On the first day of a planned two-week sit in at the White House organized by TarSandsAction over 70 people were arrested including one of the lead organizers organizerBill McKibben. In an attempt to intimidate concerned citizens and policy makers from continuing the sit-in, the National Park Service did not honor its previous agreement with McKibben and others to “catch and release” participants but is holding them in jail over the weekend. Numerous environmental organizations and leading climate scientists have condemned the Keystone XL Pipeline project which would bring 900,000 barrels of dirty oil from the Alberta Tar Sands to Texas refineries. Preeminent climate scientist and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute James Hansen has described the Alberta Tar Sands oil extraction development as a game-over proposition for climate change. Sunday afternoon, he addressed the continuing struggle to address the ever increasing threat of anthropogenic climate change. Dr. Hansen will be participating in the protest against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in Washington, DC on August 29th with religious leaders.
JC: President Obama had lofty promises regarding climate change and the environment during his campaign. To date, his administration has failed to deliver and is now positioned to approve the Tar Sands Pipeline, the worst idea in many years in terms of its impact on climate. Do you see any signs that the Obama administration is moving to seriously address climate change? Do you feel they administration deserves a second chance?
JH: Are they serious? The tar sands pipeline approval or disapproval will provide the sign of whether the Obama administration is serious about climate change and protecting the future of young people.Do they deserve a second chance? Yes, everybody deserves a second chance.
Obama’s first chance was when he was elected — he could have made energy independence and climate a top priority. Talking nice about sun and wind and green jobs is just greenwash. The only effective policy would be a rising carbon fee collected from fossil fuel companies with 100 percent of the funds distributed to the public — stimulating the economy and moving us rapidly toward a clean energy future. Anything less is just blather.
JC: CO2 levels have now exceeded 391 ppm, and US emissions are growing again at a record rate, over 4% this year so far. This in spite of an ever increasing body of scientific evidence that unequivocally demonstrates anthropogenic climate change to be seriously affecting global climate life support systems. It would seem that policy makers and business leaders the world over are incapable of altering the dead-on course to climate collapse. What can be done?
JH: The problem is that the policy makers the world over are paying more attention to the fossil fuel lobbyists than they are to the well being of young people and nature, as my colleagues and I have described in the paper “The Case for Young People and Nature”.
Until the public demands otherwise, the policy makers will continue to serve their financiers.
That’s the point of the present action — to draw attention to the inter-generational injustice of current policies — our children and grandchildren are getting shafted by our well-oiled coal-fired politicians who do not look beyond their next election.
The tar sands verdict will show whether he really intends to move us to clean energy or whether he will instead support going after dirtier and dirtier fuels (tar sands, oil shale, mountaintop removal, long-wall coal mining, hydro-fracking, deep ocean and Arctic exploration, etc.).
Gus Speth, Bill McKibben, and others at White House protesting the proposed Tar Sands Pipeline/Photo Credit: Josh Lopez/Tarsandsaction
JC: As you know over 70 people including our friends Bill McKibben and Gus Speth were arrested yesterday in front of the White House. As always, Bill and the group had repeated discussions with the authorities prior to the action and were assured that this would be “catch and release”. As it turns out the National Park Service changed the terms of engagement and are holding everyone (except DC residents) over the weekend to discourage others from participating in the two weeks of protest. Do you think this change of tactic by the National Park Service will be effective in dissuading others from attending?
JH: No. What we are doing to the future of our children, and the other species on the planet, is a clear moral issue. As Albert Einstein said, “thought without action is a crime.” Choosing silence and safety is not an option.Jail threats did not dissuade Martin Luther King — and intergenerational justice is a moral issue of comparable magnitude to civil rights.
Beginning this weekend on August 20th and running for 2 weeks through September 3rd, thousands of people will gather in Washington DC for Stop the Pipeline! to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta, Canada to Texas. The 7 Billion dollar project has been condemned by environmental groups around the world, leading scientists, and policy makers. The pipeline would bring 900,000 barrels of oil produced from dirty tar sands in Canada to the insatiable US market every day. Oil produced from tar sands is the most environmentally devastating form of carbon fuel yet devised resulting in 3 times the carbon emissions of conventional oil products on a per barrel basis. Lead organizers for the DC event are author/activists Bill McKibben and Naomi Klein with delegations attending from across the US and Canada. As Daniel Kessler from the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) said the goal of the White House sit-in is for “President Obama to stop the pipeline. It’s his decision if the Keystone XL will be approved. The president had very lofty rhetoric when he was running for office about climate change, and now is the time to make good on his promises.”
At the forefront of environmental activists/authors is Terry Tempest Williams one of the great American artists whose work defies simple categorization. She has received numerous awards for her writings and activism, testified before Congress, been jailed for civil disobedience, and continues to take a leading role in environmental justice issues.
JC: You recently told me that you firmly believe in “taking your anger and turning it into sacred rage”. Does civil disobedience qualify?
TTW: The act of civil disobedience is the act of taking our anger and turning it into sacred rage. It is a personal and collective gesture of resistance and insistance.The move to change the phrase “civil disobedience” into “civil resistance” is a sound one,
because we are not the ones participating in disobedience — we are resisting the disobedience of corruption, we are resisting the disobedience of integrity and refusing to be compliant, we are insisting on compassionate justice in the name of social change. Disobedience toward a quality of life is what a future of tar sands development is promising. We are resisting the assumption that tar sands is a viable energy strategy. It promises great harm to the land, to the communities, human and wild, and is a drain on precious water reserves.
JC: The last time there was a large gathering in DC on climate, Capitol Climate in ’09, we were focused on a large scale act of civil disobedience. That time the authorities made certain there were no arrests and Congress suddenly announced the day of the march that the Capitol Power plant would be converted from coal to natural gas, a clear victory. Since then the climate crisis continues to accelerate with no end in sight. There is always hope, but do you feel at this point that by working within the system the changes we need to preserve a stable hospitable climate can be effected?
TTW: I think we need to work within the system of government to foster legislative changes, as well as outside the system putting pressure on government and law makers to realize the muscle behind this climate change movement. And it is building, becoming stronger all the time. The climate change movement is a river overflowing seeping into every nook and cranny. American policy on climate change is a dangerous eddy, “the Room of Doom”, we see in Westwater Canyon on the Colorado River. Our politicians and judges and corporate moguls need to know they are not only being watched, but being made accountable. Democracy demands participation and we are fulfilling our responsibilities as citizens to respond — on the streets, in the voting booth and with our pocketbooks and in the case of Tim DeChristopher, with our bodies. It is important to remember all true change begins at the margins and moves toward the center. This does not make the climate change movement marginal, it makes it muscular, organic, with a true movement toward the center.
JC: How would you define abundance?
TTW: A Bison — America has a history of destroying what is abundant, what is generous, and strong. We forget the nature of true power. The power within is abundance. The power without is greed. Greed is a deprivation of abundance, a hoarding, a constriction of energy. Abundance is an expansion of energy. Abundance is a form of gratitude, a generosity, a modesty, a bow toward others — what we can give, what we can share, rather than what we can take. Abundance is rooted in community, not individualism. Abundance is what is before our eyes, but we cannot see when we are blinded by greed. Greed says there is never enough. Abundance says there is more than enough. Greed closes the door behind itself. Abundance opens the door for others.Abundance is a dance with reciprocity — what we can give, what we can share, and what we receive in the process.
To engage in civil disobedience is to feel the abundance of courage, the gratitude for a democracy that still invites us to speak from our hearts, to act from our conscience and have faith in the consequences of moral action. Abundance is a form of consciousness.
JC: What can people do who can not personally travel to DC in the next two weeks?
TTW: We can travel to Washington, D.C. mentally, create an image of support to those who can be there on the front lines physically. We can call attention to this action by writing letters to the editors of our local papers. We can gather at our own public squares and parks. We can support those organizations and individuals who can be there, spiritually, emotionally, and financially. We can write Congress and let our lawmakers know that we stand in solidarity with those committing civil resistance. We can participate in building this climate change movement, each in our own way, each in our own time with the gifts that are ours.We can become the fire of hopeful action that burns through corruption and complacency.
We can be the river of concern that cools our sweltering planet.
And we will be the voice of resistance that says yes to a more compassionate way of being
in the world and face those who say no with the force of our steady gaze.
JC: At what point do we take responsibility for creating our future?
TTW: We can no longer wait for someone or something to save us from the predicament that is ours. We must look in the mirror and say if I want the world to change I must change myself. We can begin here. The revolution is not something outside of us, but inside us, begging for our engagement every single day.
Wendell Berry, Terry Tempest Williams, Bill McKibben, James Hansen at The Capitol Climate Action
The face of Big Coal in West Virginia has changed. Gone (but not forgotten) is the larger-than-life Coal Barron Don Blankenship the former CEO of Massey Energy. Notorious for his hatred of “greeniacs” and love for Mountain Top Removal (MTR), Blankenship was ousted last year after the underground mining disaster which left 29 men dead. The ongoing investigations into the disaster have revealed a culture at Massey of reckless pursuit of profit at the expense of miner’s welfare and a willful disregard for government safety regulations. Largely as a result of these revelations, which had been aggressively asserted for years by various environmental organizations and concerned miners, Blankenship was forced to step down and Massey sold to Alpha Energy this year. While Alpha continues to aggressively use MTR in extracting coal reserves, there are positive signs that the company has no interest in continuing Massey’s reckless policies and is now playing by the rules and even acknowledging that MTR is legitimately opposed by concerned individuals and organizations.
