http://www.bradenton.com/2010/08/13/2504309/decision-expected-on-plug-for.html
BP’s broken oil well is not dead yet
By TOM BREEN (AP) – 2 days ago
NEW ORLEANS –

The government’s point man on the crisis said Friday that the blown-out well is not securely plugged to his satisfaction and that the drilling of the relief well – long regarded as the only way to ensure that the hole at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico never leaks oil again – must go forward.

“The relief well will be finished,” said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen. “We will kill the well.”

Work on the relief well was suspended earlier this week because of bad weather. Allen did not say when it would resume, but when the order comes, it could take four days to get the operation up and running again.

From there, it could be only a matter of days before the “bottom kill” is done and the blown-out well that wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast economy and environment is no longer a threat.

Last week, BP plugged up the ruptured oil well from the top with mud and cement, and for a while, it appeared that the relief well that BP has been drilling 2 1/2 miles under the sea all summer long in an effort to seal up the leak from the bottom might not be necessary after all. But Allen dashed those hopes after scientists conducted pressure tests on Thursday.

Scientists had hoped that the cement pumped in from the top had plugged the gap between the well’s inner pipe and its outer casing. The pressure tests showed some cement was in that gap, but officials don’t know enough about what’s there – or how much of it – to trust that there is a permanent seal, said Allen, who has repeatedly insisted on an “overabundance of caution” when it comes to plugging the well.
The well spilled an estimated 206 million gallons of crude into the sea before BP finally put a cap on it July 15. But that was always regarded as a temporary fix until the relief well and the bottom kill could be completed.

Bob Bea, a petroleum engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said that given the results of the pressure tests, proceeding with the relief well makes sense.
“Everything we know at this time says we need to continue the work with the relief wells,” he said. “We don’t know the details of how they plugged the well from the top. We don’t know the volume of material they put in the well bore, and without that we can’t tell how close to the bottom of the well they got.”

Drilling of the relief well began in early May, and the tunnel is now just 30 to 50 feet from the blown-out well. To intercept the well, the drillers must hit a target about the size of a dinner plate. Once they punch through, heavy drilling mud and cement will be injected into the bedrock.

Allen said scientists from BP and the government are working to ensure the bottom kill does not damage the cap and make the disaster worse. New equipment to ease the pressure inside the well might have to be installed, which would “significantly affect the timeline” for the final fix, Allen said, though he did not specify how much.

Officials from BP and the federal government have been touting the bottom kill as the final fix for weeks, and local officials said they were glad to hear it will go forward.

“If it’s a nearly redundant safety measure, that makes sense to us,” said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who attended a closed-door meeting with Allen, local leaders and other federal officials.

The possibility, floated earlier this week, that the well might already be plugged didn’t sit well with local officials or environmentalists, who said they were leery of optimistic forecasts from BP and the government.

“After all this effort, why would they quit before they’re done?” said Richard Charter, a senior policy adviser for Defenders of Wildlife. “If you had a trustworthy company and they said it’s done, it’s done. But in this case BP has not been a trustworthy company.”

Along the Gulf Coast in Houma, La., construction worker Doug Hunt wearily wondered if the crisis would ever end upon hearing that the permanent fix was at least several more days off.

“All we’ve heard is oil, oil, oil. I guess they’ll do the job sooner or later, but it will take a long time for the people here to recover from this,” Hunt said.

The crisis began on April 20, after an explosion on the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that killed 11 workers.

Associated Press Writers Harry R. Weber and Noaki Schwartz in New Orleans, Kevin McGill in Gray, La., and Mary Foster in Houma, La., contributed to this report.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Sign the petition to stop the use of dispersants here:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/25/stop-the-use-of-dispersants-in-the-gulf/

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/08/16/next-major-toxic-hazard-that-can-ruin-you-and-your-childrens-health.aspx
The above link takes you to a video of Susan Shaw, internationally recognized marine toxicologist, author and explorer, who shows evidence that the toxic Gulf of Mexico oil slick is being kept off of beaches at devastating cost to the health of the deep sea.

