BP trying to keep true impact hidden from public
BP has been trying with some success to keep the media away from beaches and marshes hardest hit by the spill. Two reporters from the New York Daily News, for example, say they were escorted off a public beach in Louisiana by police officers who explained they were following BP’s orders. But they nonetheless got a unapproved tour of an oil-soaked barrier island from an angry BP contractor:
“Here’s what President Obama didn’t see when he visited the Gulf Coast: a dead dolphin rotting in the shore weeds.
“When we found this dolphin it was filled with oil. Oil was just pouring out of it. It was the saddest darn thing to look at,” said a BP contract worker who took the Daily News on a surreptitious tour of the wildlife disaster unfolding in Louisiana.
His motive: simple outrage.
“There is a lot of coverup for BP. They specifically informed us that they don’t want these pictures of the dead animals. They know the ocean will wipe away most of the evidence. It’s important to me that people know the truth about what’s going on here,” the contractor said.
“The things I’ve seen: They just aren’t right. All the life out here is just full of oil. I’m going to show you what BP never showed the president.”
A reporter for Mother Jones, also blocked by police from visiting Elmer’s Island Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana, recounts her conversation with Barbara Martin, a BP press representative:
“We tell her that deputies were just yelling at us, and she seems truly upset. For one, she’s married to a Jefferson Parish sheriff’s deputy. For another, “We don’t need more of a black eye than we already have.”
“But it wasn’t BP that was yelling at us, it was the sheriff’s office,” we say.
“Yeah, I know, but we have…a very strong relationship.”
“What do you mean? You have a lot of sway over the sheriff’s office?”
“Oh yeah.”
“How much?”
“A lot.”
When I tell Barbara I am a reporter, she stalks off and says she’s not talking to me, then comes back and hugs me and says she was just playing. I tell her I don’t understand why I can’t see Elmer’s Island unless I’m escorted by BP. She tells me BP’s in charge because “it’s BP’s oil.”
“But it’s not BP’s land.”
“But BP’s liable if anything happens.”
“So you’re saying it’s a safety precaution.”
“Yeah! You don’t want that oil gettin’ into your pores.”
“But there are tourists and residents walking around in it across the street.”
“The mayor decides which beaches are closed.” So I call the Grand Isle police requesting a press liason, only to get routed to voicemail for Melanie with BP. I call the police back and ask why they gave me a number for BP; they blame the fire chief.
I reach the fire chief. “Why did the police give me a number for BP?” I ask.
“That’s the number they gave us.”
“Who?”
“BP.”
As the spill spreads, coming ashore in more and more places throughout the Gulf, BP’s attempt to stage-manage the disaster is going to fall apart.
The good news is that according to U.S. Rep. Don Young of Alaska, there is no environmental disaster looming in the Gulf because oil leaks are a natural phenomenon. Young also criticized President Obama’s decision to put a moratorium on new deep-water oil-drilling permits until we can be assured the process is safe. Other Republican leaders, including Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, have also criticized Obama’s decision.
Reports the Dallas Morning News:
“It’s exactly the wrong decision,” says Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington, who has received more oil industry donations than any other current U.S. House member.
“It’s going to raise unemployment, and it’s going to raise oil prices.”
Rep. Ralph Hall of Rockwall, the senior Republican on the House science committee, said that if anything, the BP spill shows a need for more drilling in deep waters because it demonstrates the vast petroleum reserves in the gulf.
“There’s this huge stream of energy that’s coming out of that broken pipe,” Hall said. “It’s certainly something we could use to lessen our dependence on Arab energy.”
After tightening safety rules, the Obama administration on Wednesday ended its ban on new permits for shallow-water drilling, while extending its deep-water ban.
As the Washington Times reports:
“The Obama administration ran afoul of environmentalists Wednesday by approving a new oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, even as millions of gallons of oil continue to gush from BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig and the British oil giant struggled with its latest effort to cap the well.
The new drilling permit, awarded to Bandon Oil and Gas, is the first granted by the Minerals Management Service since the BP rig exploded April 20, killing 11 people. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar extended a moratorium recently on deepwater drilling, such as that of the Deepwater Horizon, which was drilling about a mile beneath the water’s surface when the rig exploded.
