The Sherrod debacle was right up there on the embarrassing scale as it was with the administration taking it’s cue from Fox Spews and Andrew Breitbart to piss in its pants, but now it seems that the White House is hell bent on making it worse by saying they tried, really they did, to reach Ms. Sherrod but could not reach her by phone or email. And we pour how many billions down the drain tapping people’s phones, spying on them and otherwise tracking their whereabouts in this country? The problem was that Ms. Sherrod was hiding on airplanes, but still,
“Even though Ms. Sherrod was out of touch for a few hours, traveling on a plane to New York from Atlanta, and her voice mailbox not accepting new messages, running her down would have been a laughable challenge to the (White House) switchboard of yore.
“Let’s say she was on the plane,” Mr. (Richard) Reeves said. “If they wanted to get a message to the pilot of that plane, they would have no trouble.””
And then to make matters worse, Ms. Sherrod went on national television,
“An especially surreal moment occurred at a briefing Wednesday, when Ms. Sherrod watched, via a split screen on CNN, as Mr. Gibbs chronicled Mr. Vilsack’s struggles to get in touch with her.
“Apparently, she’s watching this briefing, Shirley Sherrod, on CNN right now,” said Jake Tapper of ABC, to the amusement of the press corps. “Is there anything you want to say to her?” (“The secretary is trying to reach her,” Mr. Gibbs offered, again.)”
Um, like wow, someone needs to seriously look into replacing the White House can and string communications system. And maybe the job they should be offering Ms. Sherrod is White House Chief of Staff or Director of the FBI.
July 24, 2010 / Lucinda / Comments Off on A Distinct Lack Of Progressive Hope-y Change-y
Two straw polls have crossed my desk in the last day that make me seriously wonder if anyone has looked up the definition of progressives lately or taken a lessen in how to organize your priorities. First, via the ever observant Richard Power, take a look at this list of important issues that participants at Netroots are being asked to vote on:
Q.5 Now please read the list below and indicate which ONE you think should be the TOP priority for President Obama and Congress.
Immigration reform
Improve jobs situation
Finish Afghanistan
Iraq drawdown
Reduce deficit
Repeal DADT
As Richard points out, there is no mention of climate change and I would add, while addressing Iraq and Afghanistan, although the wording is just plain odd, as well as DADT, why not ask about military priorities in general? And instead of asking about the deficit and jobs, how about the finance bill and Wall Street reform. And what about health care?
What this list really indicates is that the progressive left has apparently lost any sense of overall vision.
Another observation regarding Netroots–why is it that this gathering gets so much attention but that the U.S. Social Forum with far greater attendance from the numbers that I’ve heard got virtually none from the media. Just asking.
Which brings us to an email I got from Open Left asking me to choose my Democracy for America grassroots champion from a list of ten progressive champions. The list included six white males, two men of color and two white women. The white guys on the list are probably all good guys who stand for the right thing but this is progressive hope-y change-y in what way? Looks like politics as usual to me.
Just returned from a week in Santa Monica at the beach with my family. Lovely, relaxing, a few surreal moments–watching kids romp in the surf while planes with banners flew by selling bank accounts, beer and clothes. Odd juxtaposition against the continuing horror along the Gulf coast and stories on the net about the demise of the oceans and the collapse of atmosphere. Awesome ferris wheel on the boardwalk though:
__________
Could have watched that thing go round and round all night. Serious blogging to return soon, in the meantime here is a newly invented recipe via my son, who is fearless in the kitchen:
Place a tortilla flat and add the following:
Grated monterey jack
Slices of mango
Basil and Oregano (preferably fresh)
Grill or broil until cheese melts. Fold. eat.
And here is my variation:
Take 2 slices of bread and spread with hummous. Add mango slices, avocado and tomato. Eat.
Currently we are working with roasted sweet potatoes. Stay tuned.
A few years ago we spent a long weekend at a lovely hotel on the pristine St. Petersburg, FL shore. We walked along the beach, collected shells, ate seafood. Yesterday I got an email from them telling me they weren’t Pensacola and to come on down, the water’s fine. They even have their own no-spill-here -cam.
“Public officials have failed to sound an alarm about the public health threat because three federal agencies – DHHS, EPA, and OSHA – cannot find any unsafe levels of oil in air or water. Perhaps the federal air and water standards are not stringent enough to protect the public from oil pollution. Our federal laws are outdated and do not protect us from the toxic threat from oil – now widely recognized in the scientific and medical community.