The battle over Mountain Top Removal as a method of coal extraction continues to be waged intensely across the mountains and hollows of Appalachia and in Washington DC. A landmark study on the health impacts to residents in areas where MTR is active was recently published. The association between mountaintop mining and birth defects among live births in central Appalachia, 1996-2003 for the first time conclusively shows the devastating impacts on human health and safety, specifically those related to birth defects and cancer rates. For nearly a month now, two young women, Becks Kolins and Catherine-Ann MacDougal, have been treesitting 80 feet in the air on the Alpha Energy’s Bee Tree Hollow MTR site in Coal River West Virginia. They work with the environmental organization RAMPS (Radical Action for Mountain People’s Survival) which is dedicated to the termination of MTR as a method of coal extraction.
Photo Courtesy RAMPS
After she climbed to the very top of the tree she is occupying to maximize reception, I spoke to Catherine-Ann by a rather sketchy cel phone signal.
JC: How did Mountain Top Removal become an issue for you?
CM: When I first found out about MTTR it struck me because it was so unreal. I started organizing a bit in high school – it was always something that got to me in a really powerful way. I got involved in Mountain Justice organizing and Christians for the Mountaintop and I also di an internship with United Mountain Defense in Tennessee that opened up a whole new world of activism for me.
JC: What is the exact location where you are now?
CM: I am at the top of Bee Tree Hollow.
JC: And how did you come to be in that part of West Virginia?
CM: I knew when I finished school last December I wanted to work with Climate Ground Zero, RAMPS and Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW). So i became a CRMW intern and started living in that house in Rock Creek doing RAMP stuff as well. And then of course I got involved in this action which is really exciting.
JC: Previously when someone did this and the property was controlled by Blankenship and Massey, they responded very aggressively with brights lights throughout the night and noisemakers, even going so far as to fell nearby trees. How has your interaction been with the security and Alpha representatives since you have been up in the tree? It would seem Alpha is playing their hand much smarter than Massey.
CM: I think playing their hand smarter is a good way of putting it. My experience has just been positive. Security has been really friendly. The fellow who is overseeing mining in this area has always made sure nobody is harassing us and that we are OK, and that people outside of Alpha are not coming in and disturbing us in our trees. They have only been civil and polite – completely different from what people were experiencing before.
JC: Obviously by being nice Alpha has stolen some of the thunder from your action and taken some of the media interest out of the formula, how would you rate the success of your treesit?
CM: It definitely makes Alpha look a lot better. I would say it has made the treesit more livable and possible longer – I think we would have stayed up here anyway even if they were trying to kill us. It is important to remember that on the face of it it looks different but it is superficial difference. I hope that people will see that destruction wearing a nice face is still destruction.
Photo Courtesy RAMPS
Becks Kolins began the treesit with Catherine and was arrested two weeks ago when she came down.
JC: How did Mountain Top Removal become such a priority issue for you?
BK: I heard about Mountain Top Removal and when I came down to West Virginia and saw I knew this is what I needed to fight. I am more drawn to social justice issues and environmental justice – this certainly is that. It is not just devastating to the land but people are dying.
JC: Do you sense a change with the new ownership there (Alpha Energy)?
BK: Yes. Its a totally 100% different company. People were kind to us – they were not harassing us. They were checking on us daily to make sure we were OK. Although they are being very kind and I think there is definitely more hope in working with them than with Massey, they are still poisoning people. They are still doing Mountain Top Removal. So while they are nice to activists they continue to destroy communities.
Bo Webb, who won the Purpose prize this year for his tireless work on MTR issues also agrees that Alpha is taking a kindler gentler approach to dealing with activists.
BW: I think what Alpha did is they bought a bad company – an outlaw coal company. They have a lot of cleaning up to do with the public image so that’s part of it. I think they are trying to clean that image up – they are trying to clean up Massey’s mess so to speak. But I do not expect anything different from Aplha as far as Mountain Top Removal goes because it cannot be regulated. No matter what they do selenium is going to come off the sites entering our creeks and rivers. No matter what they do that dust is still going to come down that we are breathing – silica, diesel fuel, ammonium nitrate – those things they can’t prevent. The only way to regulate it is to end it.
JC: Do you think that to some degree Alpha is trying to operate more along the lines of a normal business? Do you see any change in Alpha’s relationship with the community as opposed to the way Blankenship ran Massey?
BW: No, not at all. I think what they are trying to do is to create a public image that is much nicer to the country and the state that they are a cleaner company. But again, Mountain Top Removal is killing people. If they want to be community minded they should shut down all of their MTR operations.
Alpha Energy declined to be interviewed.
On April 20, 2011, the entire Gulf Coast region will mark the first anniversary and memorial of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The opening event will be the Harmony for Health Festival at Pirates Cove in Elberta, Alabama on April 15-17, 2011 featuring Grayson Capps, Guthrie Trapp , John Mooney, Sugar Cane Jane, Walter Wolfman Washington & the Roadsters, Sassafras, Jon Cleary, and many more. Musicians from across the South are coming together to raise their voices in harmony for victims of the BP Oil Spill. The Gulf Shores/Orange Beach region of Alabama was one of the areas impacted most severely by the BP Blowout and the weekend will a celebration of music and heritage of the Gulf Coast.
The following week on April 20th the City of New Orleans will host several events in City Park, but the commemoration’s grand finale will be the Harmony for Health benefit at the New Orleans House of Blues that evening, the first ever Black Carpet event. We invite you to join us for these events and become a valuable sponsor in providing support for regional efforts to help those who are in need of medical assistance as a result of the BP oil spill.
The Harmony for Health benefit at the House of Blues will be broadcast live. The Sierra Club, the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council), WWOZ New Orleans, and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), and AREDAY (American Renewable Energy Day) are sponsoring the event
A number of artists from music and film will be featured including Brad Pitt, Voices of the Wetlands, James Carville, Anderson Cooper, Frances Beinecke President of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Robin Mann President of the Sierra Club, Captain Paul Watson founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and star of Whale Wars, Dr Ira Leifer Chief Mission Coordinating Scientist for NASA Gulf Mission, Bonny Schumacher (NASA/JPL) Founder Wings of Care, Stuart Smith, Daryl Hannah, Dr. Riki Ott, and special guests. A special sneak trailer of the upcoming film The Big Fix directed by Josh Tickell from GreenPlanet Productions will be screened and a major international media effort to address industry spin in media Counterspin unveiled.
Your patronage and donations will provide assistance to the estimated forty million residents of the Gulf Coast who have been directly impacted not only financially but physically by the BP blowout at the Macondo site. All proceeds will go to The Oil Spill Memorial Fund administered by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation and The Gulf Coast Fund. Guardians of the Gulf along with other NGOs along the Gulf Coast have been working to address the growing number of health issues and concerns among the Gulf Coast residents. The need for health care resources continues to increase as a direct result of not only the exposure to oil fumes and dispersants but also the severe lack of properly trained medical professionals knowledgeable in the chemical illnesses resulting from exposure to the toxic oil and dispersants. The grants will allow NGOs to pay for desperately needed medical care for victims of the oil spill including those that specialize in vision and dental care, and veterinary services for animals by assisting two full-service clinics scheduled to be operational in May; one in Louisiana and one in Alabama.
Due in part due to a lack of media attention and in part to BP’s aggressive media campaign which seeks to ensure that medical providers and government officials do not acknowledge the problem, the vast majority of the American public is unaware of the true extent of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill’s health impacts along the effected regions of the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida.
There will not be another opportunity to take advantage of the attention resulting from the one-year anniversary/memorial of the largest environmental disaster in our nation’s history, which took the lives of eleven men and caused unprecedented devastation to the Gulf Coast.
For further information and to help; http://harmony-for-health.org/
When I first met Lisa Nelson in July she was a beautiful young woman who lived and worked next to the beach in Orange Beach, Alabama. I had been speaking to a number of people who were feeling ill effects from the spill, and at the time Lisa was just beginning to have respiratory issues. Over the next few weeks her health deteriorated rapidly. When we spoke next she came to a Health Forum organized by Guardians of the Gulf and it was there that we recorded the film interview below.
A great many people worked to try and get the necessary medical care Lisa so desperately needed. As the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF), and the U.S. federal government continued to deny serious health threats related to the spill and refused to provide any compensation for medical care related to chemical exposure, Lisa and many others like her cried out desperately for help. Her case was specifically brought to the attention of the National Oil Spill Commission, the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as well as local officials in Orange Beach Alabama where she lived. Mayor Tony Kennon rejected any claims of health issues related to the spill out of hand, refused to consider independent data showing such threats were real, and used the Chief of Police to enforce his order prohibiting any film or audio record of the subject being discussed in public town council meetings.
Lisa saw a number of local physicians who prescribed steroids to try and improve her respiratory problems. Lisa’s health continued to deteriorate alarmingly. Finally, a local hospital did x-rays of her lungs which revealed a tumorous growth around her heart and lung. It was inoperable and they immediately began radiation therapy which Lisa was not enthusiastic to receive.
After the film interview of Lisa was posted on YouTube, an alternative cancer treatment center, Know Your Options, arranged for her to travel to California for treatment. I spoke to Dr. Jacob Swilling, founder of the center regarding Lisa after her death this week.
JC: I am heartbroken that Lisa had to die in such an untimely death the way she did.
JS: The system is insane. Because nobody looks after people in a crisis like this. in my work I see that constantly there is such a breakdown in the system that leaves people that could be helped to live out a normal healthy life but here is not the support system to achieve that. You understand that from your work.