**************************************

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

The BP oil leak has reportedly been plugged, but the devastation caused by the hundreds of millions of gallons of oil that poured into the Gulf, coupled with a reckless use of toxic dispersants to “clean it up,” is just beginning.

And the sad truth is, even highly trained toxicologists can only guess what the full extent of the damage will be. This is, by far, the worst oil spill in human history. The Exxon Valdez disaster spilled “only” 12 million gallons of oil — and even that ended up taking a much more complex environmental toll than toxicologists initially predicted.

There’s no doubt in my mind this disaster will take DECADES to clean up, if it’s at all possible, and the worst-case scenario is pointing to major devastation on all levels of marine life, from coral reefs and plankton to fish and air-breathing mammals.

Where Did the Massive Oil Slicks Go?

Since the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, thousands of square miles in the Gulf were covered with immense patches of oil.

Media images showing the extent of the destruction have been scarce — draconian measures have been implemented to limit media access and reporting on the disaster, and CNN recently reported on a new rule that prevents anyone, including reporters and photographers, from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms anywhere on the water or on beaches — but the oil was there, coating expansive stretches of ocean, nonetheless.

Now, fast-forward to early August and the New York Times reported that the oil patches are “largely gone,” and “Radar images suggest that the few remaining patches are quickly breaking down in the warm surface waters of the gulf.” They went on to report, “The slick appeared to be dissolving far more rapidly than anyone expected.”

Two days earlier, a government report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey similarly implied that the oil in the Gulf was quickly disappearing and that environmental effects were well under control.

Government Report Implies Oil is Mostly Gone!

For starters, the report estimated that only 4.9 million barrels of oil were released from the BP Deepwater Horizon well, when at the height of the spill estimates revealed that 4.2 million gallons of oil were likely still spilling into the Gulf of Mexico daily.

Next the report goes on to explain that:

“It is estimated that burning, skimming and direct recovery from the wellhead removed one quarter (25%) of the oil released from the wellhead. One quarter (25%) of the total oil naturally evaporated or dissolved, and just less than one quarter (24%) was dispersed (either naturally or as a result of operations) as microscopic droplets into Gulf waters.

The residual amount — just over one quarter (26%) — is either on or just below the surface as light sheen and weathered tar balls, has washed ashore or been collected from the shore, or is buried in sand and sediments.”

The remaining “residual” oil, along with the oil that has been chemically and naturally dispersed are “currently being degraded naturally,” according to the government report.

With a glowing report like this one, it makes you wonder if the U.S. government is in collusion with BP. Already the report is drawing criticism that it is deliberately trying to play down the real impacts of the spill.

As Samantha Joye, a marine scientist at the University of Georgia who has conducted important research regarding the spill, told the New York Times:

“A lot of this is based on modeling and extrapolation and very generous assumptions. If an academic scientist put something like this out there, it would get torpedoed into a billion pieces.”

You can also listen to this shocking interview with top EPA official Hugh Kaufman, which reveals that the NOAA and the EPA are covering up the lethal effects of dispersants and lying about Gulf Oil Spill water samples to save BP billions of dollars in fines.

At the very least, it appears the government has completely overlooked the toxic effects of the dispersants used to “remove” much of the oil. Massive oil slicks don’t just “disappear” from the ocean. Instead, many were treated with harsh chemical solvents that simply transferred the oil from the ocean’s surface to the delicate waters below.

Toxic Dispersants: The Oil Spill Tragedy You Probably Haven’t Heard About

BP is using two dispersants: Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527A.

Corexit is on the EPA’s list of approved chemical dispersants, and BP could have chosen any one from the list. Instead, they chose Corexit, which is among the most toxic and least effective options.

