Gulf Seafood Buyer: “I Don’t Want to Hurt Nobody” |
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| By: Teddy Partridge Saturday September 18, 2010 11:33 am | |
Seafood buyer Bruce Guerra, owner of Yscloskey Seafood, sums up the dilemma faced by everyone in his industry. If the state prohibits its summoned biologist from coming to test seafood about which everyone involved has questions, how can he be sure he’s buying — and selling — safe seafood?
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63 Comments
I feel overwhelmed by more information that is both not surprising and horrifying. This country has been abandoned by its “leaders” and polluted and ransacked by corporations than hold personhood.
I know these people. I grew up on the periphery of the seafood industry in LA. They are good hearted, hard working souls. Maybe they should organize like the unemployed are doing.
I want to cry.
Poignant. Makes me want to cry also.
What is so horrible is a government forcing its own good people into compliance with its corruption.
This begins to look more and more like a deliberate cover-up if the state biologist, when he goes to get signoff for his field work, is then forbidden by his supervisor to venture down there in time to test the live crabs.
I’m not sure why only live catch can be tested, but that seems to be the rule. Maybe the biologist can go in time to test the next catch.
Of course it’s a deliberate cover-up. The ‘tests’ certifying that the seafood from the Gulf is edible were deliberately constructed not to find things like heavy metal and Corexit. BP wants to hide as much of the damage as possible so they pay less, the gulf states want to hide as much as they can to limit their damages, and Obama needs this to go away so he can go back to pushing more offshore oil drilling.
The fact that people are going to be sickened, get cancer and die from eating this sludge never enters into the equation.
Yep, and then there’ll be a huge class action lawsuit to punish the industry and government, and then Republicans and our Blue Dog White House will talk about our country’s trial attorney problem. Everyone in industry and government hates anything that vaguely resembles accountability.
The trial attorneys, I hate to admit it, are the only ones that keep anyone honest and ethical anymore. The fear of a lawsuit.
Absolutely true, even though the cost of a class action lawsuit is still far lower than paying the actual externalities from something like this, which range between incredibly expensive and ‘not enough money on Earth’.
When someone says ‘tort reform’, think ‘cheaper murder’. It amounts to the same thing.
That’s true. If the GOP could get caps on class actions, you’d have Pharmaceutical companies (with their cronies running the FDA) pushing all sorts of things to market, that they know they shouldn’t. Because they’d just do the math and realize that even though tens of thousands might die, the suits that would follow could only cost them a maximum of X amount, yet the money they could net would be hundreds of millions more than that.
And you could apply this same logic to every single industry, including oil drilling.
It’s not just the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. They’re just following orders from the federal minders that are probably coercing every government official with any jurisdiction throughout the gulf.
What do you think the guy who was paid $9,000/month to monitor the media for negative coverage was looking for? I’d wager he was taking down names of any official who, during a TV or radio interview, spoke the truth about what’s going on in the gulf.
Researchers having their samples and notes confiscated by DHS.
Telephone calls from the Oil Spill Commission with threatening overtones. Reading this article I get the sense that the next step, if the researcher doesn’t withdraw, is to destroy his career.
It’s shocking in its blatanity
Thanks for extra links and stories.
Keep it coming.
Suicide by gunshot to the back of the head.
“He was cleaning his gun and it went off, once at home and 4 times in the recovery room.”
To many college professors can run the tests I’m sure there are to many fish being sold all over the country for even the Feds to monitor everything. Someone can put this on the Net. I’d rather it be us.
It happened in the air, depressurizing the cabin of the small jet, and then the brakes failed.
ain’t that the truth
It’s a neater trick to do it with a rifle, as Salvador Allende repordedly did in ’73.
Thanks Teddy P.
Rcc’d, of course.
Way to stay with this one.
I’m going back to the links Mary Mc posted long ago, more often now, again.
LA Bucket Brigade
FL Oil Spill Law
New Orleans Ladder
Monkeyfister is CONSTANTLY on it.
So is Washington’s Blog.
The Oil Drum, not so much, as it’s insider oil folks spinning kabuki.
But it’s obvious we’re JUST beginning to see and hear about the damage coming ashore, and the damage out there in the water and on the Gulf Floor.
Vigilance is ours.
Thanks for badmouthing the one site that doesn’t go off into conspiracy theories, and doesn’t take anyone’s word as Truth. Especially about oil.
No badmouthing, I stand by my comment.
They are mostly oil related people, and take a pro oil pro BP viewpoint most of the time.
People should know that.
I agree. The regulars who post there work or worked in the industry and their livelihoods in many cases depend on the continuation of oil extraction and refinement methods. They quite naturally believe that can be done without fouling the environment, assuming safety procedures are followed, and they don’t want their livelihoods eliminated because some people don’t follow the procedures.
We who are not part of the industry can take a longer and more objective look at the industry by pointing out that humans are really good at fucking things up and, since that’s a given, a certain percentage of the time, no matter how careful we try to be, is it really worth the risk, for example, to try extracting oil in deep water?