JC: Yes I do. You have this big gap between when they become sickened and when the legal and judicial system will kick in and provide some measure of assistance for them. It’s a tragedy.
Lisa came out to see you twice?
JS: Yes she came out twice. The second time was a short couple of days. There were a lot of people that contributed to her costs for getting here for the kind of treatment that we normally do for cancer patients. It has a big focus on detoxification in her case because we have a unique system here that is a powerful microscope that magnifies the small sample of a finger to release a small amount of blood sample. When it is magnified under the microscope we can see what is going on with the cellular chemistry in a way that no other test can do. Clearly even though she is a cancer patient with lung cancer we see many of them and they don’t have the kind of toxicity that was revealed in the microscope. Her information, in evaluating her report. that there was more than a coincidence that she started to have a flare-up and deterioration, and her system just about failed after she was exposed by living near or walking on the beach. After a walk on the beach she almost collapsed; she could not breathe properly and that is when everything went downhill. Unfortunately, we are not a lab that can actually identify the kinds of toxins that would be an obvious connection with the BP exposure. But there is just too much that goes beyond a coincidence with her.
JC: Do you think being exposed to the oil and dispersant was a contributing factor?
JS: It certainly accelerated the worsening of her condition. It really appears to be very strongly explaining that her exposure really worsened the whole problem.
JC: Were the treatments there at your facility successful to any degree?
JS: Success is measured long term in the experience with patients. While she was here there are many who would testify she had a dramatic improvement getting the treatment. If she would have stayed longer with us she would have done a lot better and maybe still be around today. She did not have any funds and there were people including some of our patients who put together funds to help her to get what she did receive.
JC:What specific forms of treatment do you use there with a patient like Lisa?
JS: It’s the only center of its kind that works with so many different technologies together in one place administered by seven skilled practitioners. The big focus in our work is detoxification. I have published a number of books and spoken in many countries where I explain there is what I call a toxic overload that alters the PH balance in the body chemistry and that is what initiates all kinds of illnesses, disease and also explains more than 200 cancers. I am one of the first researchers that is reported in the literature as presenting evidence that acids migrate to stress sites. That is what causes the different kinds of cancers. In Lisa’s case there seemed to be an extremely serious overload. When we tried to find where the source of that overload was she then reported all of her experience in the BP exposure. She actually went so far as to claim some compensation from BP. She would have testified that the evidence in her experience was directly related to exposure because she lived at the beach.
JC: I myself was seriously poisoned after two weeks on the Gulf in July and we know of many other cases where exposure has led to a systemic collapse.
JS: We have helped a number of people exposed to various toxic events that restored their health as a result of the experience with us. Our frustration with Lisa was that she was waiting to get settlements or more help from BP because she did not have any funds. She was planning to return to us as soon as she could get the funds.
Unfortunately, Lisa Nelson passed away before she was able to return to Dr. Swilling’s center for additional care. Her ashes will be scattered across the Gulf of Mexico in a memorial service on March 17th. Lisa’s brother Kenny Nelson and her cousin Marilyn Meyer are starting a non-profit to help others like Lisa who are abandoned by the broken health care system in the U.S.
God Bless Lisa Nelson. Peace.
For the past seven years, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (SSCS) under the leadership of Captain Paul Watson, has launched an annual campaign in the Southern Ocean to prevent the Japanese Whaling fleet from killing whales. Every year, the Japanese send a fleet of ships to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to kill and process for human consumption a large number of whales using a loophole in the International Whaling Treaty which allows for “scientific research.”
This season Seas Shepherd’s launched Operation No Compromise to once again halt japanese whaling operations in the Southern Ocean. The campaign to date has been their most successful ever after discovering the whaling fleet as soon as they arrived in Antarctic waters. Last night the Sea Shepherd flagship the Steve Irwin located the japanese factory vessel the Nishan Maru. They are now giving chase and the two other ships in the SSCS fleet are en route to rendevous with the Steve Irwin.
I spoke with Captain Paul Watson on the Steve Irwin by satellite phone.
JC: It would seem that your campaign this year is the most successful ever.
PW: In our seven campaigns this is the best we have had so far. We found them on December 31st which was before they even started whaling. We chased them for 4000 miles. Now we are chasing the factory ship the Nishan Maru.
JC: The Steve Irwin is chasing them now?
PW: Yes as we speak. The Nishan Maru had just started whaling and we intend to stay on them for the rest of the season. The Bob Barker and the Gojira are both on their way to meet us now. The Gojira was in Hobart for engine repairs. This is going to be a very expensive season for the Japanese.
Nishan Maru View From Sea Shepherd Helicopter Nancy Burnet
Originally Published in Huffington Post
Even as BP and US government officials continue to declare the oil spill over at Mississippi Canyon 252 and the cleanup operation an unqualified success, for the first time blood tests on sickened humans have shown signs of exposure to high levels of toxic chemicals related to crude oil and dispersants. Some of the individuals tested have not been on the beaches, were not involved in any cleanup operations or in the Gulf water — they simply live along the Gulf Coast. Several of them are now leaving the area due to a combination of illness and economic hardship. As the media’s attention has moved on and the public interest wanes, the suffering and hardship for people along the entire Gulf Coast of the United States from Louisiana to Florida continues to worsen. While BP and the government are scaling back cleanup operations and distancing themselves from legal liability for the environmental destruction, economic hardship, sickness and death resulting from the largest environmental disaster in our nation’s history, the situation continues to deteriorate.
The use of the Corexit dispersant 9500 and the highly toxic 9527 by BP, with the approval and assistance of the US Coast Guard and EPA, has been the subject of intense scrutiny and criticism. Never before has such a huge quantity of the toxic compound been used anywhere on the planet. Most countries including NATO allies ban it’s use and will only grant approval as a last resort after other methods have failed. Britain has banned its use altogether. The NOAA provided extensive information summarizing other nation’s policies in regards to Corexit after Senator Barbara Mikulski demanded the information from EPA administrator Lisa Jackson during congressional hearings in July. While the dispersant serves to break down crude oil on the surface and thus makes the oil invisible from the air, it is highly toxic and bioaccumulates in the marine food chain. In humans it is a known carcinogen and its use was widely condemned after Exxon/Valdez and the horrifying health effects on the populations exposed to it there. As it evaporates and becomes airborne, the toxic compounds have moved on shore, creating health impacts that, although apparently large from the numbers of people affected, the full extent is unknown. BP and the US government have effectively been performing the largest chemical experiment in history on a civilian population without their knowledge or consent.
Within two days after arriving in the region in mid-July, everyone on our team began getting sick. After our first day out on the water with Captain Lori of Dolphin Queen Cruises touring the lagoons around Orange Beach, Alabama, we all had extreme headaches. During our boat tour, dispersant was visible covering the water everywhere. That evening I developed a gagging, coughing reflex that was so intense and persistent it was impossible to speak to my daughter on the phone. The symptoms typical for high levels of chemical exposure such as burning, itching eyes, constantly runny nose, chronic coughing, burning sore throat, chest congestion, and lethargy progressively intensified. Over the next several weeks these symptoms continued to worsen until I developed chemically-induced pneumonitis. Before leaving the area I had blood tests initiated to determine if the levels of exposure were high enough to be be detected. The musical activists Sassafrass and the tireless efforts of Michelle Nix allowed myself and several local residents to have blood drawn and tested by Metametrix for chemical exposure. Project Gulf Impact and the Coastal Heritage Society have also contributed greatly to air and water testing in the Gulf region affected by the spill. Project Gulf Impact has set up a dedicated medical help phone line at 504-814-0283. It has proven extremely difficult to find medical care providers who are willing to see patients who have been impacted by the oil spill due to the tremendous pressure exerted against hospitals, clinics, and physicians by BP. In numerous cases BP has provided financial payments to institutions and individuals in exchange for them agreeing not to allow their physicians or staff to see, advise, or treat anyone sickened as a result of the well blowout.
I spoke at length with Michael R. Harbut, MD, MPH, who is clinical professor of Internal Medicine and director of the Environmental Cancer Program at Wayne State University’s Karmanos Cancer Institute. Board Certified in Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Harbut was Chair of the Occupational and Environmental Health Section of the American College of Chest Physicians, was Medical Coordinator of the Kibumbe Refugee Camp during the 1994 Civil War in Rwanda, where the death rate for patients under his care was 1/3 that of the remainder of the camp and was Chief US Medical Advisor to Poland’s Solidarity during the Cold War. His research has been published or presented in venues ranging from the New England Journal of Medicine to the White House.
JC: I wanted to speak with you and see what you thought of the test results we got back. As you know, some of the locals actually came back even higher than mine.
MH: First you have to remember the setting — this is New Orleans and the Gulf Coast; there is a history and a context in which things need to be placed. In my specialty, which is occupational and environmental medicine, there are not many of us who are board certified who actually take care of patients. The bulk of the physicians in our specialty are medical advisors or medical directors to large corporations, and many have never met a chemical they didn’t like. Sort of like Will Rogers. Part of the context is there is a physician whose name is Victor Alexander who was a specialist in my field. He worked in New Orleans at the Oxnar clinic and was seeing a lot of patients who worked for the petroleum companies and was reportedly fired for all of the work he did for his patients as opposed to the petroleum companies — what a doctor is supposed to do. So Victor Alexander then goes into private practice and the New Orleans police came and arrested him for robbing a bank.
JC: Seriously?