As it turns out, BP has financial ties with Nalco, which explains why they have now poured more than 1 million gallons of it into the Gulf. Because of these industry ties, Corexit is the only dispersant available in the massive quantities “needed” for an oil spill of this size.

In fact, they used up all exiting stockpiles of Corexit 9527A, the older and more dangerous formula, and Nalco states it will be discontinued, now that it has been used up.

Of all 18 dispersants tested, Corexit 9500 and 9527A are the LEAST effective, further confirming that BP’s preferential use of these products is motivated by profit, rather than their proclaimed intention to “clean up the mess.”

Toxic for Humans and Marine Life

Corexit products were removed from a list of approved treatments for oil spills in the UK more than a decade ago after the agents were linked with human health problems including:

· Respiratory

· Neurological

· Liver

· Kidney

· Blood disorders

Further, according to Carys Mitchelmore, a researcher at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, the detergent-like brew of solvents, surfactants and other compounds are known to cause a variety of health problems in animals, including:

· Death

· Reduced growth

· Reproductive problems

· Cardiac dysfunction

· Immune suppression

· Altered behavior

· Carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic effects

As Sayer Ji, founder of InformationToInspireChange.com, stated:

“Dispersing the oil into the water column accelerates the poisoning of all marine life, deep throughout the water column and seabed. Ultimately it results in “covering-up” the extent of the disaster on the surface, while amplifying the damage within our oceans.

Also, when the dispersants mix with the crude oil, a third far more toxic product is produced called “dispersed oil.” Dispersed oil has been shown to be more toxic than the sum of its parts.

Dispersing simply keeps the oil deeper in the water column so that it will not surface, into the light of public scrutiny.”

The chemical dispersants, by the way, are not a silver bullet to miraculously make oil disappear. Oil spill dispersants only alter the chemical and physical properties of the oil, making it more likely to mix with seawater than deposit on the shoreline.

So what the dispersants do is re-direct the oil, making its impact perhaps less so on birds and shore-dwelling animals, but more so on fish, coral reefs, oysters and other marine life that live in the deeper waters. It essentially “hides” the oil out of view, below the surface where news cameras can’t see it.

Sadly, the oil and dispersant mix is so toxic that I strongly caution you to STAY OUT of the Gulf of Mexico. In my opinion, it’s simply not safe to swim there.

Remember also that children are far more prone to experiencing health problems from this type of toxic exposure than adults. So please, keep your children safe. Do not allow your children to swim or play on the Gulf coast beaches.

Is There Any Way to Help?

Only time will tell what the true environmental and human health impacts of the 2010 BP oil spill will be, but this is for certain: we need our oceans, our coral reefs and our marine life to survive.

Coral reefs are already disappearing faster than rainforests, and dispersed oil is particularly deadly to coral reefs.

According to Charlie Veron, an Australian marine biologist regarded as the world’s foremost authority on coral reefs:

“The future is horrific. There is no hope of reefs surviving to even mid-century in any form that we now recognize. If, and when, they go, they will take with them about one-third of the world’s marine biodiversity. Then there is a domino effect, as reefs fail, so will other ecosystems. This is the path of a mass extinction event, when most life, especially tropical marine life, goes extinct.”

You may feel helpless right now to make a difference in the Gulf, but there are some steps you can take to help. First, you can join the movement to stop the use of dispersants by signing this petition.

I also urge you to take action now, without delay, pressing your representatives to hold BP accountable for this massive environmental tragedy.

Special thanks to Ashley Hotz

http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/feds-confiscate-independent-lsu-scientists-samples-because-project-not-approved-by-bp-others

AUGUST 11TH, 2010 AT 10:17 PM

Linda Hooper-Bui, Louisiana State University Department of Entomology Associate Professor, writes in The Scientist, “My PhD student’s ant samples were taken away by a US Fish and Wildlife officer at a publicly accessible state Wildlife Management Area because our project hadn’t been approved by Incident Command.”