At the same time, however, the administration quietly allowed a ban on drilling in shallow water to expire. The Bandon Oil permit is for a site about 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana and 115 feet below the surface, which qualifies as a shallow drilling site.”
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216 comments Add your comment
Scout
June 3rd, 2010
8:36 am
I am sure the “heroic” press will find a way. They may even get an “exposure to oil” ribbon.
Peadawg
June 3rd, 2010
8:37 am
http://www.ajc.com/business/apnewsbreak-feds-approve-new-540229.html
“APNewsBreak: Feds approve new Gulf oil well off La”
WTF is Obama thinking? I guess this is Obama’s response?
stands for decibels
June 3rd, 2010
8:42 am
Jay, another angle you might want to look into, since you didn’t specifically mention it–Democracy Now reported in yesterday’s show that the Gulf shrimpers/fisherman being employed in the cleanup are being contractually obligated told not to talk to the press.
I don’t know if this is actually SOP for such operations but it sure doesn’t sound like what a company with nothing to hide would want to do.
bit of transcript follows…
AMY GOODMAN: We continue our trip through the Gulf. In the town of Buras, Louisiana, we met up with a longtime fisherman named Glenn Swift. Like many fishermen, he signed up with BP to help with the cleanup. He confirmed that he signed a contract with a clause stating that speaking to the media was grounds for termination.
AMY GOODMAN: In the contract that they sign to get paid, that the fishermen sign to get paid, they are not allowed to speak?
GLENN SWIFT: Right. It says that it’s grounds for termination of employment.
Scout
June 3rd, 2010
8:46 am
stands for decibels :
Good! Let the media man (or woman) their own “shrimp boats” !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1dz1YRXdOA
stands for decibels
June 3rd, 2010
8:46 am
Scout, your ongoing hatred for a free press is most unbecoming.
Outhouse Gokart
June 3rd, 2010
8:46 am
BP is just taking lessons in “cover-up” from the Obama administration.
USinUK
June 3rd, 2010
8:47 am
“They may even get an “exposure to oil” ribbon.”
nah – when it comes to “ribbons”, we leave it to the war cheerleaders and their little yellow ribbons on their cars … ooooo, you can almost feel the sacrifice.
Outhouse Gokart
June 3rd, 2010
8:49 am
Those yellow ribbons are just so stupid.
LeeH1
June 3rd, 2010
8:50 am
Brings new meaning to the term, “oily mouthed bast*rd”.
TaxPayer
June 3rd, 2010
8:50 am
I wonder if anyone has set up stands along the beaches yet to sell tar ball souveniers. Raw materials cost and overhead can’t be beat.
Finn McCool
June 3rd, 2010
8:51 am
Good editorial:
This Country Needs a Few Good Communists
http://www.truthout.org/chris-hedges-this-country-needs-a-few-good-communists60024
Doggone/GA
June 3rd, 2010
8:52 am
“Those yellow ribbons are just so stupid”
Personally, I’d be interested to know what the soldiers who are actually serving think of them.
NowReally
June 3rd, 2010
8:52 am
“Feds approve new Gulf oil well off La”
I’m angry and totally disappointed. I want the governor of LA to put a stop to this immediately, since it is his state. I insist he call President Obama and state his objection.
Scout
June 3rd, 2010
8:54 am
Stands for decibles: You mean “biased” free press ?
USinUK : Some call 911 …….. some “are” 911 (or whatever you use over there) ………..
USinUK
June 3rd, 2010
8:54 am
the newly approved well is a shallow-water well, not a deep-water well — however, I think Obama should have maintained the moratorium on those, as well, rather than let the moratorium expire.
Bosch
June 3rd, 2010
8:54 am
“The good news is that according to U.S. Rep. Don Young of Alaska, there is no environmental disaster looming in the Gulf because oil leaks are a natural phenomenon.”
Yeah! Good news!
Seriously, you gotta wonder how people can get so eat up with the stoopids and still talk.