MH: Yea, it gets way crazier. This is a guy who was doing very well personally, economically — it came out in trial that he had a half a million dollars in the bank and was making plenty of money. It is unlikely in terms of motive that he would rob a bank for 2,500 dollars. The video from the bank was analyzed by the retired chief of criminal identification for the FBI; he said there was no way it could have been Dr. Alexander robbing this bank. He went to trial twice, the judge threw out a lot of evidence that would have exonerated him and he was sent to prison for robbing a bank. The Louisiana State Medical Society refused to take away his license. Many physicians who do work or potentially could do work or have knowledge of the area in New Orleans know the story about Victor Alexander. The message is quite clear: Don’t mess around with the petroleum industry.
JC: I have been working mainly in the Orange Beach/Gulf Shores area of Alabama, and that’s where I got sick.
MH: Have you had a CAT scan?
JC: Not yet, although they want to do one at the National Jewish Respiratory Center in Denver.
MH: You have to do that. I was chairman of the Occupational and Environmental medicine section of the American College of Chest Physicians so I have a lot of experience in this. You really need to be seen by a physician who understands this is serious.
JC: It’s on the schedule when I get back to Colorado. What do you see when you look at the test results from myself and the other people down here? What do they tell you?
MH: Let me tell you one more thing before I forget. I think that the only way to come close to getting the ultimate answer down there is to — there has to be a federal task force if you will. A federal effort where there would be half a dozen or a dozen specialists in this field who would have the protection of the government either temporary commissions from the U. S. public health service or something like that. Who would be responsible for organizing all the science and all the medicine and trying to get people to deliver care down there. I just don’t think you are going to get many volunteers unless they know they have the protection of the government. The annals of environmental diseases are strewn with stories about physicians who have had their lives ruined.
JC: The impacts of what is happening down here is are so big it’s very hard to wrap your head around it.
MH: I will give you one other example while we are talking about it. In the early 1990s I had called a bunch of cases, I saw patients who were sick from their environment who worked for Dow and DOW Chemical and a couple of the steel mills. In an eighteen month period I had one Blue Cross Blue Shield audit, two Medicare audits, a Michigan Employment Security Commission audit, a USAID Inspector General’s audit, and I was the target of a federal grand jury investigation. After two years and tens of thousands of dollars Medicare thanked me for teaching them how to catch a crook, apologized for bothering me — I told them how they could catch crooks and they thanked me. The US government, the local FBI office actually called my attorney and said they really weren’t able to find anything and my attorney who is a former US Attorney said that the government never calls when they have investigated somebody they just leave them dangling for the rest of their lives. The degree of harassment towards physicians is enormous, which I think is part of the reason — because of the conflicting forces at work in the Gulf, because of the probably less than half truths that are floating around that there needs to be a federal task force of independent physicians and scientists who have the protection and full faith of the United States. The way the system works, I think it would mean temporary commissions in the public health service. I don’t think even the oil companies that work down there would try and bump off a guy who works with the public health service.
JC: A number of people I have spoken to in Washington share that same opinion. Does it help to have test results in hand that show high levels of exposure from this event?
MH: I remember you had no Benzene but a lot of Hexane and a couple of Hexane metabolites. I am not sure what that means because where you see Hexane, Hexane causes what is called a dying back neuropathy, meaning the nerve cells in the arms and legs die back from the distal tips to the proximal end. You can end up with numbness, pain, all sorts of things. Hexane is a direct petroleum product so where you see Hexane you would expect to see Benzene. Now, that having been said I personally don’t even do actual solvent levels anymore because they are fraught with error. Rubbing alcohol is the prototypical solvent, and if you put a cap of rubbing alcohol on a flat surface like marble or something it’s usually gone before you would have a chance to get a paper towel it evaporates so quickly. So what happens with the organic solvents in general is that unless there is absolutely perfect control when they are drawn, there is a fair amount that will evaporate, if in fact not all of it. One of the dangers of people going to this lab (Metametrix), which I think is a good lab, is if they get the test drawn at a facility that lets it sit out for a little bit you are going to get a false negative result. In a case like yours, if you believe the sample is valid and it shows that you have Hexane and Hexane metabolites and also Octane in your blood, then it’s a pretty good clinical indication of how to go about treating you, which is usually just drinking a lot of water and then treating the end organ damage. End organ damage meaning we know if you inhale this stuff, if you have it in your system, it will damage your nerves. so we take a look at the nerves. The nerves will not show up abnormal on a test until there has been 30% damage. So what I do here and what I teach my residents is that for most people who come in to see the doctor in this field with a problem you will get more yield in terms of finding pathology and being able to help them if you look for end organ damage rather than the presence of a solvent because the solvent could have evaporated after it has already whacked the brain or whacked the liver.
JC: I spoke to the founder of Metametrix and he said that the tests were designed to pick up these compounds in the body after part of it, particularly Benzene, has been flushed. He indicated that the Benzene would not show up for very long once you were exposed but that the other compounds, the Ethylbenzene, m. p.-Xylene, the Hexane, which was way high, the Methylpentanes and the Isooctane, all of those things indicated to him that we were exposed to significant amounts of Benzene.
MH: That’s what I would think, too.
JC: When you look at these results is there reason to believe we might have sustained serious damage to our organs?
MH: In order to be scientific about this you have to have baseline data on a large population. What the oil company doctors, the professional experts that will ultimately be hired in these cases will argue is that you don’t know what background is in the area. I have seen them do this. They will go out and check 90 people and they will find people with results less than yours or more than yours and they will say this is background so with this particular patient you can not rely on the validity of the testing. On a scientific basis that’s true, I would prefer background. What happened to you right now is you have an indication that you breathed in harmful agents — you have a marker. They are called bio-markers. A bio-marker is the Hexane, N-Hexane and the Octane. You have evidence that you inhaled it because it’s in your blood. Nobody has correlated how much N-Hexane in your blood by PPM or PPB correlates with actual nerve damage. You need to have pulmonary tests, high resolution cat scans of your chest, liver function and cardiac function tests. What should happen with people with these exposures is at an absolute minimum, and I do not believe this is adequate, but at an absolute minimum the <a href=”http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/” target=”_hplink”>NIOSH</a> recommended health monitoring tests should be done. Be certain to ask the doctor examining you if they have ever been paid or retained by a petroleum company or a chemical manufacturing company.
JC: I can do that.
Additional Information on the the Health Impacts of the Gulf Oil Spill can be found at Sciencecorps.org and Riki Ott.com.
Originally Published in Huffington Post
When Steven Spielberg thrilled audiences around the world with the release of Jaws in 1975, who would have thought that the fictional scenario of a beachfront community faced with a mortal enemy threatening life and the summer tourist economy would be played out on an exponentially larger scale 35 years later in the summer of 2010 along the Gulf of Mexico. The credits now roll with BP’s disastrous oil spill at the Mississippi Canyon 252 site as the Great White Shark, The Obama Administration and the Federal, State, and Local Authorities as the Town of Amity, and the lone rational voice of Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungasser as Chief Brody. But unlike the film and novel, along the Gulf Coast, the voice of reason has been drowned out by the unified assertions of BP and government officials that the situation is under control and the water and beaches safe for recreation and fishing.
Had not the Obama Administration chosen to allow BP to dictate the response to the massive catastrophe, the economic and long term impacts from the release of hundreds of millions of gallons of crude into the Gulf might have been manageable to some degree. But as it played out with millions of gallons of Corexit dispersants being sprayed by the US Coast Guard from C130s at night and from BP ships near the Source, deep underwater, and along the coast in order to put the oil out of sight; the devastation expanded across thousands of miles of the gulf and throughout the food chain onto the beaches and through evaporation into humans along the coast as well.
Charles Hambleton, Pierre LeBlanc and I arrived in the Gulf region in mid-July to investigate reports of a coordinated effort by BP and Federal and State authorities to cover up the tremendous loss of marine life due to the spill and dispersants being used to break down the oil so it would be out of sight. We quickly discovered that while the allegations of a cover-up of untold numbers of dead animals (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerry-cope/the-crime-of-the-century_b_662971.html Crime of the Century Part I) was both dramatic and emotional it was the impacts on human health and welfare from the oil/Corexit mixture and the cover up of those realities that was the more important story. This was a story mainstream media seemed content to echo official sources on without any substantial effort to report on the large numbers of people sickened as a result of exposure to toxic crude and dispersant Corexit.
Robyn Hill and her husband moved to Gulf Shores Alabama from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to start a new life. Robyn landed her dream job as Beach Ambassador for the City of Gulf Shores. To see her talk about it, her eyes light up and a smile spreads across her face. But on the morning of June 10th she collapsed on the beach unconscious. She had been feeling ill with symptoms which are indicative of chemical exposure. She was taken to the Coastal Work Institute where the doctor spent 45 minutes explaining how she needed to sign off on her injury as heat stroke in order to avoid bad publicity and possible beach closures. Ms. Hill refused to cooperate. She remains very ill, and the local physicians unsure how to treat her condition. Dr. Riki Ott has been instrumental in connecting Robyn and many others with specialists around the country for advice and treatment for chemical exposure. Charles Hambleton and I spoke at length with Robyn Hill regarding her experience and health.