What is the Incident Command? Hooper-Bui continues, “[It’s] also called the Deepwater Horizon Response Unified Command – which is a joint program of BP and federal agencies, such as the Coast GuardŠ”

She shares another similar experience, “Where our research trip was halted after driving more than 150 miles to a study site. On the way to our sampling sites in Grand Isle, LA, [we] were turned away by a sheriff’s deputy blocking the road who said that he was told to allow no one who wasn’t associated with BP or NRDA.” The NRDA (National Resource Damage Assessment) process “is overseen by state, tribal and federal science agencies and is partially funded by BP.”

To read the full article, you must register with TheScientist.com: http://www.the-scientist.com/templates/trackable/display/news.jsp?type=news&id=57610&o_url=news/display/57610

(see story below)

___________

The Scientist

By Linda Hooper-Bui

Opinion: The oil’s stain on science
An ecosystem biologist discusses how the effort to assess the oil spill’s damage is stifling independent research

[Published 5th August 2010 01:59 PM GMT]

Functioning as an independent researcher in and around the Gulf of Mexico these days is no simple task. I study insect and plant communities in near-shore habitats fringing the Gulf, and my work has gotten measurably harder in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. It’s not hazardous conditions associated with oil and dispersants that are hampering our scientific efforts. Rather, it’s the confidentiality agreements that come with signing up to work on large research projects shepherded by government entities and BP and the limited access to coastal areas if you’re not part of those projects that are stifling the public dissemination of data detailing the environmental impact of the catastrophe.

Some Gulf scientists have already been snatched up by corporate consulting companies with offers of $250/hour. Others are badgered for their data by governmental agencies. Some of us desire to conduct our work without lawyers, government officials, or corporate officers peering over our shoulders. In the end, it may be the independent, non-biased researchers who can deliver credible scientific results that perform the crucial function of assessing the damage wrought by this disaster…if we survive professionally.

Thanks to the National Science Foundation (NSF), some of us might. We don’t work for BP or the government’s National Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process, which is overseen by state, tribal and federal science agencies and is partially funded by BP. We are independent scientists who want to honestly and independently examine the effects of the oil spill.

The ants, crickets, flies, bees, dragon flies, and spiders I study are important components of the coastal food web. They function as soil aerators, seed dispersers, pollinators, and food sources in complex ecosystems of the Gulf.

Insects were not a primary concern when oil was gushing into the Gulf, but now they may be the best indicator of stressor effects on the coastal northern Gulf of Mexico. Those stressors include oil, dispersants, and cleanup activities. If insect populations survive, then frogs, fish, and birds will survive. If frogs, fish, and birds are there, the fishermen and the birdwatchers will be there. The Gulf’s coastal communities will survive. But if the bugs suffer, so too will the people of the Gulf Coast.

This is why my continued research is important: to give us an idea of just how badly the health of the Gulf Coast ecosystems has been damaged and what, if anything, we can do to stave off a full-blown ecological collapse. But I am having trouble conducting my research without signing confidentiality agreements or agreeing to other conditions that restrict my ability to tell a robust and truthful scientific story.

I want to collect data to answer scientific questions absent a corporate or governmental agenda. I won’t collect data specifically to support the government’s lawsuit against BP nor will I collect data only to be used in BP’s defense. Whereas I think damage assessment is important, it’s my job to be independent — to tell an accurate, unbiased story. But because I choose not to work for BP’s consultants or NRDA, my job is difficult and access to study sites is limited.

In southern Alabama back in late May, my PhD student’s ant samples were taken away by a US Fish and Wildlife officer at a publicly accessible state Wildlife Management Area because our project hadn’t been approved by Incident Command (also called the Deepwater Horizon Response Unified Command — which is a joint program of BP and federal agencies, such as the Coast Guard, the Department of the Interior, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, assembled to respond to problems related to the April 20 blowout).

