riki Ott!
6. seeker561 June 15th, 2010 at 9:54 am «

   Why do we expect that BP would do anything else?

   BP’s job number one is to protect its shareholders and that is what they are doing. It is governments job to protect its citizen. Right now it seeems BP is doing its job a lot better than the government.

   Robert Reich.
   Former Secretary of Labor, Professor at Berkeley
   Posted: June 14, 2010 07:12 PM
   BP Strawmen Won’t Fix the Gulf

   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/bp-strawmen-wont-fix-the_b_612001.html

   As citizens, we want the hole in the Gulf plugged up as fast as possible, we want the spill contained, and we want everything cleaned up and damages paid — no matter how much it costs BP’s shareholders. But if we’re BP shareholders, we want to minimize all such expenditures — including our long-term liabilities.
• jacqueline June 15th, 2010 at 10:17 am «

  This can’t be emphasized enough. Any corporation’s first responsibility is to its shareholders. That’s why you need a government.
7. marinara June 15th, 2010 at 1:09 pm «

   watched this last night. lousy journalism, you need facts not rumors. a heap of rumors is just rumors. MSNBC and FOX need to die
• noblejoanie June 15th, 2010 at 1:26 pm «

  When our govt goes along with a BP blackout on information, all we’re left with is rumor and word of mouth. Put the blame where it belongs.
• doremus35 June 15th, 2010 at 6:46 pm «

  FYI: One of the defining aspects of fascism is when business and the government are so intertwined that they become inseparable and one and the same thing. Welcome to obvious fascism. You think Obama has a clue, or perhaps he is one of the major architects?
• Larue June 15th, 2010 at 6:09 pm «

  What part or Dr. Ott being there, on the ground, walking at night with others and seeing all she reported to Olbie is bad journalism?
8. hijean831 June 15th, 2010 at 1:27 pm «

   She also alleges that BP is using technology to disrupt cellphone and email communication at spill sites to suppress images and evidence.

   She actually says, “…emails, that anything to do with carcasses, they are disappearing from peoples’ servers.”

   This would imply more than just preventing folks from carrying cameras or cellphones to document the damage (which she says they’re using metal detectors to screen for), or jamming local wifi – if it wasn’t a misstatement it says they’re getting help from service providers to remove extant documentation.
• mf-roe June 15th, 2010 at 2:22 pm «

  Disarm your enemy, BP knows information will lead to its destruction so they will pull out all stops to lock up all the facts. Orwell rules apply.
9. noblejoanie June 15th, 2010 at 1:27 pm «

   Spocko–Thom Hartmann talking (on delay out here) on the danger to relief workers. Have you contacted him?
10. fides2 June 15th, 2010 at 1:39 pm «

    Dr. Riki Ott was on Randi Rhodes today, so if you are on delay, you can hear still hear the show later today.

    Randi is going to connect Ott with Mike Papantonio.

    This cover-up is intolerable.

    And who are these workers, anyway? Americans? Americans who don’t know how to say NO to BP, like the corporate media pussies? Americans who forgot how to say, GO SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS, BP?
11. marymccurnin June 15th, 2010 at 1:48 pm «

    Is BP hiring out of work fishermen? Are they making the very people sick who may be suing them in the future? Is this the plan?
• RevBev June 15th, 2010 at 2:05 pm «

  Some coverage last night said people are coming in from all over to take the jobs, so the locals are not necessarily being hired.
12. marymccurnin June 15th, 2010 at 1:49 pm «

    Here is a site that can give local info on the tragedy. New Orleans Ladder
• Editilla June 15th, 2010 at 4:55 pm «

  Thanks Mary! Dayum! You FDL Seminalarians are some posse, my stat thingy is ringing off the hook.
  But really, things are starting to get even more interesting in Louisiana. With the new Flow Estimates (which are probably low-balled) we are looking at appx: 135,000,000 gallons to date, now gozinta that with 4lbs/gal light sweet crude.
  I’m afraid I’ve never read this even in Science Fiction.
  It could become epochal.
  Hehehehe…
  The reason I’m finding this more interesting is when seeing pics of Gov Jindal standing with his/our Louisiana Nat Guard… they’re together, no doubt.
  And it will start in Louisiana.
  Jus’sayin, Louisiana is (ultimately) here because they said fork all of ya’z we going to Acadiana.

  I have found such a comfortable place here in these comments at FDL. The rest of the forkin’world is going to the Mall in a Hand Basket.
  That’s all I’m saying.

  Thanks again,
  Editilla~New Orleans Ladder
13. EdwardTeller June 15th, 2010 at 1:53 pm «

    Watching Alaskans Riki Ott and Rick Steiner being spokes people for important issues re the Gulf spill is interesting. Riki has generally been pooh poohed by the MSM here in Alaska, neither of her books ever even got reviewed in the Alaska press. Steiner was hounded from his University of Alaska job for having dared to question the wisdom of allowing Shell Oil to drill offshore in Bristol Bay, home the world’s pre-eminent wild salmon fishery. Just yesterday, an article appeared in The Alaska Dispatch, marginalizing and belittling both Steiner and Ott. The Alaska press is raving about UAA Chancellor Fran Ulmer, a big business/big oil shill, being appointed to Obama’s spill commission.
• FightTheFuture June 15th, 2010 at 4:44 pm «

  Alaska might actually have to levy a state income tax if the oil industry really gets regulated. The rubes up there, and I say rubes with all the appreciation of that turd Palin they injected into our body politic, will no longer get their oil industry bonus for shutting up and putting up with the rape of their state, our country.
14. marymccurnin June 15th, 2010 at 2:10 pm «

