BP is trying to cover-up the widespread evidence of the dead birds resulting from the oil spill. We've known that they have done everything in their power to hide the evidence of the oil coming ashore as well as keep the media from getting those photographs of the dead wildlife and sea creatures that have suffered a cruel death at the hand of BP's greed, but now they are taking it a step further by having clean up crews rake up the carcasses of the dead birds, instead of collecting them for necropsy's in order to determine the cause of death. In raking up the birds they are separating the heads from the bodies which means it is not going to be autopsied, according to Dr. Riki Ott, marine toxicologist, who is down in Louisiana. It is important that all the dead and dying animals be collected as they are needed to evaluate the damages caused by this spill.
The body count of affected wildlife is crucial to prove the harm caused by the spill, and also serves as an invaluable tool to evaluate damages to public property - the dolphins, sea turtles, whales, sea birds, fish, and more, that are owned by the American public. Disappeared body counts means disappeared damages - and disappeared liability for BP. BP should not be collecting carcasses. The job should be given to NOAA, a federal agency, and volunteers, as was done during the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
NOAA should also be conducting carcass drift studies. Only one percent of the dead sea birds made landfall in the Gulf of Alaska, for example. That means for every one bird that was found, another 99 were carried out to sea by currents. Further, NOAA should be conducting aerial surveys to look for carcasses in the offshore rips where the currents converge. That's where the carcasses will pile up--a fact we learned during the Exxon Valdez spill. Maybe that's another reason for BP's "no camera" policy and the flight restrictions.
She also reports that while up in a small plane flying from New Orleans to Orange Beach, the pilot reported that noticed "the thin red line marking the federal flight restrictions of 3,000 feet over the oiled Gulf region had just jumped to include the coastal barrier islands off Alabama".
The reason for doing so? To keep the media from seeing and reporting on the oil that is reaching the beaches. It is widely known now that the booms are not being used properly and are thusly ineffective from keeping the oil from reaching its target, which is another reason for BP to keep the media access limited.
The more we see and hear from people, the more obvious it is that BP is in charge of this with the Government playing a minimal role and one of solely deferring to whatever BP wants with regards to the clean up effort. As stated by Dr. Ott, BP should have no say whatsoever in the collection of evidence, and allowing them to control any aspect of this is criminal.
Impacts of spill on Gulf Coast wildlife quickly coming into focus
The wildlife apocalypse along the Gulf Coast that everyone has feared for weeks is fast becoming a terrible reality.
Pelicans struggle to free themselves from oil, thick as tar, that gathers in hip-deep pools, while others stretch out useless wings, feathers dripping with crude.
Dead birds and dolphins wash ashore, coated in the sludge. Seashells that once glinted pearly white under the hot June sun are stained crimson.
In Louisiana, along the beach at Queen Bess Island, oil pooled several feet deep, trapping birds against unused containment boom.
The futility of their struggle was confirmed when Joe Sartore, a National Geographic photographer, sank thigh deep in oil on nearby East Grand Terre Island and had to be pulled from the tar.
"I would have died if I would have been out here alone," he said.
With no oil response workers on Queen Bess, Plaquemines Parish coastal zone management director P.J. Hahn decided he could wait no longer, pulling an exhausted brown pelican from the oil, the slime dripping from its wings.
"We're in the sixth week, you'd think there would be a flotilla of people out here," Hahn said. "As you can see, we're so far behind the curve in this thing." Gilly Llewellyn, oceans program leader with the World Wildlife Fund in Australia, said she observed the same behavior by dolphins following a 73-day spill last year in the Timor Sea.
"A heartbreaking sight," Llewellyn said. "And what we managed to see on the surface was undoubtedly just a fraction of what was happening."
The prospect left fishing guide Marino shaking his head, as he watched the oil washing into a marsh and over the body of a dead pelican. Species like shrimp and crab flourish here, finding protection in the grasses. Fish, birds and other creatures feed here. "It's going to break that cycle of life," Marino said. "It's like pouring gas in your aquarium. What do you think that's going to do?"
This post is going to be a tough one because there is so much information so I am going to do it in several parts.
First I am going to break your heart.
Then I am going to share enough that will piss you off.
The Gulf Oil Spill & What are the current results?
This is a dead dolphin found floating in the Gulf of Mexico covered in oil.
Next we have a view of the Gulf from the air so you get a good look at what you are not being shown:
Yes, that is oil, covering the Gulf of Mexico that is all water you are looking at, not land, but water literally covered in the oil that BP is responsible for pouring into the water of the gulf.