We’ve had similar experiences in south Louisiana, where our research trip was halted after driving more than 150 miles to a study site. On the way to our sampling sites in Grand Isle, LA, were turned away by a sheriff’s deputy blocking the road who said that he was told to allow no one who wasn’t associated with BP or NRDA to pass that point. We’ve also been blocked by the Wisner Trust, one of the largest private land owners of marsh habitat in Louisiana, who in the past allowed LSU researchers access to their property. The lawyer representing the trust indicated that they are coordinating over 700 different people associated with BP and NRDA and that they simply cannot approve access for anyone else.

People at the NSF think the work I conduct with my graduate students and eight collaborators on coastal food webs is important enough to fund through their Rapid Proposal Program. The truth is that we used our meager discretionary funds to hurriedly collect data in May before our study sites were oiled. Our group was lucky we weren’t turned away by BP, sheriff’s officers, or Coast Guard at that time. Now we’re seeking a source of independent funding once again.

I’ve been doggedly pursued by NRDA for data our team has and will be collecting. Three different people from the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (LDNR) indicated interest in our data in repeated requests. In fact, I’ll be going to a meeting with LDNR next Thursday (August 12) to further discuss my data. If I were to agree to submit my data, thus officially participating in NRDA, I would be required to sign a confidentiality agreement that lacks an officially specified end date. Exactly when my students or I would be able to publish any results from this research would be determined by the Department of Justice (DOJ), which would make that decision based on the status of a civil suit brought against BP. Were I to accept research funding directly from BP or from one of their contractors, I’d have to sign a contract that includes a three-year no publication clause. If I signed either a contract to work with NRDA or to work under BP or one of their contractors, I would have virtually unlimited access to study sites and more research support.

But the price of the secrecy involved with participating in NRDA or conducting research under the auspices of BP is too high. My student and I couldn’t discuss our data, results or experiences for three years or until the litigation against BP is settled. More importantly, we couldn’t publish any of our results. I couldn’t write this essay. The data could be tied up for years in litigation just like that of the scientists who participated in NRDA after the Exxon Valdez incident.

Every day it takes resolve to continue on the path of honest and open science on the effect of stressors on the smallest creatures on the coast. If current trends continue, I fear that the independent researcher may be added to the list of species that will be endangered by this ecological disaster.

_______________________

Linda Hooper-Bui is an ecosystem biologist at Louisiana State University A&M and the LSU Agricultural Center who specializes in disturbance ecology of ants and other arthropods. She coauthored a chapter called “Consequences of Ant Invasions” in the book Ant Ecology, published this year. She loves to spend time mentoring students and has an active undergraduate and graduate student research program.

Editor’s note – Pete Tuttle, USFWS environmental contaminant specialist and Dept of Interior NRDA coordinator, told The Scientist that he was unaware of any samples being taken or access to study sites being restricted by federal, state, or tribal officials associated with NRDA. He did, however, confirm that researchers wishing to formally participate in NRDA must sign a contract that includes a confidentiality agreement. Tuttle said that the agreement prevents signees from releasing information from studies and findings until authorized by the Department of Justice at some later and unspecified date. “This is a civil lawsuit [against BP],” Tuttle said. “We are protecting our interests and our case. It’s not designed to squelch anything, but just to ensure that the integrity of the case is protected.” The Scientist contacted a BP representative to respond to Hooper-Bui’s claims, but BP declined to comment.
Read more: Opinion: The oil’s stain on science – The Scientist – Magazine of the Life Sciences http://www.the-scientist.com/templates/trackable/display/news.jsp?type=news&id=57610&o_url=news/display/57610#ixzz0wb0Q5UfM

Special thanks to Richard Charter

GULF SPILL: (08/13/2010)
Elana Schor, E&E reporter
BARATARIA, La. — The inlets that envelop this bayou community extend like fingers on a hand, reaching into the backyards of lifelong fishermen. But the boat behind one fishing family’s house sits idle for now, as Tracy Kuhns turns from living off the water to worrying about it.