BP is still in the dark ages on oil toxicity. BP officials stress that, by the time oil gets to shore, it is “weathered”
After wading in 'safe' water...
and missing the highly volatile compounds like the carcinogenic benzene, among others. BP fails to mention the threat from dispersed oil, ultrafine particles (PAHs), and chemical dispersants, which include industrial solvents and proprietary compounds, many hazardous to humans.
If oil was so nontoxic, then why are the spill response workers giving hazardous waste training? Our federal government should stop pretending that everything is okay. What isn’t safe for workers isn’t safe for the general public either.”
It bears remembering as well that the monitoring that is being done of air and water quality is not up to elementary school science standards in some regards. NRDC’s Gina Solomon points to sample results that, “don’t say where they were taken, and who was in the area.”
Questions have also been raised about testing labs with ties to BP and the veracity of assertions that dispersants are not in the air and increased arsenic levels. And then there is the matter of report after report of reporters being denied access to the effected areas. Bottom line–between deliberate misinformation, denial of access to information and an approach to scientific fact checking that is less sophisticated than a kid’s chemistry set, assurances of safety along the Gulf are suspect at best.
But that is not even the most dangerous part of the story. As I pointed out a few weeks ago, the oil disaster, first framed by BP, the government and media as a regrettable spill, quickly escalated into a war that needed to be fought. As Anne McClintock writes,
“Billy Nungesser, indefatigable President of the Plaquemines Parish, implores anyone who will listen: “We will fight this war….We will persevere to win this war.” For Ragin Cajun, Democratic strategist, James Carville: “This is literally a war… this is an invasion…We need to hear someone say ‘We’ll fight them on the beaches.’” Retired Gen. Russell Honore, who oversaw the Katrina debacle, insists: “We need to act like this is World War 111. Treat this like it’s an invasion…equal to what we decided about terrorists. We’ve got to find the oil and kill it.”…
…Visit the BP site (one of the more surreal Alice-Through-the-Looking-Glass internet experiences) and you will see the word “kill”–BP’s favored, faux-techno buzzword–appearing with ritualistic incantation. Kill the well, kill the leak, kill the oil, which morphs into “kill mud” (the mud that will kill the leak) and “kill lines” (the lines that follow the pipes to kill the leak)..
…So why are people calling the calamity a war and why does it matter that they do?
Calling the oil the ‘enemy’ helps us not to question who was culpable in the first place. Calling the response ‘a battle front’ helps us not ask who, other than the military, should be in charge. Calling the spill an ‘invasion’ helps us not to see that our global culture of militarization is what got us into the mess in the first place. Calling the spill a ‘war’ only fuels the pervasive militarization that produced the crisis in the first place. And calling the oil the enemy helps us not admit how much we, the consumers, having awakened the oil from its ancient slumber to fuel our gas-greedy lives, are the most complicit of all…
…All this war talk would be understandable, defensible even, were it not for a fatally circular, feedback loop. BP would not be in the Gulf drilling deeper than it knows how to drill were it not for its uniquely profitable relation with the US military war machine. The United States Department of Defense buys more oil than any other entity on the planet. The protection of overseas oil is now so unquestioned that even Defense Secretary Gates warned against the “creeping militarization” of U.S. foreign policy. And to fuel this militarization, the Pentagon uses 75% of the oil bought by the DOD for its jets, bombers, drones, tanks, and Humvees. And in order to keep buying this oil, the military has to keep protecting our regional oil interests, two thirds of which are now in conflict prone zones. US military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan use a staggering ninety million gallons a month. And to garrison this vast, global gas-station, the DOD keeps expanding, which means buying more oil.
From whom? In 2009, BP was the Pentagon’s largest contractor at $2.2 billion…
…Keeping this in mind, we would do well to remember that militarization is the number one cause of environmental destruction in the world, and that military production facilities, which are exempt from environmental restrictions, are the most ecologically devastated places on earth. We drill, we spill; nature pays the bill.”
GritTV’s Laura Flanders asks some important questions about the connection between the economy, which according to experts such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich is in serious trouble, and the military:
“The US is currently shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs each month. It’s not just in the Ozarks that the recruiters are the only ones with jobs around. The economy shed 125,000 jobs in June. That’s about the number of troops we have left in Iraq…
…We’ve long heard about fighting people over there so we don’t have to do it here. Is the colder truth becoming that we’re sending people over there because we sure can’t employ ’em over here? And we’re scared to death of what unrest might come with a massive return of men and women who’ve served and endured — and who expect something better for their families than starvation wages, and no social services when they get back?”