RH; We became aware that the oil was coming in and the City of Gulf Shores was going to keep it hush hush and that we were not supposed to say anything. To me it’s like isn’t this an ecological issue, shouldn’t the wildlife and fisheries be out here. To me the guy who is the head of the lifeguards is not exactly the best guy to be saying hey the water is OK to be swimming in. He’s not even an oil expert or anything. It behooved my intelligence to stand around and watch what the hell was going on, just waiting for it to happen. So Friday the oil was starting to hit. I work Monday through Friday. Over that weekend when I came back in Monday all my officers are telling me that they were getting sick over the weekend and that they saw people vomiting and that their own selves were vomiting. They were having a really hard time going through the process of working and what should they do about it. Should we report it? They were reporting to me I’m their supervisor I report it to our boss Coastal Security who has the contract with City Hall. So there’s this OSHA trail – there’s not one person you go to and say here’s what’s happening. It’s like a train wreck because you tell one person and they are yeah, ok and then you tell the next person and they are like yeah, ok but nobody really cares at the end of the day they are like ok so you all are getting sick down there. OK fine. So Monday passes and I don’t get sick but I am getting headaches. Tuesday and Wednesday I start to vomit. I go home I’m getting sick. I’m driving home from work and I am getting sick in the new Publix grocery store parking lot thinking what the hell is happening. This is right when the oil first started coming up. So i’m thinking shit this sucks because I really like my job. I’m like the coolest chick in the world I’m the head of the frickin’ beach! Who doesn’t want that job? And I am getting sick. Do I quit my job? I mean what the hell, is this going to go away? Are they going to give us something to make it stop? Who is going to come out and tell us this is not OK? I know for a fact my other guys are getting sick – macho big guys are getting sick too it’s not just me. So we go through that process and I am telling them over and over gain that everybody’s getting sick. The next week goes by and nothing. Nothing. Everybody is still getting sick. People are getting transferred. The next week comes around and again the Monday Tuesday nothing happens Wednesday comes and I pass out. I pass out. What happens is the night before I am getting ready to leave for work and one of the people from the Central Command – at this point they are coming in and setting up this base – at this point they had bought in tractors and the whole but we’re not telling anybody what’s up but we know what’s going down. These sand sifters that take the oil out of the sand – you know not telling anybody what’s the real deal, there’s news media everywhere. We’re not allowed to talk to them. We don’t know what’s going on. Even though we do, we’re not supposed to tell people don’t get in the water even though we have the briefing that says the EPA says there are chemicals in the water. So we are supposed to tell people go into the water at your own risk. So they have not posted the signs yet which say – it’s a red sign and it’s supposed to be posted but they never posted it. Why didn’t they ever post it? Now it’s posted but it was never posted until people really started getting sick. they knew the dispersant was already in the water.
JC: Who was actually responsible for posting the signs?
RH: The City of Gulf Shores. They actually told the head lifeguard Scott that they had ordered these gigantic signs that were supposed to go on the lifeguard stations that were the size of the lifeguard stations that were supposed to say chemical warning. They are not there – they are not there right now.
CH: Where are those signs? They must be somewhere unless they destroyed them.
RH: They just never put them out and it’s disgusting. It’s just disgusting because even to this day if you go up there and say can I go swimming they will say at your own risk. Well it isn’t at your own risk. There is a chemical warning.
JC: Who is making that call, is it the mayor?
RH: The City of Gulf Shores.
JC: So it’s the mayor who actually makes that call?
RH: That’s right.
JC: It reminds me of Jaws. You got the mayor and……
RH: That is totally what this is! It is totally Jaws all over again.
JC: Instead of the great white shark you have an oil spill.
RH: It’s not just the oil spill. It’s the Corexit 9500. That’s a big thing because the dispersants they are not telling the truth about. The fishing boats come out and they are supposed to go three miles out and they are coming right outside the swimming buoys and so are the planes. The reason we know that is we saw them. Now you might never catch them again, but we saw them the day that I passed out. The night before we saw the fishing boats right outside the buoys dropping it and I knew what they were doing because the girl who came form Central Command who was one of the hazmat girls who was working from Fairhope who was watching the workers said they are dropping the dispersant out. There that’s what they are doing. I didn’t know that she knew that. She said look, look what they are dropping right there and you could see it coming out of the thing. the next day I come in early in the morning. It wasn’t hot I wasn’t overheated. The chemical I could smell it…
JC: You could see them dropping it from shore?
RH: They were as close as the buoys that you can see how far somebody can swim out to.
JC: That’s not far at all.
RH: Exactly. that’s how close the fishing boats were dropping it.
CH: Tell me about what the doctor they took you to.
RH: I am in my hut which is small and the air gets all inside the hut I am in and I have no where else to breathe and knocks me out. The lifeguards come and get me. They say you need to get the fire department over here. I’m embarrassed. I’m like oh my God, these are my buddies I don’t want to be that girl that can’t handle her job. Oh shit, I am going to lose my job. Look guys just go away let me get some fresh air. So they take me to try and find some fresh air. We can’t find fresh air! We can’t find a spot of fresh air for me to go anywhere in the beach. So finally he says OK look I am calling them. So he radios them. You have to remember I work with the Fire Department, the Police, everybody I have the radio right there I know what’s going on all the time too I know what they are doing on a regular basis. They come over and I am 158 over 100 blood pressure, I am normally 120 over 100, they are like you have to go tot the hospital right now. My boss shows up and he takes me to the workman’s comp doctor. And the workman’s comp doctor says you realize we all live in Gulf Shores and if we report you got sick from the fumes that we will create a problem and that would not be a good situation to have. You can’t just say you got sick from the fumes. And I was like, I did, I am giving you the knife that stabbed me. The fumes were what made me sick. And he was like yeah but that would cause a problem for the City.
JC: He actually said that?
RH: Yeah. He eventually put down that I had fumes but that was only because I would not sign the paperwork.
JC: How long did that conversation go on?
RH: A long time. Because I was wanting him to give me some medicine. I was scared. I was freaked out. I was totally scared I had no idea if I was going to make it though the night at that point. So we went through the process. I kind of turned it on him because here’s this intelligent person trying to tell him what’s going on and he is trying to make me think you are going to eat what I am telling you and I am saying no I am not. You are going to help me the way that I want you to. So I turned into like this sweet little southern girl and I was like, do you mean to tell me that all the – because – if like everybody got sick from all the fumes and everything that the town would turn into a ghost town and that we should be really worried about that huh? And he was like exactly. I was not going to get anywhere with this guy. You know I just need to get out of here and go home because he’s more worried about a bigger picture.
Eventually I got my own doctor and I am on steroids and he understands I have toxins in my lungs.
After talking with Riki Ott who is one of the marine biologists from the Exxon/Valdez she said one of the hardest things for people to realize is that they are telling us that they don’t know the long-term effects of these chemicals when in fact they do know the long-term effects and that’s the bullshit of what is gong on here. The real long term effects are in the autopsies, the autopsies of the people who got sick. The people who died had lesions on their brains, the same lesions on their brains that the dolphins had. So there is such thing as long term effect to be proven outside of just the lung behavior.
This is my story but the story that pisses me off is that they are not stopping people form going in the water. This happened to me but it is going to happen to so many other people.
Drs. Kathleen Burns and Michael Harbut, who are providing information on the toxic effects of crude oil and dispersants through Sciencecorps are concerned that there are many more people like Robyn. Dr. Burns, a toxicologist, was contacted shortly after the spill by groups in Louisiana and Texas who needed information. She enlisted the help of Dr. Michael Harbut, a Professor of Medicine at Wayne State University who has treated many petroleum-exposed patients. Physicians from across the Gulf have requested information on diagnosis and treatment of chemically-exposed patients with a wide range of health problems. Information on the Sciencecorps website includes toxic effects of crude oil and dispersants and clinical evaluation information for medical care providers at Sciencecorps/crudeoilhazards.
Both doctors are very concerned that most Gulf residents and their health care providers haven’t been warned about the hazards and don’t have information on chemicals in the air and water. Dr. Harbut was asked Friday to speak with a boat captain who was vomiting blood. The Navy veteran, who didn’t realize he needed immediate medical care, was encouraged to quickly get to an emergency room. His symptoms matched the kind of internal hemorrhaging that results from exposure to a dispersant ingredient. The captain, whose four crew members were also ill, reported that they were exposed to dispersant for the last two days while working near the shoreline.
Riki Ott’s book, Sound Truth, describes many dispersant-exposed workers with similar health problems. Unfortunately, most Gulf residents are unaware of the health symptoms or how serious they are. Medical care providers have no training to recognize or treat damage caused by chemicals people are being exposed to. Information that should have been rapidly distributed throughout the region is not only absent, but government claims that no harm is occurring are causing confusion, illness, and serious delays in medical care.
Robin Young is a resident of Orange Beach and is partners in a rental property management firm there. She is one of the founders of Guardians of the Gulf and has been active in calling for assistance from BP and federal, state, and local officials to help the growing numbers of people sickened by exposure to the oil and dispersants.
JC: What has been your experience with the spill and its impacts on your community?
RY: It’s surreal. Its frightening and astonishing the lack of support on the part of BP, and the government, state and local officials. It is one of the most hideous crimes and cover-ups. The businesses down here are not receiving the money that they were promised. They are not making us whole. One person walks in with legitimate paperwork and gets a run around for six weeks or longer as their business dies and they are forced to close their doors. And then somebody else walks in with a lack of paperwork and gets a big check. None of it makes any sense.
The health effects are the most frightening because everybody is sick and the doctors here don’t know how to treat us. We are having a hard time finding doctors. We can hook up with doctors in Michigan and Colorado that can treat us. We are being told there is no cure for what we have that it is going to be a life long term of various illnesses.
JC: Are you sick yourself?
RY: Extremely sick to the point where I can only work a couple of hours a day before I just collapse in utter exhaustion from coughing and the flu like symptoms that you feel. I have no voice and it’s totally wrecking my business because I can’t function, I can’t remember half of what I am supposed to do – I have to constantly write notes to myself. I am not able to go out and take care of the houses and guests like I used to do.