    I am so worried about the next hurricane to make landfall in the Gulf of Mexico.
    What will happen? Does anyone know anything about this? I read somewhere that a hurricane can scoop up water in the ocean to a depth of 650 feet. A lot of the oil is much deeper than that but there is still plenty on the surface. What will happen to homes, people, animals, farmland?
• janetplanet June 15th, 2010 at 2:30 pm «

  I thought of that too. What happens when it starts raining oil? How far can it be spread? Its really horrifying.
• doremus35 June 15th, 2010 at 7:04 pm «

  Talking to a guy today in Florida who said it’s going to be a hot summer down there. He also said that there are more hurricanes when the weather is hot, and if the hurricanes pick up the surface oil and carry it inland, you can forget agriculture in the whole region for quite a while. The gulf side of Florida is also on alert for oil contaminating the reverse osmosis membranes in salt to fresh water conversion plants. Their ouput capacity is 10-19 millions gallons of fresh drinking water a day. Gee, no food and no water, and a hot summer to boot. How about ‘Apocalyse Now’. Gee, wasn’t there a movie by that name and it was over there, and now it’s over here. What goes around comes around, and it’s here. Where was our government?
• ThingsComeUndone June 16th, 2010 at 7:05 am «

  What will happen if lightening from the hurricane sets that oil on fire after its spread all over the surface?
15. marymccurnin June 15th, 2010 at 2:26 pm «

    Uncharted Waters: NOAA Offers Facts on Oil Spill, Hurricane Fusion

    To read or download the fact sheet in its entirety, go to http://www.noaa.gov/factsheets/new%20version/hurricanes_oil.pdf.

    Caution: pdf’s can crash some browsers.
• hotflashcarol June 15th, 2010 at 2:32 pm «

  This is slightly old news but along with your NOAA link, it makes me feel like they are downplaying the impact:

  It turns out that — now these are all estimations and probabilities — it turns out that a big, powerful hurricane, ironically is probably less damaging with respect to the oil spill because it just disperses everything and the oil breaks up and degrades more quickly,” Obama said, according to an advance transcript of the interview to be broadcast on Thursday night.

  Estimations and probabilities that they pulled right out of their ass . . .
• spanishinquisition June 15th, 2010 at 3:00 pm «

  That is coming from the guy who said how safe offshore oil drilling was right before the oil volcano happened.
16. joycake June 15th, 2010 at 2:48 pm «

    I live on the Gulf coast and we can not stay outside at times the fumes are so bad. My garden is becoming a weed patch because i can’t breath out there. Burning eyes, sore throats, raspy voices, everybody has them . Do you think Tony would consider loss of clean air a legitimate claim?

    And when i hear the word ‘Shareholder” I wonder why holding a share in a criminal enterprise means you still get paid! What about sharing the blame and contributing a share of the cost of clean up?
17. justmeint June 15th, 2010 at 3:49 pm «

    this toxic devastation is terrible…..
    Did You Know?
    BP engineers alerted federal regulators at the Minerals Management Service that they were having difficulty controlling the Macondo well (Deepwater Horizon) six weeks before the disaster, according to e- mails released by the Energy and Commerce Committee.

    “I don’t think this would have happened on Exxon’s watch,” Tom Bower, author of “The Squeeze: Oil, Money and Greed in the 21st Century,” said in a June 11 Bloomberg Television interview. “They’d be much more careful and much more conscious of the need to supervise subcontractors.”

    WELL excuse me your sainted Exxon……. and Chevron and ConocoPhillips.

    Let’s just take a look at a few of your past misdemeanours, and then we can consider again – if the moratorium on deepwater drilling should be lifted, and place it all firmly back into your nice clean hands!

    http://just-me-in-t.blogspot.com/2010/06/fairy-stories-about-oil-companies.html
18. leenskies June 15th, 2010 at 3:51 pm «

    I noticed in the last couple days that I can’t upload any wildlife victims of this BP gusher to my Facebook. These photos came from sources I have previously uploaded from. My God, how quickly this Orwellian Corporate Theocracy is coming to light. Madness. Monsters. What horrible devastation. Damn them Goddamn them.
• hotflashcarol June 15th, 2010 at 3:56 pm «

  It all seems like some apocalyptic B movie, doesn’t it.
• grandmashelia1 June 15th, 2010 at 6:26 pm «

  I tried a google image search and came up with practically nothing, a couple of the same dead bird pictures, nothing else.

  Hopefully people will keep smuggling pix to the net, for hard copying by everyone watching.

  Think of it, Americans sneaking around their own public land, smuggling out photographic evidence of the environmental crime of all time, as that same evidence is “disappeared” by the criminals and their criminal allies. Meanwhile, the oil continues flowing, the ecosystem destroyed, and the humans poisoned, as BP calls the shots with government acquiescence.

  It’s the Corporate Iron Curtain here now.
19. iremember54 June 15th, 2010 at 9:37 pm «

    So there is actually some people out there that think BP would tell the truth about anything.

    Maybe those same people believe Thad Allen and the Government tell us the truth to.

    Maybe those same people believe that all that oil floating around out there won’t ever come ashore someplace.

    Some people will believe anything.
20. ThingsComeUndone June 16th, 2010 at 7:06 am «

    She also alleges that BP is using technology to disrupt cellphone and email communication at spill sites to suppress images and evidence.

    Cell phones broadcast on publicly owned wavelengths that makes this jamming a federal crime.