I think there is a lot of truth to that as well as to the fact that a bad economy makes for fruitful military recruitment when kids can’t get jobs or afford college, why not join the military like that cool recruiter who hangs out at lunch in the cafeteria in that bad-ass uniform is pushing you to do. As McClintock points out, the military is busy defending the oil on which its existence depends. And for that it needs an endless supply of human cannon fodder.
And so we fight pointless wars without end rather than actually defending our citizens or literally, our shores. We allow the real enemy to tell us how to ‘clean’ up the resultant disaster and to control the information flow even while the oil flows unabated, because we are addicted to their product and our Congress has been bought off.
As for the beaches of St. Pete–are they safe? Perhaps. I hope so, but we simply cannot have enough confidence in what passes as data to say so, even if the damage is not visible. What is unquestionably dangerous however is the wholesale usurpation of government oversight by a lawless private corporation and the denial of freedom of the press in covering this story. As damaging as this disaster has already been to the ocean, shoreline and inhabitants of both, it will continue to be more so unless we insist on proper precautions, good science and full transparency. Above all, it is time to take a long overdue, very hard look at just what our military is supposedly defending and why and how, in the end, real security is defined.
July 3, 2010 / Lucinda / Comments Off on Practicing Deep Democracy–Reflections On The U.S. Social Forum
In late June, thousands of activists gathered for the second U.S. Social Forum in an all but left for dead city (Detroit, with its beautiful architecture and boarded up buildings)–to march, confer, create, help and collaborate in what was the largest exercise of deep democracy that this country has ever seen. Many of you have asked me to share my thoughts about the USSF, which I attended and participated in and the following are a few thoughts about what what I took away from the experience.
It is impossible to fully describe the social forum process to someone who has not attended such a gathering. It is a participant driven event, in this case with more than a thousand panels and sessions and at least as many organizations and many, many more individuals. The forum is organized with a horizontal structure that promotes the equal value of all participants. The downside of that is a certain amount of peaceful chaos, the upside is collective empowerment. The number of participants has been pegged at 15,000. That seems high to me, but 10,000 would not be a stretch.
Far more importantly and something that absolutely must be stated loudly and clearly, is that perhaps the greatest strength of the forum and what truly makes it both possible and successful, is the diversity of the participants. Starhawk made this eloquently observation about this crucial point,
“Too many times I’ve sat in meetings having the same conversation, over and over again—where are the people of color? The answer is not to go comb the streets, dragging in random people to make our group look more diverse. Nor is it to stop doing what we’re doing, if it’s the work we’re called to. An effective answer involves drawing a bigger circle, like this Forum has done, that includes all of our multiple movements and issues within it as allies, and if we have resources or skills or connections, saying to our brothers and sisters, “We’re on the same mission—how can I be of service to you?””
Perhaps this graphic from a pamphlet called So That We May Soar that was distributed by by Coil LA/Another Politics Is Possible depicts the vision of the USSF best:
I spent most of my time on gender justice issues and had the wonderful opportunity to listen to and share time with a wide cross-section of activists from all over the world. Our time together brought much needed support, feedback and inspiration.
Although I did attend the first USSF in Atlanta, this was the first time that I participated actively in the Peoples Movement Assembly process. As a general rule I’m not particularly
The PMA process
good at long participatory position statement writing and will confess that a good part of my attending the Gender Justice PMA was because I thought that I should and it involved promising myself that if it got to be more than I could deal with, it was okay to leave after the first few hours.
I stayed. What I participated in and witnessed was deep democracy in action, every voice that chose to speak was heard and considered with respect and four and a half amazing hours later, a document that synthesized what had been said resulted and was presented to the closing PMA the following day. Unlike the U.S. Congress, no one had to worry about being re-elected, there was no back-stabbing, pork barrel legislation and certainly no lobbying or corporate contributions. In other words, democracy, the actual kind.
There were the predictable problems of a gathering of that size, don’t ask about the logistics of getting to all the venues or the heat or the bathroom lines, but the organizers, the people who did the very hard work to make this happen deserve major kudos, not just for getting it done, but for showing us all that, despite all the issues we face today, there is a common ground at the intersection of all that matters and it is indeed possible to get there.