I learned an immense amount of technical information from the crew at the oil drum, for which I am very grateful, and I have a lot of respect for them. That doesn’t mean they are unbiased, however. That doesn’t mean they’re bad people either. All humans are biased and prejudiced, at least to some extent, and so are we.
It’s just something to keep in mind and I think that’s all Larue is saying.
Am I right, compadre?
tweeted and recommended teddy
i’m not buying any seafood unless it is local to the pacific northwest. i do not trust the gov’t saying that gulf seafood is safe.
me either. and i also don’t give a wit about that sign in Publix “We don’t buy eggs from farms in Iowa.”
Recommended (the tweet thing eludes me still…)
The local (grocery store) monger reads the company line out here in The Bay Area: “The testing is Soooooo much more stringent nowadays… Have no fear.”
yeah
Red Lobster in Chicago swears they get no shrimp from the Gulf. Not that I trust them I wonder how many other places swear they don’t sell Gulf Sea Food.
*heh* Instead they serve Chinese Farm-raised, Melamine fed Shrimp…! Pick your poison…! ;-)
I’m trying to avoid sea food :(
Indeed.
ugh….im down to beans and rice…………..g
CT, Helena Cobbin, Asia Times Online and AW Dot Com got some new Afghan news, election stuff, and more. If ya haven’t checked them out today . . . . up to date news.
Have you signed up for a twitter account?
This is an obvious cover up its Ham Handed I smell Rahm. This smells desperate there is no way this was expected to keep quiet long.
Somebody is going to get a crab, fish, shrimp etc and get it independently tested sooner or later.
Does the WH think the EU or Japan won’t test our sea food? Does the WH think no eyebrows will be raised if America stops shipping gulf seafood to to any country that wants to test Gulf Sea food?
Funny how those Euro’s just don’t seem to appreciate the good business sense letting their populations be Big Ag’s petri dish.
Funny why they live longer:)
The invisible hand of the marketplace will determine the “safety” of the food supply. Ain’t capitalism grand?
When I hear people talk about the government’s job being to protect the citizenry, it always seems limited to bombing, torturing, or disappearing someone.
Yes I want Government regulation no Mercury in my cat food, I want safe eggs, I want to eat meat without worrying about a meat recall in the news every few months.
We need to appeal to Parents who love their kids.
I’ve told my longtime friend, Dr. Riki Ott, who is the world’s leading expert on the toxicity of Corexit, to be very, very careful. She already knows what standing up to oil giants can do to one’s career as an academic in Alaska. so does Rick Steiner, who was made so uncomfortable at the University of Alaska that he left his job. His offense – telling the world that offshore drilling in Bristol Bay, headwaters of the greatest run of wild Sockeye salmon on the planet, might not be a good idea.
I was listening to an academic on ToTN’s Science Friday describe how the EPA and DHS are hounding his colleagues and his confiscating samples. Ira Flatow was incurious, uncomfortable, anting to move on.
Thanks for the inside info, ET, always.
TeddyP, really happy FDL front paged this one.
There’s a lot to be vigilant about, the worst is yet to come.
Keep this story alive . . .
When the WH shows pictures of WH staff etc eating Gulf Sea Food we show video of that British Minister feeding his kids beef on National TV right before England starting killing every cow that might have been infected with Mad Cow.
Then we point out Bush refused to do the same.
“So they’re pissed off, but that doesn’t make them bad eatin’.”
If Obama fed his kids that fish Michelle will show him what pissed off really is. That and child protective services will get a call.
Somebody invite Dougie and his family over.
Aug 8, 2010: –Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, sought to ease consumers’ minds and palates by saying this week he would eat Gulf seafood himself and “serve it to my family.”
Damn.
Is this real? Am I dreaming this? Have I just been on a two year long nightmare? Gotta be. I simply can NOT believe the depths to which this country has fallen.
Hired people to watch news coverage of the spill. Superiors not letting biologists do their work. Blocking news media from the sites. Not allowing workers to wear breathing masks.
Gotta be a nightmare. Sure hope I wake up soon.
I feel that way often, too, OFG.
The more I learn, the phreakin weirder it gets, and I’m a tin foil guy since my teens.
Either the fishing industry is considered expendable to Big Oil, or enough bullshit will make it all better.
still searching for alternative country,wonder if cuba would take me?
Holy crap.
Thanks for posting this Teddy.
hctomorrow you are right on. But how things are covered up is interesting.
It is done in a way that makes it seem like it is just a misunderstanding.
Here is question. What do they do with the crabs that die? How do the dispose of them? Are they now toxic waste? Or will they be shipped off to feed live stock? I ask because the tainted pet food from china that killed 4,000 cats and dogs was used to feed chickens and pigs. the FDA would not tell us the name of the chicken processor who fed tainted food to chickens that then went into the human food supply. They didn’t want the consumers to panic and force the processor to burn 20,million chickens. So humans acted as their huge testing ground.
sigh,i forgot about all that,sigh again
Nothing is wasted, where profits and earnings are concerned.
Well, people are wasted, destroyed. Eco systems, too.
But that don’t stop the drive for quarterly earnings.
NICE catch, hoss. Really well done. A whole new industry springs up around toxic Gulf species.