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
June 3rd, 2010
8:55 am
Well, I’m fed up with Bookman writing about this oil spill all the time. Why can’t he write about stuff that’s really news? Like the 2nd guy that told the press today he slept with the married woman that’s running for SC guvner. There’s got to be something in the air in that state. There’s the current guvner that went for a walk on the Appalachian Trail and wound up in South America with a woman that wasn’t his wife. Now it looks like this woman sleeps with men she ain’t married to. I tell you, if people even drive thru that state they could wind up getting VD. We need to take a bunch of sharp kitchen knifes up there and do some cutting.
Or there’s the kid that travels around the world and kills a woman every five years or so. But would Bookman warn us? No, he’s too hung up on this oil spill.
Anyhow, like I said before, this oil spill thing will blow over in a few years and we’ll be right back to digging oil wells in the Gulf and acting like nothing ever happened. A few people will get fined right now and a few more will get throwed in jail and there’ll be a bunch of p*ssing and moaning, but it’ll all settled down. You watch. In another few months we’ll be seeing fish in the frozen foods section of grocery stores labeled “Pre-oiled and ready to cook.”
Have a good day everybody.
RW-(the original)
June 3rd, 2010
8:57 am
A quick drive by, but about a week ago Obama told us that he’d been in charge since day 1 and everything BP did had to be approved by him.
Later!
@@
June 3rd, 2010
8:57 am
Two peas in a pod. Just as BP is inept when it comes to damage control, so, too, is this administration.
Just how slick do they think they can be?
Holding back the “dam” you SOABs.
Scout
June 3rd, 2010
8:57 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVCJRERLxkQ
Bosch
June 3rd, 2010
8:57 am
sfd,
“the Gulf shrimpers/fisherman being employed in the cleanup are being contractually obligated told not to talk to the press.”
I heard an interview this morning with a third generation shrimper who said he’d probably lose his clean up job for talking to the press — he was talking about the horrid conditions and the health problems the workers are having.
Scout
June 3rd, 2010
8:57 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVCJRERLxkQ
USinUK
June 3rd, 2010
8:57 am
Scout – 8:54 – ??
what – the yellow ribbons???
I saw boatloads of FLAGS / “these colors don’t run” stickers after 9/11, but I don’t recall any yellow ribbons until the war
Scout
June 3rd, 2010
8:59 am
USinUK:
See my 8:57. It goes “waaaayyyyy” back .
Citizen of the World
June 3rd, 2010
8:59 am
Police obeying BP’s orders? Since when does BP have jurisdiction over Louisiana marshland?
Bosch
June 3rd, 2010
9:00 am
“these colors don’t run”
Oh snap, I forgot about those.
USinUK
June 3rd, 2010
9:01 am
Bosch – yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s early in the thread, but OFF-TOPIC …
have you read Terry Pratchett? ITV aired Going Postal over the weekend and IT. IS. BRILLIANT!!! It should be right up your alley – clever, funny, and creative. if it airs on BBCAmerica, make time to watch it – you’ll love it!
in the meanteim, this might be your bag: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld
Bosch
June 3rd, 2010
9:02 am
Actually though, I can see why the independent folks BP hired to clean up would sign a “I see nothing, hear nothing” waiver.
Outhouse Gokart
June 3rd, 2010
9:02 am
“When we found this dolphin it was filled with oil. Oil was just pouring out of it. It was the saddest darn thing to look at,” said a BP contract worker who took the Daily News on a surreptitious tour of the wildlife disaster unfolding in Louisiana.”
mmm hmmm…sure. Where are the pictures…?
USinUK
June 3rd, 2010
9:03 am
Bosch – “Oh snap, I forgot about those”
on I-95 south out of DC, someone posted a huge cloth banner of that saying on an overpass … it made me amend the saying to “these colors don’t run … but they do fade”
TaxPayer
June 3rd, 2010
9:04 am
Well, if those folks had just stuck to drilling in shallow water all along, this spill never would have happened. I mean, it’s not like something such as this could ever happen in 160 ft of water. Even if the drilling rig sank, for example, where could it go. Most of it would still be above water after hitting bottom. So, let’s give Republicans, especially those in the Gulf
RedBlack states, what they’ve been begging for!Jay
June 3rd, 2010
9:05 am
Ummm, Outhouse? See those words in blue, “from the New York Daily News”?