There has been much good reporting (albeit not by the MSM) as well as excellent commentary about the USSF, here are a few links:
Perhaps it is all best summed up by this message to the USSF from Leonard Peltier:
“I encourage you to find unity in your various causes, because all of your struggles are linked. Actually, you don’t just find unity, you create it—each of you individually. Create unity within your specific organizations. And between them. Link your efforts and find ways to network and maximize those efforts.
Making change has never been more important. Make the most of every second, for time is growing short, as so many prophecies have foretold. Educate others about the realities you are struggling for and against. Especially focus on educating the young people who will further your efforts tomorrow. Know that your sensibilities are a gift from Creator intended to wake up and shake up the world so that we may improve how we treat the Earth and each other.”
July 1, 2010 / Lucinda / Comments Off on The 6 Month Doughnut Hole In The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan
Will someone please explain why you have to be uninsured for six months before qualifying for the Pre-Existing Condition Plan? Because I have a health history (and how many people my age don’t) and because I don’t work for a company that provides insurance, the chances of my being able to purchase a new individual insurance plan are probably nil, so this clause makes it impossible for me to move out of state because I would lose the coverage I have and then have to wait 6 months to get insurance which is insane. Sorry Kentucky, you are stuck with me until this gets fixed.
May I apply for the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan if I have existing health coverage?
Hard to sugar coat this flaw in healthcare reform
You are not eligible unless you have been without health coverage for at least the last six months. For example, if you have Medicare or TRICARE, you shouldn’t apply. If you are uninsured and have been told that you may be eligible for other coverage programs like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, you should check out those programs first, as they may better meet your needs. If you have job-based coverage, or individual insurance coverage, you aren’t eligible to apply.
May I apply for PCIP if I have COBRA or other continuation coverage?
No, even if your COBRA or other continuation of coverage is about to run out, you won’t meet the requirement to be uninsured for at least the last six months. You also need to be meet the criteria for having a pre-existing condition and be a U.S. citizen or individual residing here legally to qualify for the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan.
And as was pointed out during the long drawn out health care reform debate, women are less likely to have insurance through employment and are thus more likely to be impacted by this seriously FUBAR plan.
A few years ago, you couldn’t even get a For Sale sign up before a house that was for sale sold in my neighborhood. Good schools, quiet, great access to downtown, yada yada, suburban paradise. Now you can’t give them away. It’s not really a surprise, as I pointed out in September, 2009:
“As for the foreclosure crisis–that nasty little house of cards seems to have eased. Or not. Seems there are some mortgages called Option ARMs about 70% of which will reset before 2011, some by as much as 63% leaving a whole lot more people with not much of an option but to go into foreclosure, so that one isn’t over yet either.”
Pretty obviously the rose-colored punditry that we were hearing at that point has indeed turned out to be tripe, something that gives me no pleasure to be right about since I would dearly love to sell my now empty nest and move elsewhere. As this rather astute piece points out it really is that bad, and maybe worse:
“Is the housing market already double dipping? That certainly appears to be the case – and exactly on cue as the government steps aside. While the mortgage applications are no guarantee of a renewed trend the warning flags are popping up all over the place. In addition to the negative seasonal trends ahead of us, we are also seeing lumber prices off 33% in the last month, continuing high historical inventories, a slew of mortgage resets in the coming years, and the biggie – the end of government intervention.”
Back in September there was an asinine discussion going on about whether the recession would double dip and if so what form it would take–everyone was using letter shape analogies. My take on that was never mind letters, think roller-coaster:
“the most terrifying ride in the park–you go up a little and then down, your heart lands in your stomach and you’re afraid you’re going to upchuck all over your date but then you realize that you survived and it isn’t so bad and hey you’re going up again. And then you get to the top of the next rise and see the very long and steep decline that lies ahead…
…Whether or not the recession is ending is irrelevant and not even the correct question. At best, we are in a bit of economic remission, but do not be deluded, the ride has only just begun, and the big fall is still ahead.”
Anyone taking bets on whether we’re at that last crest before the big fall now?
As I was listening to Obama’s Oval Office oil ‘spill’ speech, I had a fantasy that he was going to tell us that he would immediately order the cessation of the use of dispersants because clearly they were making things even worse than just the oil and that going forward, the U.S. would do its bit to cut dependence on oil by immediately ceasing all military actions because BP is the Pentagon’s largest fuel supplier and it was time to set an example for the rest of the world by being good planetary citizens.
Unfortunately, not only did Obama not say this, it came off sounding like he was going to war with the oil, while all the while referring to it as a ‘spill’, rather than an act of corporate terrorism. Very metaphorically mixed thinking, that ended with an actually we got nothing reference to faith.