“The elected officials and the petrochemical companies think the fishermen are just going to let this go away,” Kuhns said this week during an interview at her office. “They’re used to fishermen allowing them to do this to fishing grounds.”

For Kuhns, this time is different. The multicolored pins on her wall tell the story, each inserted into a map of the coast to detail outreach she has made to other towns since the Macondo oil field first began spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico. This time is different, she believes, because some fishermen are not willing to stay quiet and keep hauling up catch they do not trust.

“This stuff is in my canal, behind my home, where my grandchildren swim all summer long,” Kuhns said. She voted for President Obama in 2008, but now she watches in disbelief as his White House serves Gulf seafood to assure the public of its safety. “Come to my house,” Kuhns advised Obama, “and I won’t pretty it up before you show up. I won’t tell you, the seafood I pull out of [the water], that I feel comfortable feeding it to my grandbabies.”

Kuhns, who leads the local coastal protection group Louisiana Bayoukeeper, is part of an alliance of seafood industry veterans organizing an ongoing protest against what they believe is a rushed and unwarranted reopening of fishing grounds previously closed due to contamination from the oil gusher. These fishermen see an alarming disconnect between the oil they continue to encounter on the water and the assurances they receive from state and federal officials that their nets and lines can go back in the Gulf.

The use of sensory testing to check fish samples for traces of the 1.8-million-plus gallons of chemical dispersants sprayed by BP PLC during the leak is particularly frustrating to many in Kuhns’ camp.

“How can they be doing a smell test to check for toxins in such a minute amount?” asked Chris Bryant, a 15-year commercial fishing veteran from Bayou La Batre, Ala. “There is obviously a reason [dispersants] are considered toxic. Maybe in a minute amount they won’t affect us in the short term, but if you continue to ingest them in a period of time, what are going to be the long-term effects? That’s something all the commercial fishermen are concerned about.”

Those doubts resonate with Steve Wilson, chief quality officer in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s seafood testing program. His team is “just as concerned as the fishermen” about the safety of Gulf catches, Wilson said in an interview conducted by phone from the Mississippi lab where groups of trained sensory testers run through seafood samples. “We don’t want product coming into commerce that’s unsafe.”

Sensory testers take the first look at seafood samples to determine if federal areas of the Gulf — more than one-third of which were closed to fishing at the height of the oil disaster — can be reopened or contain too many “hot fish,” as testers call tainted samples. Most of the smell testers have more than a decade of experience sniffing out defective food, Wilson explained, with their natural abilities honed by courses and lengthy training.

Oil contamination at the level of 1 part per million would be equivalent to “a golf ball in an Olympic-sized swimming pool,” he added. “They’re able to smell at that level, but most people can’t.”

Windex and watermelon
Debate over its dispersant tests may be raging in the Gulf, but NOAA’s sensory panel does not use the D-word to describe the samples it examines. Because the odor of the chemical sprays can be very similar to oil — petroleum distillates are a key ingredient in the Nalco product used by BP — Wilson said other terms are being used to distinguish between the two.

“We’ve used descriptors like ‘Windex,’ ‘light chemicals,’ ‘alcohol,'” he said. Those words can be crucial triggers of befouled fish, because testers are trained using vials of potent scents that can help unite various assessments into a broad conclusion. “You might smell watermelon, you might smell ammonia,” Wilson added. “You’re trying to get to the smell that’s more important.”

Should a member of the sensory panel find a sample to contain elements of oil or dispersant, the fishing area in line for reopening must remain closed, according to the protocol developed by NOAA and the Food and Drug Administration to guide seafood testing during the spill. Only one sample his team encountered has failed sensory tests, Wilson said, though the area at issue has reopened for fishing since that May incident
.
Guidance issued by NOAA in 2001 calls for post-spill sensory tests to include control groups, in order to make sure panelists’ noses can still sense the difference between good and bad samples. Given the higher frequency of seafood sniffing this summer, Wilson said, that guidance has been modified so that individual control samples can be dropped on testers without their knowledge.