Click on it.
@@
June 3rd, 2010
9:06 am
jay, it would appear that your leftist contributors aren’t all that interested in the oil spill.
Looks like they’d prefer to criticize ribbons, or something?
Citizen of the World
June 3rd, 2010
9:07 am
I want a yellow ribbon that says “Support Our Truths.”
Doggone/GA
June 3rd, 2010
9:08 am
“it would appear that your leftist contributors aren’t all that interested in the oil spill”
It would appear that YOU aren’t all that interested either. Looks like you’d prefer to criticize other posters, or something.
Eli Jones
June 3rd, 2010
9:09 am
“THE OBAMASPILL”
When “The Obamaspill” first occurred, Obama should have utilized every means possible to stop the massive oil ecological disaster. Obama was very busy at that time planning how to shove his next piece of Marxist Change down our throats so he was super slow in his response! Precious time was lost while Obama slouched! In the year of our lord “1993″, the Saudi’s used super tankers to clean up their massive 1993 Persian gulf oil spill with great results. The tankers sucked up the Saudi oil while it was still out at sea and removed it. Now The Gulf Of Mexico oil is destroying our beaches and marshes. Obama could have stopped it before it got to the shoreline by mobilizing those super tankers. As I said the Saudi’s did it 17 years ago! “The Obamaspill” is the worst oil spill the USA has ever had! It is sad for the Gulf Of Mexico, Planet Earth, & us that Obama was so indecisive on this catastrophe of Biblical proportions! ………………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………………………..
THE SAUDI PERSIAN GULF OIL SPILL:
(May 14) — Even as proposals pour in for cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, one veteran of a massive (and secret) crude spill in the Persian Gulf says he has a tried-and-true solution.
Now if only the people who could make it happen would return his calls.
“No one’s listening,” says Nick Pozzi, who was an engineer with Saudi Aramco in the Middle East when he says an accident there in 1993 generated a spill far larger than anything the United States has ever seen.
Eric Gay, AP
A shrimp boat collects oil with booms in the waters of Chandeleur Sound, La., on May 5. An engineer who witnessed a crude spill in the Persian Gulf in 1993 says BP should use a fleet of empty supertankers to suck crude off the water’s surface.
According to Pozzi, that mishap, kept under wraps for close to two decades and first reported by Esquire, dumped nearly 800 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf, which would make it more than 70 times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill.
But remarkably, by employing a fleet of empty supertankers to suck crude off the water’s surface, Pozzi’s team was not only able to clean up the spill, but also salvage 85 percent of the oil, he says.
“We took null out of the water so it would save the environment off the Arabian Gulf, and then we put it into tanks until we could figure out how to clean it,” he told AOL News.
While BP, the oil giant at the center of the oil spill, works to stanch the leak from the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig, Pozzi insists the company should be following his lead.
FOR MORE ON THE SAUDI OIL SPILL GO TO THIS SITE BELOW:
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/could-cleanup-fix-for-gulf-oil-spill-lie-in-secret-saudi-disaster/19476863
USinUK
June 3rd, 2010
9:10 am
Doggone – “Looks like you’d prefer to criticize other posters, or something.”
go with what you know …
david wayne osedach
June 3rd, 2010
9:12 am
BP’s major concern is paying as little as posible to clean up the effects of the spill. If they could get away with it – they wouldn’t pay anything!
TaxPayer
June 3rd, 2010
9:12 am
This just in from GOP HQ. According to new research dating back to the Reagan era, there is no such thing as a trickle down economy. It’s merely natural seepage. Major manufacturers are working on a patch as we speak. Tea Partiers, stay tuned.
Eli Jones
June 3rd, 2010
9:12 am
“Only 16 Percent Approve of Obama’s Handling of “The Obamaspill” /// ZOGBY SURVEY
………………………………………………………………
Positive opinion about Obama’s government’s handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is down 13 points from two weeks ago, dropping from 29 percent to 16 percent, a new Zogby Interactive survey finds.