JC: When did those symptoms start effecting you?
RY: Approximately three weeks after the oil actually hit our shores. It started with the sore throat. The sore throat went from just being sore to feeling like you had a sock stuffed down your throat – kind of a gagging reflex – then it went to headaches, nausea, vomiting, occasional diarrhea, extremely lethargic, memory loss, to this horrible wet hacking cough that has literally made my entire body so sore from coughing so bad that it is really hard to function.
JC: How many people do you think are having similar symptoms and reactions to the conditions there?
RY: It’s hard to put a number on it but from my location all the way up and down the coast, I would say 50% of the people are affected. Some people don’t even know. They are walking around with a sore throat thinking it is summer allergies. I have asked this question of every toxicologist, scientist, and doctor I have talked to; why are some people sick and some not? It has to do with several things. Most of the time people who are as sick as I am have had bronchitis or pneumonia at some point in time in their lives so their lungs were already weakened. The other reason they think I have it so bad is that I spent three weeks or longer out on the boats out in the middle of the oil and dispersants with media and on the beach with the media doing interviews right next to the toxic mess and the fact that I live fifty yards from the back bay that is foaming and churning with dispersants. Then you have the rain coming down and you can see after it rains in the puddles and the water on the back bay this frothy mess which we are convinced is dispersant coming back down in the rain. I can go and walk my dog twenty minutes after its rained and be outside and within two seconds start gagging and coughing. Sometimes there is an odor and sometimes there is not.
JC: Are the health officials giving you any assistance?
RY: Absolutely none. First of all the mayors in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores, they should not have left our beaches open. They knew that what was coming in was not safe for anybody to swim. They kind of threw all of under the bus by not closing the beaches which makes you think that they came to some kind of agreement with BP because as it was pointed out to me not too long ago, for the mere fact that they did not close the beaches this whole entire time gives BP some ammunition when numerous ones of us file lawsuits for loss of income or loss of health. They threw us under the bus. No they are not doing anything. Even the doctors down here don’t seem to be very proactive. Dr Burns from <a href=”http://www.sciencecorps.org/org/” target=”_hplink”>Sciencecorps</a> has tried to make contact with numerous doctors down here trying to put them in touch, get them fact sheets to teach them how to take care of the health issues and no one is responding. No one. We had two media outlets down here which are two news stations that seem to keep going out and testing the water and showing things on the air but as far as the rest of the media, they just don’t care. It is supposedly cleaned up and fine yet we get daily information flowing in from Louisiana, Mississippi, and here in Alabama that they are still spraying dispersants, that the oil is still coming in on the beach. They have photographs and pictures yet media says it’s over, it’s done, the well is capped.
JC: So what are you going to do?
RY: We are going to continue to fight. I would like to sit down with Obama and Lisa Jackson and ask them point blank, why? How can they live with themselves knowing that they have completely abandoned everyone here on the coast…..this disaster has affected everyone here on the coast and is slowly moving north and affecting people there and yet everyday that goes by our health and businesses are going down the drain and they continue to lie about the oil and the corexit and the damage it is causing. I challenge Obama and Lisa Jackson to come down here and lets give them a swim in the waters that they say aren’t dangerous and feed them seafood fresh out of the gulf and watch them eat it! It won’t happen, and what a bogus press release Obama had announcing he was going to eat Gulf seafood at his birthday bash. Does he really think at this point anyone believes that? Obama and every government and local and state official has tremendously let down the American people and they know we know that yet they do not care. Its sickening. The corruption and greed that are involved in this disaster far exceeds anything that you can wrap your mind around.
Gabriel McMillan was employed as a safety officer by BP subcontractor Meyer Engineering under yet another firm CTEH which contracted with BP to provide safety officers as well as industrial hygienists. McMillan’s credentials are impressive; as a preventive Medicine NCO in charge 2nd Brigade 101st Airborne responsible for public health of 5000 soldiers at Fort Campbell and during two deployments to Iraq where he did air and water quality analysis and site assessments that went to the commanders in order to keep the troops healthy and prevent them from getting harmed by anything that was not associated with combat. McMillan resigned his position with Meyer Engineering because he was not allowed to perform his duties and ensure worker safety.
GM: I don’t think the way they are doing the monitoring is indicative of what people are being exposed to. The people that are working twelve hours a day seven days a week the OSHA permissible exposure limits are not designed for what we are being exposed to. They don’t include absorption through the skin. They don’t include ingestion which happens when the particles get in their mouth or nose. They don’t include when somebody gets some on their hands and they eat a sandwich afterwards. But BP is only going by that number to determine whether or not we need to up our protective equipment and/or close the beaches. They need to do 24 hour monitoring for a week at a time monitoring what the peak levels are and what the sustained levels are. I know it’s not being done by BP and I don’t think it’s being done by the EPA.
What happens is the guys are driving along the beach in an ATV and they take an instantaneous reading of what’s going on right then and then they move on. And that is not indicative of what our people are being exposed to over the course of their work. The worst thing that could happen is for them to reduce the hazard classification and make it legal for people to be swimming in it without enough research to say it’s safe. Whenever I was in the army and we had a concern that there could be a health risk, we took everybody out. We removed them completely and then we determined exactly what that risk was before we let anybody back in. It seems like a money thing. They are putting that value over people’s health.
Have you seen the document preservation form BP is putting out? It’s a legal document. They are asking us to sign it saying we will be let go if we don’t sign it. It basically says that any document that we produce on this project becomes the property of BP and they can seize them
from us. They can take them off our computers, off our phones, and I am afraid something like Enron is going to happen where if it comes up that they may be liable for something ll of that information is going to disappear and employees are going to be legally bound to comply with that.
For many, this echoes of the poisoning of 9/11 cleanup workers, where chemicals, dust, and asbestos sickened so many. Most of those dying far too early of cancer and respiratory disease believed the lies they were told about the safety of the air. New York City’s construction workers, electricians, and other tradesmen labored to pull order from terrorist-imposed chaos, usually without protective equipment. Studies of children whose parents were assured their schools and homes were safe are now underway, after reports of too many with cancer and other illnesses. Dr. Burns, who helped many 9/11 workers, worries that federal agencies are focused on studying health damage rather than reducing it. “Who decided that prevention, protection, and precaution are dispensable parts of public health” she asks, “while people are treated like specimens instead of valued members of our country?”
The total number of people sickened from exposure to the oil and dispersant will never be known. For BP employees and all of its subcontractors, reporting illness was grounds for and resulted in immediate termination. Dr. Riki Ott has seen this scenario played out before at Exxon/Valdez in Alaska. Since then, things have change somewhat, better for the oil companies as corporate influence in government has grown ever more pervasive, worse for the planet and every living thing in their way.
RO: When I first got down here in early May, I immediately heard from the workers at The Source. The fisherman and their families were telling me about strange common illnesses in an uncommon time and they wondered if maybe they should be worried. It was headaches, dizziness, nausea, sore throats, burning eyes, and of course everybody has had this at one time or another, but it did seem kind of weird that all the guys were experiencing these symptoms out working on the oil spill. At that point and time it was pretty much a continuous burn going on and dispersant flames flying close enough – too close – for the guys to be comfortable. I explained that this was exactly what had happened in Exxon/Valdez and then they got even more worried because they wanted to know what had happened to the Exxon/Valdez workers who got sick. The story is that Exxon pretty much gave people hardhats instead of respirators and then told them that they had the Valdez crud cold or flu like symptoms and if you want your job keep working. If not we’ll give you a pink slip. So everybody said it’s like a TB ward out there. Everybody is coughing red eyed and kept working. The fisherman kind of reacted the same way in that they have been through four major hurricanes in 5 years and they have no money left in the bank. Fishing was going to be closed so if the job was oil spill response they felt like they had to do it. But they also knew they were getting sick especially when I was telling them well actually that all of these illnesses did not get properly diagnosed. They didn’t get properly treated and people ended up very sick with chemical sensitivity. Some of them 100% disabled – legally disabled – some of them dead.
JC And that’s dealing with Exxon?
RO: Yes, that’s all dealing with Exxon. So the workers said well what can we do? I was like, we need to get you respirators. It’s been like this almost three months long saga now of BP consistently saying the workers do not need respirators. If you wear respirators your jobs will be terminated and people who get sick have food poisoning or heat stroke even though the symptoms are also consistent with chemical poisoning.
JC: Was the same dispersant, Corexit used on the Exxon/Vladez spill?
RO: We have some experience with Corexit 9527 from the Exxon/Valdez spill. The use was more limited and when we saw that it had a human health hazard in it we tried to shut it down. Unfortunately, all we were able to do is the oil industry changed the names of the product. They pretended it was a bioremediation compound to help the bacteria eat the oil. Still we only had 103,000 gallons of this industrial solvent essentially put on our beaches compared to over 2,000,000 gallons of it sprayed every day…
JC: Every day 2 million gallons?
