To Insist That Certain Areas Along the Gulf are Safe for Children is Unconscionable.

[ensho]

http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/3541


Message to the EPA: To Insist That Certain Areas Along the Gulf are Safe for Children is Unconscionable.


-snip-

HUGH KAUFMAN: …Consequently, we have people, wildlife—we have dolphins that are hemorrhaging. People who work near it are hemorrhaging internally. And that’s what dispersants are supposed to do. EPA now is taking the position that they really don’t know how dangerous it is, even though if you read the label, it tells you how dangerous it is. And, for example, in the Exxon Valdez case, people who worked with dispersants, most of them are dead now. The average death age is around fifty. It’s very dangerous, and it’s an economic—it’s an economic protector of BP, not an environmental protector of the public.

…Well, not only do you have airplanes flying and dropping them on the Gulf region, like Agent Orange in Vietnam, but a large amount of it is being shot into the water column at 5,000 feet to disperse the oil as it gushers out. And so, you have spread, according to the Associated Press, over perhaps over 44,000 square miles, an oil and dispersant mix. And what’s happened is, that makes it impossible to skim the oil out of the water. One of the things that happened is they brought this big boat, Whale, in from Japan to get rid of the oil, and it didn’t work because the majority of the oil is spread throughout the water column over thousands of square miles in the Gulf. And so—and there’s been a lot of work to show the dispersants, which is true, make it more difficult to clean up the mess than if you didn’t use them. The sole purpose in the Gulf for dispersants is to keep a cover-up going for BP to try to hide the volume of oil that has been released and save them hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars of fines. That’s the purpose of using the dispersants, not to protect the public health or environment. Quite the opposite.

-snip-

HUGH KAUFMAN: Well, yes. I saw that when it first came out, I think on Sunday. And what they documented was that the water—you know, when you’re on the sand with your children and they dig, and there’s a little water?—they documented there was over 200 parts per million of oil waste in the water, and it’s not noticeable to the human eye, that the children were playing with on the beach. On top of it, the contamination in one of the samples was so high that when they put the solvent in, as a first step in identifying how much oil may be in the water, the thing blew up, just as he said, probably because there was too much Corexit in that particular sample.

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Message to the EPA: To insist that certain areas along the Gulf are safe for children is unconscionable. It’s horrible enough that the fish and birds are exposed to Coexit—they didn’t have a choice, but for the EPA to say to the public that the water has been tested and that it’s safe for children is a lawsuit of negligence and irresponsibility.
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I'm sure the Obama's wouldn't let their girls play in the sand and water of a Gulf beach

they are about as far away from the Gulf as you can get - playing in the Maine waters

how come here in the US we have to fight to get rights to protect children?

the Barons are quick to sell children's mood pills

and children on the beach means parents paying hotel/motel bills, etc.

[nashville_brook]

1. totally agree.

[marions ghost]

2. It is unconscionable

But much of America has no conscience. :thumbsdown:

Why there have been no public warnings on those beaches after the toxic samples were taken tells you a LOT about protection of people's health in America (but we already knew the PTB don't care). At least the TV station is continuing to sound the warning.

When will people understand that the Gulf is now about as appealing as Love Canal?

People who like to vacation on the coast all know the truth at some level of their being even if they choose to deny --out of an inability to accept the loss.

True coastal dwellers who are of the sea, revive themselves in the sea, eat from the sea, draw sustenance and fortitude from the sea--are sick at heart if not sick in body. :cry:

[truedelphi]

3. This joins the tale of the more diabolical pages in the EPA's past

In the late seventies, early eighties, a young researcher had painstakingly put together volumes of research on the effects of lead on children's health.

The EPA's response was to draw up his termination papers, and get rid of him before the word on lead was out.

Fortunately for all of us, the MacArthur Foundation decided to offer the man a genius award. When the news of this hit the press, the EPA quietly got rid of the pink slip they had waiting on his boss's desk. And the anti-lead policies went into effect - affecting paint and gasoline manufacturing, among other things.

The EPA has been bought and paid for by the Big Corporations so many times that I have lost count.