Fertilizers and feed. Spread thruout the food chain, into the land. And ultimately, flowing back out into the waters and oceans as it leaches from the soils.
LeSigh.
*uptorefreshmerlotandwashbadtaste*
behold a country ruled by thieves evil scoundrels and psychopaths
how can they not care about the food chain?
You know what pisses me off? That the FDA will continue to say that seafood is safe after this incident. How? They will say, “the system worked” because the people could smell the oil so they didn’t send it into the human food supply.
Questions for the press to ask: What about stuff you can’t smell? Is that safe?
Guess what? The level of toxicity of various chemicals is not the same as the ability to smell it.
Chemicals can make you sick are at levels that are below the point where they out-gas the molecules that make up the smell. The only way to know is with GC testing.
Secondly: Do the people who got the crabs have the exact location that the crabs came from? Was it listed as opened? If they find it again, how will they close it so others don’t go there? What about crabbers who seek to evade the responsible crab buyers? Might they decide to not write off an entire day fishing? 5,000 bucks or zero. What if someone says. “It’s tainted, so I’ll give you 1,000 bucks for it. Take it or leave it.”? Then they will slip it into healthy shipments. Spread it out over a number of “safe” crabs. This is the method that has been used in the past. The level of checking is a lot less rigorous that you think. In fact it’s pathetic.
As I wrote last week in Stop Kids from Eating Cancer Causing Shrimp? Not my job!”
The FDA, the White House and the Seafood industry are pushing that the food is safe. NOAA opened up various sections of the Gulf using as few as 12 samples. (This is from the NRDC senior scientist Dr. Gina Solomon.
Her letter titled Gulf Shrimp Testing: Is a Dozen Samples in 5000 Square Miles Enough to Reassure You? was alarming.
How much you want to bet that the section that the tainted crabs came from was deemed safe?
more junk science in MERKA
We all knew this was what was to be. Letting people eat this shit is a crime all of it’s own.
Without testing one cannot know what are the consequences of its consumption. Fact.
Short term effects if obviously be seen right away and in that case food will be banned. Fact.
Long term effects like propensity for cancer, slow mental and physical development in children not known without testing for its ingrediants. Fact.
Sell immediately and have market running. Some of the people in gulf will make a living, companies responsible for this mess will be off the hook for livelihood claims. Probable Fact.
If the adults have cancer a decade later a costly disease to treat, if the now grown children have developmental issues will the state be taking care of them for the rest of their lives. Not all All and this is a fact.
So we should not skip this elections and make sure the representatives responsible for this short-sighted corporate oriented policy to be not getting our vote. That we can do besides voting with our dollars not to eat the untested gulf sea-food till somebody puts some sense in their policies.
Obama is at the center of this amoral coordinated criminal conspiracy between BP, the federal agencies, and the state agencies to conceal the extent of the damage to Gulf ecosystem and the extreme long term danger that Gulf seafood represents to all living things. Even if people avoid eating Gulf seafood, companies will label it as coming from somewhere else, certify its safe, and attempt to sell it. What isn’t purchased by consumers and restaurants will be sold as feed for farm animals, cats and dogs, and to make fertilizers that will introduce it into the agricultural food chain. In other words, it’s going to be almost impossible to avoid, particularly if you’re poor and can’t afford organic or to buy direct from growers you trust.
There’s lots of discussion going on about Obama’s duplicity, but with the possible exception of Afghanistan and his drone fetish, nothing so perfectly captures his lack of empathy and concern for people than the way he has handled the tragedy in the Gulf.
He flat out doesn’t care about the consequences to the Gulf and all living things and he is using his power and authority as the President of the United States to protect BP’s profitablility and its shareholders, including the majority shareholder, J.P. Morgan and Chase. That, and continuing offshore drilling.
His conduct is not only chilling and appalling; it’s pure evil.
For our own good, the good of the country, and the good of the rest of people and all living things, we must drive this evil twisted man out of government.
Time is of the essence.
There is no time to waste.
We must force this awful man to resign ASAP for the good of all life forms. We can’t wait until 2012.
And replace him with Cheney!! R U smoking crack!!!!!!!!!!!
How many of you folks here have ever been an elected official?
Mason have you ever been an elected official, or run for a political office?
Having worked in the seafood industry for many years, the public knows jack shit how they are screwed at the counter every day! Most shrimp in US is imported, cheaper than domestic native Gulf white shrimp vs say 13-15 tiger shrimp from China or Taiwan, farm raised, with slave labor. How many American know the fresh fish they buy and eat is treated with TPP. Scallops soaked in a vat of TPP and water so the consumer gets to pay 10.00 per lb for water weight now retained by an adulterated scallop?? Real fucking deal when u try to eat healthy seafood and you do not even know you are ingesting chemicals to make the alleged fresh haddock fillet last longer and look prettier. People are ignorant of reality, then die from disease causes by exposure to chemicals they are unaware of all the time! How about some depleted uranium in your water, air, or meal?
Here’s a link to a piece by Chris Rodda that appeared today on Truthout. The title to the article is University Group Raises Concerns About BP Oil Spill Contaminants in Livestock Feed.
Link.