RO: Every day for a total of 2 million gallons so far. There is fresh toxic dispersant being released every day on top of the oil. This is unprecedented. It has never been done in the world before at this rate over this long of a time. Nobody has absolutely any idea what will happen. What we do know is that dispersed oil is more toxic than undispersed oil and dispersed oil plus dispersant is more toxic than undispersed oil. We know that solvents, these are industrial solvents, they totally wreak havoc on the central nervous system of vertebrates, – birds, mammals, fish. We know that 2butoxyethanol it doesn’t disappear right away. It stays. It solubulizes in oil and absorbs into biological tissue and then proceeds to wreak havoc. In people it is a fetal toxin. It creates blood disorders, liver and kidney problems. It’s an endocrine disrupter, reproductive problems, the list goes on and on. This stuff was unleashed into the Gulf, and I have not seen the studies being done to tack where the dispersant is, how long it’s going to be around, is it being taken up by different species in the ecosystem? The materials safety data sheet says that for Corexit 9500 it has the potential to bioaccumulate which means work its way up through the food web. We are over two and a half months in and the FDA still had no test for looking for 2butoxyethanol in fish, in seafood that was supposed to be harvested and put on the market. So its really this experiment of mammoth proportions that’s been conducted in the Gulf without anybody’s consent except the federal government. At what point do the people say this is an assault on my body, this is an insult to my freedoms and this has to be stopped? We never reached that point where we emptied the world’s warehouse of Corexit 9527 just for example. Nobody has any idea about the air transport of this with the hurricane season now coming on.
One thing we do know is that these dispersants are industrial solvents and they make the oil worse. They break up the oil into little droplets and package the droplets in solvents, little bubbles of oil wrapped solvent floating around. The impellers of boats offshore are getting chewed up and engines are overheating. The impellers are hard rubber and this is what dispersants dissolve, they dissolve rubber oil and grease. The O rings of dive gear where people bring their dive gear into be repaired, the dive shops are saying well your O rings are all shot put your gear in the closet don’t put it in the Gulf for the summer. Again, soft rubber this time getting chewed up. The people who have sent me photos or I have seen in person of rashes to the point of blistering and the blisters go below the dermis through subcutaneous and leave scars. Oil alone does not do this. This is much more likely to be the oil/dispersant package. The problem here is this stuff is coming in and there is virtually no monitoring for it in the air, in the water.
JC: It would seem to beg the question why is there not some serious documentation being gathered to try and collate that data and come to some kind of conclusion as to what are the exact impacts of having all these different compounds throughout the environment along the Gulf coast of the United States.
RO: What has happened is the federal government has managed – mismanaged I think really – this whole catastrophe. We don’t seem to have the real time data 24/7 to show where is it different times of the day, what’s coming in. What I am seeing is that there are people across the gulf who are sick and four federal agencies who cannot manage to find any levels that are not safe. I think part of the problem here is the federal government has not been sampling at night for starters. Because an air inversion gets started and pollutants get trapped near the surface at night.
Those pollutants have long-term consequences, since crude oil ingredients cause mutations, cancer, and birth defects. According to Burns, there is no justification for the federal government misleading people on something this fundamental. “People need honest information on air and water contamination, and how to minimize contaminant exposure. Your analogy to Jaws is right on target. The only difference is that this shark is often invisible and so we must rely on the government to tell us the truth. Instead we are awash in a sea of chemical lies.”
I think the real problem here is we have this pretend going on and the reason why is twofold. The oil industry does not want to admit that oil is this toxic even though they have known back as far as 1948 that the only safe level for benzene is zero because it is a carcinogen. And BP does not want to be held accountable for long term medical surveillance. Basically, if you have the data to show that this person or these people got sick because of this exposure the the spiller is actually required to do this long term medial surveillance and help the people, pay for the people to get better. What we’re are seeing here is the same thing as Exxon/Valdez where there is a very intentional move by the oil company to dodge the long-term health monitoring requirements under our worker protection laws.</blockquote>
My personal experience was that within 48 hours of arriving in the Gulf Shores area of Alabama I began experiencing intense headaches and respiratory issues. Our entire team was affected to varying degrees. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, sore swollen throats, difficulty breathing, chest congestion, and extreme gagging coughing reflex were typical for all of us. After our two days of flying over the gulf courtesy of Bonny Schumaker and WingsOfCare, my condition worsened. All of the leading edges of the plane were covered with a thick reddish-brown oily substance which was a mixture of the oil and dispersant which was evaporating over the Gulf. I stayed in the area the longest and developed Chemically Induced Pnuemonitis. Fortunately for me I was able to return home to clean Colorado air recently and have improved somewhat but for the numerous people who reside along the Gulf Coast the option to leave is not viable, and the long-term effects of the Corexit dispersants are unknown.
During his Presidential campaign Barack Obama ignited the hopes and dreams of a nation – the world – with his inspired speeches about making not the easy but the right choices; doing the right thing against challenges both great and ominous. The dreams he gave voice to have now been largely dispersed like the oil in the gulf by his administration’s own particular brand of Corexit; the failure to deliver on promises and the embrace of secrecy over transparency. President Obama has shown himself to be a master media operative, a superior orator, but in the end just another politician answering to not the call of history but corporate interests.
Post script. Several friends who are influential in the environmental community urged me to exercise caution before heading to the Gulf and take it easy on the administration if I discovered information that would portray the Obama team in a bad light as the alternatives to him being in office are perceived by many as being worse. After hearing that I did my own informal survey of friends and acquaintances for their take on this and the best answer I got was from the head of one of the leading NGOs who said, “free passes are done, let fly Jer.” Personally, I believe Obama is destined for the one term club. But sadly here’s the rub; it never mattered anyway.
Originally Published in Huffington Post
The unprecedented disaster caused by the BP oil spill at the Deepwater Horizon Mississippi Canyon 252 site continues to expand even as National Incident Commander Thad Allen and BP assert that the situation is improving, the blown-out source capped and holding steady, the situation well in hand and cleanup operations are being scaled back. TheNew York Timesdeclared on the front page this past week that the oil was disolving more rapidly than anticipated. TIME magazine reported that environmental anti-advocate Rush Limbaugh had a point when he said the spill was a “leak”. Thad Allen pointed out in a press conference that boats are still skimming on the surface, a futile gesture when the dispersant Corexit is being used to break down oil on the surface. As the oil is broken down, it mixes with the dispersant and flows under or over any booming operations.
To judge from most media coverage, the beaches are open, the fishing restrictions being lifted and the Gulf resorts open for business in a healthy, safe environment. We, along with Pierre LeBlanc, spent the last few weeks along the Gulf coast from Louisiana to Florida, and the reality is distinctly different. The coastal communities of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida have been inundated by the oil and toxic dispersant Corexit 9500, and the entire region is contaminated. The once pristine white beaches that have been subject to intense cleaning operations now contain the oil/dispersant contamination to an unknown depth. The economic impacts potentially exceed even the devastation of a major hurricane like Katrina, the adverse impacts on health and welfare of human populations are increasing every minute of every day and the long-term effects are potentially life threatening.
Over the Gulf from the Source (official term for the Deepwater Horizon spill site) in to shore there is virtually no sign of life anywhere in the vast areas covered by the dispersed oil and Corexit. This in a region previously abundant with life above and below the ocean’s surface in all its diversity. For months now, scientists and environmental organizations have been asking where all the animals are. The reported numbers of marine animals lost from BP fall far short of the observed loss. The water has a heavy appearance and the slightly iridescent greenish yellow color that extends as far as the eye can see.
On two, unrestricted day-long flights, on July 22nd and 23rd, we were fortunate enough to be on with official clearance. We saw a total of four distressed dolphins and three schools of rays on the surface. As the bottom of the ocean is covered with crude and only the oil on the surface broken up by dispersant, the rays are forced up to the surface in a futile attempt to find food and oxygen. Birds are scarce where one would usually find thousands upon thousands. The Gulf of Mexico from the Source into the shore is a giant kill zone.
In May, Mother Nature Network journalist Karl Burkart received a tip from an anonymous fisherman-turned-BP contractor in the form of a distressed text message, describing a near-apocalyptic sight near the location of the sunken Deepwater Horizon — fish, dolphins, rays, squid, whales, and thousands of birds — “as far as the eye can see,” dead and dying. According to his statement, which was later confirmed by another report from an individual working in the Gulf, whale carcasses were being shipped to a highly guarded location where they were processed for disposal.
Citizen Global Gulf News Desk received photos that matched the report and are being published on Karl’s blog today. Local fisherman in Alabama report sighting tremendous numbers of dolphins, sharks, and fish moving in towards shore as the initial waves of oil and dispersant approached in June. Many third- and fourth-generation fisherman declared emphatically that they had never seen or heard of any similar event in the past. Scores of animals were fleeing the leading edge of toxic dispersant mixed with oil. Those not either caught in the toxic mixture and killed out at sea, or fortunate enough to be out in safe water beyond the Source, died as the water closed in, and they were left no safe harbor. The numbers of birds, fish, turtles, and mammals killed by the use of Corexit will never be known as the evidence strongly suggests that BP worked with the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, the FAA, private security contractors, and local law enforcement, all of which cooperated to conceal the operations disposing of the animals from the media and the public.
The majority of the disposal operations were carried out under cover of darkness. The areas along the beaches and coastal Islands where the dead animals were collected were closed off by the U.S. Coast Guard. On shore, private contractors and local law enforcement officials kept off limits the areas where the remains of the dead animals were dumped, mainly at the Magnolia Springs landfill by Waste Management where armed guards controlled access. The nearby weigh station where the Waste Management trucks passed through with their cargoes was also restricted by at least one sheriff’s deputies in a patrol car, 24/7.
Robyn Hill, who was Beach Ambassador for the City of Gulf Shores until she became so ill she collapsed on the job one morning, was at a residential condominium property adjacent to the Gulf Shores beach when she smelled an overwhelming stench. She went to see where the odor was coming from and witnessed two contract workers dumping plastic bags full of dead birds and fish in a residential Waste Management dumpster, which was then protected by a security guard. Within five minutes, a Waste Management collection truck emptied the contents and the guard departed.