“Already, this oil spill is the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced. And unlike an earthquake or a hurricane, it’s not a single event that does its damage in a matter of minutes or days. The millions of gallons of oil that have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico are more like an epidemic, one that we will be fighting for months and even years.
But make no mistake: We will fight this spill with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes. We will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused. And we will do whatever’s necessary to help the Gulf Coast and its people recover from this tragedy.
Tonight I’d like to lay out for you what our battle plan is going forward: what we’re doing to clean up the oil, what we’re doing to help our neighbors in the Gulf, and what we’re doing to make sure that a catastrophe like this never happens again.
First, the cleanup. From the very beginning of this crisis, the federal government has been in charge of the largest environmental cleanup effort in our nation’s history — an effort led by Admiral Thad Allen, who has almost 40 years of experience responding to disasters.”
Can we just call bs on that last statement?
“We now have nearly 30,000 personnel who are working across four states to contain and clean up the oil. Thousands of ships and other vessels are responding in the Gulf. And I’ve authorized the deployment of over 17,000 National Guard members along the coast. These servicemen and women are ready to help stop the oil from coming ashore, they’re ready to help clean the beaches, train response workers, or even help with processing claims — and I urge the governors in the affected states to activate these troops as soon as possible.”
While I actually agree that in fact that is a good use of the National Guard, why on earth did it take this long to authorize their use? But as I said, the tenor of his speech was of the ‘this is war’ genre and frankly, I don’t think Mother Earth can take any more assaults. We need to absolutely quit talking about cleanup and recovery as if we can make this disappear. We can clean up some of it, salvage what we can, and work to make people’s lives whole again, but we can’t fix this disaster–significant parts of the Gulf are now dead and we have unleashed a toxic monster that will be with us for a long time if not forever, and no amount of National Guard troops is going to change that.
———-
Addenda: Robert Scheer eloquently addresses the inexcusable war lingo here:
“What’s with the president’s war analogy on the oil spill? It’s as if some alien force, “The Invasion of the Slippery Sludge,” suddenly attacked us. “Abroad, our brave men and women in uniform are taking the fight to al-Qaida,” President Barack Obama said Tuesday in his White House speech, “and tonight, I’ve returned from a trip to the Gulf Coast to speak with you about the battle we’re waging against an oil spill that is assaulting our shores and our citizens.”
What nonsense. The oil was minding its own business until some multinational corporations, enabled by a dysfunctional government regulatory regime, decided to wage war on the ecological balance of the oceans by employing technology that they were not prepared to control. Cleaning up the oil spill mess we made by raping the environment to satiate our consumer gluttony is not a glorious battle against evil but rather obligatory penance for the profound error of our ways.
You wound Mother Nature by punching a hole deep in her pristine ocean where you have no business going and when she bleeds uncontrollably you dare blame her for the assault? This from a president who shortly before this disaster had given the oil companies permission to pillage in the deep seas at will.”
June 12, 2010 / Lucinda / Comments Off on Is The Gulf Oil Disaster Compromising Our Reproductive Health?
Last week, in an article published by Truthout, I examined the potential for human reproductive harm as a result of the Gulf oil disaster. It was not until this week however that the EPA finally released information regarding what chemicals are in the dispersants, a crucial first step in definitively assessing harm. The manufacturer, Nalco, had claimed that some of the ingredients were trade secrets. But they were happy to explain in general terms on their website what was in the dispersants,
“Corexit contains six primary ingredients. Examples of everyday products with specific ingredients in common with COREXIT 9500 include:
• One ingredient is used as a wetting agent in dry gelatin, beverage mixtures, and fruit juice drinks.
• A second ingredient is used in a brand-name dry skin cream and also in a body shampoo.
• A third ingredient is found in a popular brand of baby bath liquid.
• A fourth ingredient is found extensively in cosmetics and is also used as a surface-active agent and emulsifier for agents used in food contact.
• A fifth ingredient is used by a major supplier of brand name household cleaning products for “soap scum” removal.
• A sixth ingredient is used in hand creams and lotions, odorless paints and stain blockers.”
Really? We drink this stuff and put it on our babies? Must be harmless, right? So why not just tell us the exact ingredients??
Finally however, the public and planetary right to know has triumphed over greed. Two different versions of Corexit have been used. The New York Times provides this description of the two products:
“Corexit 9527, used in lesser quantities during the earlier days of the spill response, is designated a chronic and acute health hazard by EPA. The 9527 formula contains 2-butoxyethanol, pinpointed as the cause of lingering health problems experienced by cleanup workers after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, and propylene glycol, a commonly used solvent.”