“From time to time,” he said, NOAA supervisors will put either a known “good” or “spiked” piece of fish into the mix, the latter laced “with an oil-dispersant combination.”
After sensory testing is finished, tissue samples for the fish are subjected to lab analyses for the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a chemical class that includes toxic and carcinogenic elements of oil that tend to resist evaporation.

The chemical tests are done using composite samples of several species of fish, such as tuna and grouper. Because finfish have similar abilities to metabolize oil, Wilson said, “if you compile the sample correctly, it speeds up the process so we can get fisheries open” or keep them closed without paying up to several hundred dollars for each individual test.

A community divided
Not every Gulf fisherman shares Kuhns’ and Bryant’s fears about the viability of government seafood tests. Some locals whisper that skeptics are acting out of concern for their bottom line, preferring to earn a steady paycheck from BP for cleanup work to the uncertain fate of selling fish that consumers may still view as tainted.

Before staging a press conference last week outside a listening session held by Ray Mabus, Obama’s Gulf restoration point main, Kuhns and her allies addressed that issue head-on. “Fishermen would rather work cleaning the severely damaged Gulf than selling tainted seafood,” they wrote in a release outlining their goals.

Oysterman Mike Voisin, CEO of Motivated Seafood in Houma, La., questioned the wisdom of airing such critical sentiments. “Don’t hurt the market by saying, ‘I don’t want to feed it to my kids,'” he advised. “They’re just hurting themselves.”

Voisin, who says his processing has been cut nearly in half since the oil leak began, joins NOAA outreach calls to members of the Gulf seafood industry and displays a resulting knowledge of the ins and outs of testing.

Noting that the government’s assessment of the potential risk of eating contaminated seafood assumes an annual consumption level more than 10 times higher than that of the average American, Voisin said: “We’re still meeting those requirements. If anybody’s finding anything out there, they should report it immediately. … I don’t believe the state would open areas if they weren’t confident.”

Part of the conflict on the ground appears rooted in a lack of communication between the government and members of a community that, while close-knit, is also fiercely independent and spread throughout remote corners of the coast.

“I’ve heard more than one local person say, as far as they know, that there’s not a test for dispersant” in seafood, said Rebecca Templeton, environmental outreach coordinator at Bayou Grace Community Services in Chauvin, La. “Even as someone who’s trying to gather this information, I don’t know what kind of testing is being done … if I knew those details, it would be reassuring to me.”

NOAA is working on a framework for the chemical analyses of dispersant contamination that Kuhns and her fellow fishermen are calling for, but an agency spokeswoman said it is difficult to predict the time frame for development of the tests.
Meanwhile, Louisiana shrimping season is set to start next week, and Voisin said he expects more state-level waters to reopen by that time. But Kuhns’ boat is unlikely to make another fishing journey in the near future.

Her next step is continuing to unite with like-minded fishermen to protect the waters they love from the threat of abandonment, by BP and Washington, before the fallout from the oil leak is truly contained. “They need to be honest about this,” she said. “It’s not going to go away.”
Special thanks to Richard Charter

[Please see also http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com for r.o.v. video and contextual analysis of continued anomalies in the official story versus what may actually be occurring in the Gulf. Official “vessels
of opportunity” operators also told the _Destin Log_ they’ve witnessed aircraft spraying dispersants. Surreal. ]

===============

Summary from Florida Oil Spill Law:
Coast Guard admits dispersants still in use “over the wellhead”

[FULL TEXT OF _DESTIN LOG_ ARTICLE BELOW]
August 12th, 2010 at 08:26 AM

A liaison officer with the United State Coast Guard told the Destin Log http://www.thedestinlog.com/news/residents-14872-multiple-differ.html that dispersants are currently “being used over the wellhead in Louisiana.”

Why continue to use dispersants if the flow of oil stopped July 15 and nearly all the crude is gone?