The oceans are empty, the skies tinged yellow by evaporating oil and toxic dispersant devoid of birds, dogs mysteriously have no fleas, and in an area usually besieged by mosquitoes, there is little need for repellent, and the usual trucks spraying are nowhere to be seen.
Shell Beach, in Hopedale, Louisiana, was one of the sites where carcasses of sperm whales were suspected of being destroyed. The operational end of the island was closed to unauthorized personnel and the airspace closed. The U.S. Coast Guard closed off all access from the Gulf. This picture shows the area as it was prepped to receive what were suspected to be whale carcasses for disposal.
Riki Ott, PhD, has been in the region for the past three months. A veteran of the Exxon Valdez spill and renowned marine toxicologist, Ott has documented numerous accounts of the devastating results from BP and the government’s use of Corexit in the gulf. We spoke at length last week:
There has been a great deal of discussion about the disappearance of the animals and the life in the ocean which seem to have vanished since this incident has occurred. What do you know about this?
RO: Well I have been down in the Gulf since May 3rd. It’s pretty consistent what I have heard. First I heard from the offshore workers and the boat captains that were coming in and they would see windrows of dead things piled up on the barrier islands; turtles and birds and dolphins… whales…
JC: Whales?
RO: And whales. There would be stories from boat captains of offshore, we started calling death gyres, where the rips all the different currents sweep the oceans surface, that would be the collection points for hundreds of dolphins and sea turtles and birds and even whales floating. So we got four different times latitudes/longitude coordinates where (this was happening) but by the time we got to these lat/longs which is always a couple of days later there was nothing there. There was boom put around these areas to collect the animals and we know this happened at Exxon Valdez too. The rips are where the dead things collect. We also know from Exxon Valdez that only 1% in our case of the carcasses that floated off to sea actually made landfall in the Gulf of Alaska. I don’t believe there have been any carcass drift studies down here that would give us some indication that when something does wash up on the beach what percentage it is of the whole. But we know that offshore there was an attempt by BP and the government to keep the animals from coming onshore in great numbers. The excuse was this was a health problem — we don’t want to create a health hazard. That would only be a good excuse if they kept tallies of all the numbers because all the numbers – all the animals – are evidence for federal court. We the people own these animals and they become evidence for damages to charge for BP. In Exxon Valdez the carcasses were kept under triple lock and key security until the natural resource damage assessment study was completed and that was 2 1/2 years after the spill. Then all the animals were burned but not until then.
So people offshore were reporting this first and then carcasses started making it onshore. Then I started hearing from people in Alabama a lot and the western half of Florida – a little bit in Mississippi – but mostly what was going on then there was an attempt to keep people off the beaches, cameras off the beaches. I was literally flying in a plane and the FAA boundary changed. It was offshore first with the barrier islands and all of a sudden it just hopped right to shore to Alabama that’s where we were flying over and the pilot was just like - he couldn’t believe it – he was like look at that and I didn’t know what he was looking but then he points at the little red line which had all of sudden grown and he just looked at me and said the only reason that they have done this is so people can’t see what is going on. And what that little red line meant was no cameras on shore and three days later the oil came onshore and the carcasses came onshore into Alabama.
JC: That immediately preceded the first wave coming onshore?
RO: Pretty much. That preceded the first wave. It was June 2nd when the line changed and the FAA boundaries increased. Then people would — I mean you walk beaches here at night it’s hot so people walk beaches — and they would see carcasses like sea turtles, a bird, a little baby dolphin, and immediately they would go over to it and immediately people would approach them, don’t touch that if you touch it you will be arrested and within fifteen minutes there would be a white unmarked van that would just come out of nowhere and in would go the carcass and off it would go.
They were white unmarked vans at first. We’ve since heard many other stories from truckers who are trucking carcasses in refrigerated vans to Mexico. Carcasses are just not showing up where they need to which is as body counts for essentially this war on the gulf.
JC: It sounds like the federal government and agencies that have been involved in this one way or another are working on behalf of BP and not the American people.
RO: What’s going on on the beaches where people can at least get glimpses of what’s happening — I mean I’ve talked to people who have seen boats coming in towing dolphin carcasses and the boats have jockeyed to try to prevent the person with the camera from getting a picture. I’ve had people tell me they were walking the beach actually trying to deploy boom but along comes a BP rep and the Coast Guard in a boat, and the Coast Guard guy yells at the people to stop deploying — particularly if it was alternative boom — and then he goes away and comes back a few minutes later without the BP person and apologizes for behaving that way but he had to because there was a BP person on board.
JC: A Coast Guard official?
RO: A Coast Guard official apologized for his behavior because he had to a since BP person was on board. So it’s pretty clear to the American, the people in the Gulf, that somehow it’s turned not into our country anymore. That’s the question. People are just stunned. We thought this was America. We didn’t think we had to know exactly what our rights were, we just though we all lived them. Suddenly they’re finding that unless they can site chapter and verse they are getting intimidated and backing down from these encounters with BP and/or the Coast Guard.
Drew Wheelan, with the American Birding Association, was on Grand Isle on the first of June. Drew said:
There were definitely dead birds washing up on the beach at that point. General contractors, not Fish and Wildlife officials, I contacted them and they said they were not conducting operations at that time. These contractors were cruising the high tide. On at least three occasions I saw these gators, 4-seat ATVs, going along the beach with hand-held spotlights looking for dead animals in the middle of the night. When I spoke with Felix Lopez at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, he told me they knew they were disappearing birds.
Karen Harvey is a local who regularly walks the beaches along the Alabama Gulf shore. </strong>
JC: In the course of walking the beaches since this incident happened, how many dead animals, birds did you find?
KH: Before they got the hazmat crews trained and before official people showed up with their vans I was finding — within a seven-mile stretch — and that’s not a very long beach area, I was finding at least two turtles a day, mostly Ridleys. There was one logger head that was very large. My daughter’s friends would call me and say, Miss Karen there’s a turtle on the beach, you should come down and take a picture. People were aware they were dying, but we were being told that they were possibly hit by a fishing boat or pulled up with fish from the fishing boats but after the fishing boats were completely stopped the turtles were still on the beach. Now the beach is immaculate, no crabs, no birds — nothing.
JC: Why do you think that is?
KH: Dispersant. It’s the dispersant. And also when you clean a beach the way they clean our beach with — I mean our beach never looked this pristine as far as junk and so forth — when you clean a beach like that, you take away all the things that birds eat, and we did have some big fish kill areas where bunches of little tiny fish and so forth would wash up. And it makes you wonder.
JC: When was that?
KH: The last one as probably about a month ago.
JC: When you say a lot, quantify that.
KH: Thousands of little tiny fish, but they were cleaning the beach so they just cleaned the beach up, the hazmat workers.
The reason BP has gone to such great lengths to hide the devastation caused by the irresponsible drilling operations and blow out at Mississippi Canyon 252 is financial. Every death that results from the oil spill has a cash value, whether animal or human. Images of dead animals are difficult to spin in the media, and they resonate across all demographics. BP also has a strong interest in maintaining a business-as-usual model for the beach resort communities along the Gulf Coast that have been economically devastated and lost the majority of their annual revenue during the summer season of 2010. The only sharks circling the Gulf waters now are based on land.
The recent BLM auction of Oil and Gas Leases in Utah which has received a great deal of attention after Tim DeChristopher’s act of administrative civil disobedience at the auction by bidding and purchasing leases on parcels without the ability to pay (which created no small amount of chaos), was brought to a screeching halt in a ruling issued by Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of US District Court Washington D.C. Saturday evening. In his ruling, Judge Urbina found that the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Wilderness Society, and Earthjustice in their lawsuit filed December 17t, 2008 have “have shown a likelihood of success on the merits” and the “development of domestic energy resources’ … is far outweighed by the public interest in avoiding irreparable damage to public lands and the environment.” The ruling prohibits the BLM from cashing the checks issued for the wilderness in question until the case is heard. Once again, as so often in the past, the NRDC has proven itself to be the premier environmental organization in protecting the nation’s environment from vested exploitative interests.
“This ruling is a huge victory in protecting our nation’s pristine wilderness from destruction due to oil and gas drilling,” said Sharon Buccino, senior attorney for NRDC. “We do not need to sacrifice our wild lands to achieve a secure energy future.”
Although these leases had been in the works for years, it was only at the last minute that they were passed down to BLM officials for action. The lands in question are some of the most spectacular and pristine in the West including Arches National Park. That the departing administration sent a few final Hail Mary’s to the oil and gas interests is of course no surprise.
Rather than focusing their energy and resources on the necessary transition from carbon based fuels to sustainable energy sources, the Bush administration is hell-bent on waging war against the environment until the last possible moment. And with twenty-four hours to go, it can not run out fast enough. Unfortunately, the mess they leave behind will require substantial resource commitments from the Obama team to address.
The same process of leasing previously protected lands which led to Tim DeChristopher’s protest and possible prosecution is now taking place a short distance across the border from Utah in the San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado. On February 12, 2009 an additional 133,054 acres of National Forest lands will go on the auction block. Included in these parcels are some of the most spectacular untouched National Forest lands in the Rockies. Whether Judge Urbina’s ruling will deter the BLM auction in Colorado from taking place as scheduled and what if any effect it will have on the disposition of DeChristopher’s case remains to be seen.
A defense fund for Tim DeChristopher has been set and further information is available at bidder70.org