Currently, only 16 percent rate Obama’s government’s response to The Obamaspill as excellent or good. The same question in a May 7-10 Zogby Interactive survey found 29 percent giving a positive rating. Opinion of BP’s handling of the spill is also down from the previous poll, going from positive ratings of 25 percent then to just 15 percent now.
The Zogby survey of 2,085 adults was conducted from May 25-27
Almost 60 percent agreed with the assessment that The Obamaspill is “a disaster that will cause long-term environmental and economic damage.”
stands for decibels
June 3rd, 2010
9:13 am
I can see why the independent folks BP hired to clean up would sign a “I see nothing, hear nothing” waiver.
You have to listen to the story to get the full brunt of it but, essentially, you’ve got guys who start the year with just their boats and the expectation of a season’s worth of income, turned to crap, who have no prospects for viability other than to sign these agreements.
BP has them over a barrel. Want to put food on your family? Sign, and keep your yap shut about what you see out there.
Bosch
June 3rd, 2010
9:15 am
It will be interesting in weeks to come as more contractors who were given the $5000 checks to clean up and shut up come out to talk. Like I wrote earlier, you can’t blame BP for requiring that, I mean it is their collective ass on the line, and you don’t want people who really don’t know what’s going on except in their own little corner coming out to the press, but if their stories are consistently the same — it will definitely be bad news for BP.
The thing I worry about is — can BP just claim bankruptcy when they get to the point where they don’t want to pay for this anymore?
Bosch
June 3rd, 2010
9:16 am
Crap, hit submit too soon –
USinUK,
No, I haven’t read any of that, did a little checking on that show – I like Richard Coyle – he’s the guy from Coupling. Apparently he’s in the new Prince of Persia movie too — he’s moving up! I hope it comes on BBC America soon.
bugatti
June 3rd, 2010
9:17 am
Jay
I was there Saturday before last. It wasn’t BP that was escorting people off the beach, it was the local police and the National Guard.
stands for decibels
June 3rd, 2010
9:18 am
For those smart enough to ignore today’s cherry picked poll (I mean, come on “Eli”—a Zogby Interactive thing? Those are a laughingstock) here’s a more thoughtful analysis about what the spill actually means politically to Obama’s approval ratings.
thomas
June 3rd, 2010
9:19 am
Is there a chance the administration is also trying to keep the true impact hidden?
Or is this one of the decisions that BP made all on their own?
If BP did make the decision on their own, then who is really in charge of this project?
Bosch
June 3rd, 2010
9:19 am
“BP has them over a barrel. ‘
Oh yeah – they do – and those guys are definitely getting screwed. The guy I heard this morning said that he’d probably get fired, but so be it. He wanted people to know what was going on. The only problem I have is that is just from his perspective, and his situation. What will be really interesting as the weeks go on as more people talk – is everyone’s situations and perspective consistent. That will be more damaging to BP than one shrimp boat guys opinion.
Mick
June 3rd, 2010
9:22 am
We drill for oil a mile deep and then our technology fails, we are left with oil hemorraging with no end in sight. Blame is being cast every which way while the oil still leaks. Problems with robotics and tools at that depth keep compounding the problem. In the back of our mind we all know this is bad, very bad, now it is a political football being fumbled down the sidelines. We are at the mercy of our technology versus nature and right now the oil spewing has become our worst inflicted wound for our precious coastlines – very depressing each and every new day.
@@
June 3rd, 2010
9:23 am
Doggone:
Me!!??!!
I give you, USUK’s 8:47.
nah – when it comes to “ribbons”, we leave it to the war cheerleaders and their little yellow ribbons on their cars … ooooo, you can almost feel the sacrifice.
followed by your 8:52.
Personally, I’d be interested to know what the soldiers who are actually serving think of them.
It’s only after ^^^ those that I offered up an “observation”.
I’m out!
bugatti
June 3rd, 2010
9:23 am
Keeping it hidden.
You can see it from space. It is beginning to show up on Florida beaches and has already shown up in Mississippi and Alabama beaches.
They might as well try to hide the sky.