Also, this contradicts Thad Allen’s recent statements
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/09/98862/this-is-transcript-of-national.html

“We have not used dispersant since the capping stack was put on.” “There are no dispersants being used at this time.”

================

Officials deny dispersant use, residents beg to differ
http://www.thedestinlog.com/news/residents-14872-multiple-differ.html
August 10, 2010 7:00 PM
By Matt Algarin

Mayor Sam Seevers knows that BP should not be using dispersants in state waters, but after multiple reports from area residents about suspicious activity, she plans to get to the bottom of it.

“We had asked the Coast Guard and BP to find out what they can, and to let us know what was going on,” Seevers said recently.

She told The Log she had heard people talking about a “mystery dispersant” over the past few days, but it wasn’t until last week’s Vessel of Opportunity meeting at City Hall that Seevers had heard the
topic echoed over and over.

Okaloosa Island resident Joseph Yerkes, who had been employed by BP as a VOO operator, wrote in a letter that he distributed at Tuesday night’s meeting that he had “witnessed and reported” suspicious
activity over the Gulf of Mexico on July 30.

Yerkes, who was sitting on the back porch of his third floor condo about 1:30 p.m., wrote that he witnessed a military C-130 “flying from the north to the south, dropping to low levels of elevation then obviously spraying or releasing an unknown substance from the rear of the plane.”

The unknown substance, Yerkes wrote, “was not smoke, for the residue fell to the water, where smoke would have lingered.”

Austin Norwood, whose boat is contracted by Florida Fish and Wildlife, also provided a written account of a “strange incident.”

While Norwood was observing wildlife offshore, he had received a call from his site supervisor at Joe’s Bayou. After telling the supervisor that he and his crewmember were not feeling well, the supervisor had
the two men come in “to get checked out because a plane had been reported in our area spraying a substance on the water about 10- 20 minutes before.”

Norwoord complained of a bad headache, nasal congestion while his crewmember said he had a metallic taste in his mouth.

After filling out an incident report, both Norwood and his crewmember were directed to go to the hospital. The following day, the two men were once again “asked to go to the hospital for blood tests.”

When reached for comment, Lt. Cmdr. Dale Vogelsang, liaison officer with the United State Coast Guard, told The Log he had contacted Unified Command and they had “confirmed” that dispersants were not being used in Florida waters.

“Dispersants are only being used over the wellhead in Louisiana,” Vogelsang said. “We are working with Eglin and Hurlburt to confirm what the flight pattern may be. But right now, it appears to be a normal flight.”

Vogelsang also said Unified Command confirmed to him that C-130s have never been used to distribute dispersants, as they “typically use smaller aircraft.”

But according to an article by the 910 th Airlift Wing Public Affairs Office, based in Youngstown, OH., C-130H Hercules aircraft started aerial spray operations Saturday, May 1, under the direction of the president of the United States and Secretary of Defense. “The
objective of the aerial spray operation is to neutralize the oil spill with oil dispersing agents,” the article states.

A July Lockheed Martin Newsletter states that “Lockheed Martin aircraft, including C-130s and P-3s, have been deployed to the Gulf region by the Air Force, Coast Guard and other government customers to perform a variety of tasks, such as monitoring, mapping and dispersant spraying.”

Neither of the articles specify the operations have taken place in Florida.

After The Log spoke with Vogelsang Friday morning, he once again reiterated that “no dispersants were being used in Florida waters,” and no dispersants have been used anywhere since mid-July. When The
Log asked Vogelsang about the two articles, which state C-130s have been used for dispersant spraying, he said “if they were being used here locally to spray dispersants, then Unified Command didn’t know
about it.”

Yerkes said he has a friend who is sick from whatever has been sprayed, and he intends to find out what it is. He has recently been in contact with various attorneys who are interested in his case,
including the law firm that represented Erin Brockovich.

“If I have to be the Erin Brockovich of Okaloosa County, I am going to do it,” he said.

Special thanks to Richard Charter