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Why are reporters and photographers being blocked from documenting oil spill?

Written by Mike on July 4th, 2010

Really disturbing news:

My question would be why is the Obama administration supporting this?

Their handling of this event has been atrocious.

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Posted in Outdoors, Video, Wildlife |

3 Comments so far ↓

  1. Jim says:
    July 14, 2010 at 9:20 am

    What we are wittnessing is the degradation of the marine life, delicate ecosystems, and what was an abundant food source for the fishing industry and American seafood consumers. Many people seem ambivalent about environmental issues and expect someone else to fix the problems. Information is not being shared by the government or the oil industry because they are doing damage control by withholding and controlling information. If there is not visual evidence of the dead fish, birds, and other sea creatures, then the extent of this crisis is marginalized. Obviously, many people in this country buy into whatever they see or read on the internet so they think the problem isn’t so bad. Also, many of the environmental groups you would expect to be screaming about this crisis are surprisingly remaining silent. The reason is very simple–many of these groups have received funding from the oil industry and they are not going to bite the hand that pays them. Since the mainstream media gets their news from only a few sources, the rosie, positive propaganda about how hard the government and the bad oil company are working together to fix this mess seems to satisfy the masses need for information. They don’t care if it’s false information as long as it makes them feel good. If you present bad news to people, most will turn away because they don’t want to face reality–the truth. If it weren’t for a few rogue reporters or news agencies–we wouldn’t have gotten the information that we have about the “other side of the picture” which is in reality the true side, the ugly side, the dead, oily birds, turtles, fish, etc.

    Once this stuff gets into the food chain which will happen soon and seafood prices start to go up–maybe then Americans will begin to take notice. If you go to your grocery store today the odds are anything that you eat from the gulf was caught and deep frozen before this crisis. Also, the dispersant which has been used in abudance, well over a million gallons of neurotoxin pesticide, is very toxic. Here is an excerpt about it:

    But what most people don’t know is that the active ingredient of the toxic chemical dispersant, which is up to 60% by volume, being sprayed by BP to fight the Gulf oil spill is a neurotoxin pesticide that is acutely toxic to both human and aquatic life, causes cancer, causes damage to internal organs such as the liver and kidneys simply by absorbing it through the skin and may cause reproductive side effects.

    In fact the neurotoxin pesticide that is lethal to 50% of life in concentrations as little as 2.6 parts per million has been banned for use in the UK since 1998 because it failed the UK “Rocky shore test” which assures that the dispersant does not cause a “significant deleterious ecological change” ­ or to put that in layman’s terms it can kill off the entire food chain.

    I am sure the result will be detrimental to those cleaning up the oil, those who live in the gulf region, those who consume any gulf seafood product (which is most of America). We will suffer health problems, possible cancers or mental disorders, etc., from the dispersant and the oil. That is what the government and the bad oil company (I refuse to use their name)are tryng to keep secret. If we don’t see the dead creatures (which are dying from the dispersant and oil) now, we will be less prone to believe future claims of health effects resulting from the spill and use of dispersants.

    I am actualy appalled that citizens of this country are taking this lying down and not speaking up. Our government and big oil is slowly poisoning us but we don’t seem to care as long as we have gas to run our cars and electricity to run our air conditioners.

    If one cares to research this topic they will find that I am not making any wild claims or sounding like a fanatic. I am an informed consumer who happens to enjoy nature in an unadulterated state–not polluted and void of wildlife or toxic to my health.

    Thanks for posting this interview by Anderson Cooper. Sometimes I think he is too status quo but this time I think he hit the nail on the head. We need more people to speak out, voice concern, and not trust our politicians and big oil who put us into this mess. Deregulation of the oil industry has taken place over the last 30 years during various presidencies–both democrat and republican. This is not a partisan issue but an issue about quality of life and how people need to come together to enact a solution.

  2. Mike says:
    July 15, 2010 at 7:18 pm

    OMG, Jim.

    What pesticide is this?

    Thanks for the great post.

  3. Jim says:
    July 16, 2010 at 7:41 am

    Corexit. Here is a wiki link for those who wish to inform themselves more about it.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corexit

    The sad thing is that Corexit may also be a bioaccumulate, remaining in the flesh and building up over time.[28] Thus predators who eat smaller fish with the toxin in their systems may end up with much higher levels in their flesh.[4]

    Sounds like DDT doesn’t it. Many scientists believe that this is also killing the naturally occuring microbes that breakdown oil. The sad fact is that workers pulling the dead animals out of the water and removing the oil from the water often don’t wear respirators or have adequate protective clothing (sounds like our soldiers over in Iraq and Afghanistan doesn’t it). Some workers showed up with respirators (which they purchased on their own) and BP told them to not use them. Here is another except about what happen with the Valdez cleanup:

    According to the Alaska Community Action on Toxics, the use of Corexit during the Exxon Valdez oil spill caused people “respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders”.[16] Like 9527, 9500 can cause hemolysis (rupture of blood cells) and may also cause internal bleeding.

    Perhaps the sickness that cleanup workers are feeling is more from the effects of corexit than the oil itself.

    I was actually going to take some vacation time to do my civic duty and help (I am trained in many facets of animal rescue and I am a certified diver)but since people are being kept away from spill sites coupled with health dangers that we don’t understand–my common sense told me not to.

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