Here is a young Heron, dying in the oil covered marshes that should be protecting him but instead are causing his death.
These are turtles found covered in oil. The first is a Kemp Ridley the second is a Loggerhead.
Brown Pelican's are landing in the oil coated marshes because these are their migratory nesting grounds.
There are plenty more pictures out there for you to see. Here a some links to some really good sites with some seriously heartwrenching photo's of this disaster:
So there are plenty of pictures to see the damage that is being done, and of course we've all seen the photos of the oil sitting on top of the water.
And in the marshes.......
And coming on shore on the beaches........
Not to mention the oil that is covering the islands......
But what about all the oil that we don't see. What oil is that you ask? The oil that is being hidden by the dispersant's being used to hide the totality of the situation from you, and I, and the rest of the nation. It is worse than we can even imagine.
Phiippe Cousteau, Jr, grandson of Jacques Cousteau, put on a hazmat scuba diving suit to view the mass of oil and dispersant floating beneath the surface. Phillipe Cousteau Jr: "This is a Nightmare....a Nightmare"
This is another short video from the Ocean Futures Society aka The Cousteau Family: Our mission is to explore our global ocean, inspiring and educating people
throughout the world to act responsibly for its protection, documenting
the critical connection between humanity and nature, and celebrating the
ocean's vital importance to the survival of all life on our planet.
Have you seen enough? Has it made you sick to your stomach yet thinking about what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico? This is only a portion of the damage being wrought. How much of our sea life and our wildlife will be devastated beyond anything we can comprehend? We may never know. Fish, birds, eels, sea snakes, dolphins, turtles, whales, shrimp, oysters, clams, etc....will not all wash ashore, and if they don't we have no idea what the totality of the damage will be, just that it will be devastating.
For those that are washing ashore, what is being done and how are the numbers being counted? Birds: 63 (oiled) Alive 444 Dead
Turtles: 16 (oiled) Alive 222 Dead
Mammals (includes dolphins): 0 alive 24 dead
Now there have been many questions raised about the labs handling testing of the tissue and water samples that are being taken because BP is insisting on having these samples taken to specific labs that as it turns out have close connections with the company.
In coastal communities along the Gulf of Mexico, environmental officials are feverishly collecting water, sediment and marine animal tissue samples that will be used in coming months to help track pollution levels resulting from the oil spill.
But the laboratory that officials have chosen to process virtually all of the samples is part of TDI-Brooks International, a College Station-based oil and gas services company that counts BP and other oil firms among its biggest clients.Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, since those readings will be used by the federal government and courts to establish liability claims against BP.
Some people are questioning the independence of the lab. Taylor Kirschenfeld, an environmental official for Escambia County, Fla., rebuffed instructions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to send water samples to the lab. He opted instead to get a waiver so he could send his county's samples to a local laboratory that is licensed to do the same tests.
Kirschenfeld said he was troubled by another rule. Local animal rescue workers have volunteered to help treat birds affected by the slick and to collect data that would also be used to help calculate penalties. But federal officials have told the volunteers that the work must be done by a company hired by BP.
"Everywhere you look, if you look, you start seeing these conflicts of interest in how this disaster is getting handled," Kirschenfeld said. "I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but there is just too much overlap between these people."
There are questions being asked but only by a few and the answer that are given are unsatisfactory at best.
Douglas Zimmer, a spokesman for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, said the agency simply did not have the staff to handle all the animals affected by the oil spill. BP has more resources to hire workers quickly, he said, and letting local organizations handle the birds would have been impractical and costly.
“I also just don’t believe that BP or their contractor would have any incentive to skew the data,” he said. “Even if they did, there are too many federal, state and local eyes keeping watch on them.”
But Stuart Smith, a lawyer representing fishermen hurt by the spill, remained skeptical, saying that federal and state authorities had not fulfilled their watchdog role.
Last month, for example, various state and federal Web sites included links that directed out-of-work fishermen to a BP Web site, which offered contracts that limited their right to file future claims against the company.
This month, a federal judge in New Orleans, Helen G. Berrigan, struck down that binding language in the contracts.
Of course BP has incentives to skew the data. They are going to be charged with fines associated with how much oil was spilled and how much damage was done. It is in their interest to ensure by any means necessary to make sure that the lowest amounts of damage is what is reported because the less damage the less they pay. That is just bloody obvious.
So why is this being allowed to happen? Good Question.
Why is the news not flooded with this information? Another good question.
Part II coming next.....stay tuned as it just gets worse.
