Even though many of us have Disaster Fatigue, for scores of hundreds of local Gulf Residents, this BP Crisis is very much their recurring daily Nightmare.
NewsInferno.com, News that matters! — Sep 10, 2010
In an interview with USA Today, Feinberg promised a better response times as his staff weeds through old claims. “I’ve inherited a huge number of claims that have never been processed that need to be processed, especially business claims,” he said. Such claims, he said, were placed on a “side track” by BP when it was handling the process.
According to USA Today, more than 46,000 people have filed claims since Feinberg took charge. By September 8, his staff had paid 10,252 claims for nearly $80 million. Most claims paid are small, with payouts of $5,000 or less, USA Today said.
So Ken Feinberg has inherited an extensive paper trail of bureaucratic procrastination;
While the Gulf Coast Residents, simply keep reaping the BP whirlwind …
David Brown, Washington Post Staff Writer — Tue, August 24, 2010
Petroleum-eating bacteria – which had dined for eons on oil seeping naturally through the seafloor – proliferated in the cloud of oil that drifted underwater for months after the April 20 accident. They not only outcompeted fellow microbes, they each ramped up their own internal metabolic machinery to digest the oil as efficiently as possible.
The result was a nature-made cleanup crew capable of reducing that reduced the amount of oil amounts in the undersea “plume” by half about every three days, according to research published online Tuesday by the journal Science.
The findings, by a team of scientists led by Terry C. Hazen of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California […]
Earlier in June of this year, I was invited to be part of an interdisciplinary team of wildlife experts, that was organized by the Humane Society of the United States. There were about five of us from around the country, who work with two HSUS disaster response experts.
We flew into New Orleans with the idea that we were going to spend a week, in the area — accessing the damage of the Oil Spill; looking at the Habitat at risk.
And trying to come up with an Inventory if you will, of the short term and long term issues, that needed a response.
[…]
Well the hour came, where we finally were — supposedly — given our clearance to fly over the area where the Oil was coming ashore.
By Rupert Cornwell, independent.co.uk — 6 August 2010
And though only a quarter of the 4.9m barrels reckoned to have leaked is still unaccounted, that represents the equivalent of five Exxon Valdez, the tanker whose spill caused an environmental catastrophe in Alaska in 1989.
“There are still boats out there every day working, finding turtles with oil on them and seeing grass lines with oil in it,” charter boat captain Randy Boggs, of Orange Beach in Alabama, told the Associated Press. “All the oil isn’t accounted for. There are millions of pounds of tar balls and oil on the bottom.”
Turns out, This — TIMES 5 —
IS mostly STILL There! … lurking somewhere, just below the surface …
Lump-sum compensation offered in return for waiving the right to sue,
but uncertainty remains for those indirectly affected
Tim Webb, guardian.co.uk — August 1, 2010
BP will begin its legal offensive this month to cap its liabilities from the Gulf of Mexico disaster by offering those affected one-off compensation payouts in return for them waiving the right to sue.
[…]
The fund does not cap BP’s liabilities at $20bn. But privately the company believes that it will not have to pay out anywhere near this sum. BP has hired a battery of lawyers to protect itself, and so far it has paid out $261m in claims.
[…]
According to BP, 1.8m gallons of dispersant have been pumped into the Gulf. Scientists say that the resulting high toxicity levels could harm marine life for years to come.
Hmmm … Seems BP is a bit worried about the long-term effects of that 1.8 Millions of gallons of Corexit, they used — to help make that spill problem disappear?
How much oil is in the Gulf now is up for debate. Several Louisiana leaders, including St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis have argued that million of gallons of oil are underwater, waiting to surface.
“We haven’t found that,” [Bob] Dudley [new BP CEO] said.
Dudley said six ships and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are working to locate underwater oil.
“It’s a big hunt going on right now,” Dudley said. “It’s going to keep going on.”
Hey BOB! — MAYBE you haven’t “found it” because of 1.8 Million Gallons of Toxic Dispersants you managed to spray — Kept much of it Underwater, eh?
They’ll find ALL that missing Oil — just give them some more time … that’s all they ask …
Is a Foreign Government Interfering with OUR OWN CITIZENS on our own soil?!
Or is this a Dispersant Cover Up story ? WDSU channel 6 News/ Fired BP Contractor talks to Adam Dillon 7/11/10
Scott Walker of WDSU News: ” During our visit to a Grand Isle beach in June (on the 11th) to see clean up workers, a WDSU photographer and I blocked from getting with in a hundred yards of them. (This was the infamous Talon security people who are threatening journalists, bloggers, and regular folk down in the Gulf )
Adam Dillon, who was fired from BP, was a cleanup contractor from North Carolina, now talks to WDSU.com. ”
Dillon: …. after the way BP treated me, I am telling you now, you deserved an answer.
Scott Walker of WDSU News: Shortly after our beach run in, Dillon was promoted. Now he says he was fired because he was seen as a threat to his superiors.
Dillon: I Became a liability to their operation up there because of the info I found out
News: Does BP have anything to hide ? Something other than the cleanup effort going on here ?
Dillon: I saw something when I was out there. I took pictures of something. I brought it to the attention of the command structure. And, Whatever I took pictures of, 12 hours later, I was gone.
News: he believes those photos showed equations related to the used of dispersants used on the oil in the Gulf. While Dillon has harsh words for those in charge and questions, he is just as quick to credit the thousands of workers who are working hard to clean up our shores.
Dillon: At the command center, I worked with some really great people. I worked w/ some great hardworking individuals in there. but the bottom line it’s just about the money. There are some very cutthroat individuals in there they are not worried about cleaning up the spill, as is.
News: this former special ops soldier says lost all faith in BP
Dillon: I will never have loyalty to this company. (BP) I will always have loyalty to my country and my country comes first. What this company is doing to my country is wrong.
News: No comment from BP, Will attempt to reach out to those in charge. More coming Monday in my interview with Dillon, where he tells me, He was confined and interrogated almost an hour.
This is an excerpt of the last part of the video
Adam Dillon, quote: “What this company is doing to my country is wrong.”
Perhaps you heard about the recent EPA Press Release, regarding latest Toxicity Testing results for Dispersants. Depending on which sound bite you heard, it almost sounded like Corexit got a clean bill of health.
Confused? I was too. And since I had previously written a well-received diary,
which dove into the Toxicity Data, that the EPA originally cited as credible only 2 months ago, I figured I should try to figure out what was up with the ‘New and Improved’ Dispersant Testing.
What follows is my assessment of what’s happening now, including some relevant links.
I’ll try to keep it brief. (I hate long diaries, lol)
Kindra Arnesen is part of a husband and wife fishing & shrimping team that made their living off the coast of Louisiana until the blowout of the BP Deepwater Horizon well destroyed their livelihood. They then tried working for BP as part of the cleanup. What do you do if you see your young child on shore getting so sick from the fumes you have no choice but to try to take her away from this ? What do you do when you see workers told not to use respirators, and fish dying ? This is her story.