“Corexit 9500, described by Pajor as the “sole product” Nalco has manufactured for the Gulf since late April, contains propylene glycol and light petroleum distillates, a type of chemical refined from crude oil. Nalco had previously declined to identify the third hazardous substance in the 9500 formula, but EPA’s website reveals it to be dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate, a detergent and common ingredient in laxatives.”
Memo to self: avoid laxatives at all costs. But seriously, what the heck are those chemicals and what can they do? Tom Philpott has written the most thorough description that I’ve seen thus far:
“We finally know the main two dispersants that BP and the U.S. government are using to treat the ongoing Gulf spill. Both, by their maker’s own admission, have the “potential to bioconcentrate,” and both have “moderate toxicity to early life stages of fish, crustaceans, and mollusks,” according to a study by Exxon, the company that originally developed them. Their use may be the least-bad course, given the importance of minimizing oil’s effect on coastal wetlands. But a little digging into the chemical makeup of these two substances, which are being dumped in vast quantities into the Gulf, reveals that they could potentially do far more harm than good, both to the Gulf and to humans who later eat from it…
…substances that bioconcentrate tend to move from water into fish, where they can do damage to the fish itself, as well as be passed on to predator fish – and on up the food chain, to human eaters…
…And just how toxic is this stuff? The data sheets for both products contain this shocker: “No toxicity studies have been conducted on this product” – meaning testing their safety for humans”…
…According to their data sheets, both 9500 and 9527 are composed of three potentially hazardous substances. They share two in common, organic sulfonic acid salt and propylene glycol. In addition to those two, Corexit 9500 contains something called “Distillates, petroleum, hydrotreated light,” while Corexit 9527 contains 2-Butoxyethanol…
…Petroleum distillates and 2-Butoxyethanol are both solvents; neither are substances you’d excitedly dump into a vibrant ecosytem. According to itsInternational Chemical Scorecard, 2-Butoxyethanol “may be absorbed” by the skin; causes “cough, dizziness, drowsiness, headache, nausea, and weakness” when inhaled; and “abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting” when ingested. For petroleum distillates, the International Chemical Scorecard has similar indications about exposure for humans, and adds this unsettling line: “The substance is harmful to aquatic organisms.””
So we know that the dispersants contain toxic substances. It would seem that at the very least, since we’ve already dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of them into the Gulf, that we–meaning presumably a governmental agency tasked with doing such things–should be rigorously monitoring their impact. Don’t hold your breath, or rather, it might be a good idea if you do. NRDC’s Gina Solomon reports that,
“New BP air testing results were posted.. from April 27 – May 26 for benzene, total hydrocarbons, and 2-Butoxyethanol. There’s still no information about other oil-related air toxic chemicals such as naphthalene or hydrogen sulfide, offshore.
The BP sampling plan focuses only on workers on the large ships, and appears to not include monitoring for the people on the approximately 1,500 small fishing boats helping to clean up the spill. These people are dismissed as of “Reduced Priority”on page 4 of the BP sampling plan.
Nearly 70% (275 out of 399) of offshore air samples had detectable levels of hydrocarbons and nearly 1 in 5 (73 out of 399) had levels greater than 10 parts per million (ppm), which is an EPA cutoff level for further investigation.
6 samples exceed 100 ppm which in a previous monitoring summary was labeled as the action limit. This label appears to have been removed in the most recent summary document. No information is given on where these samples, or the 4 found to be between 50 and 100 ppm, were taken.
20 (5%) samples had detectable levels of benzene with measurements up to 0.5 ppm. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Recommended Exposure Limit (REL) is 0.1 ppm.
20% (29 out of 146) samples had detectable levels of 2-Butoxyethanol with measurements up to 10 ppm. This range encompasses the NIOSH REL for occupational exposure to 2-Butoxyethanol of 5 ppm. The BP document cites the OSHA PEL for 2-Butoxyethanol of 50 ppm, which would not protect workers.”
In other words, it would appear that people working near these chemicals are being at least in some cases exposed to levels that are unacceptable. And those are the priority people, we don’t know about the reduced priority people. (Never mind all those chemicals, let’s just start by forbidding our data collectors from ever referring to anyone as a reduced priority person. And hello? Why is BP monitoring this, that has about as much integrity as putting an embezzler in charge of a bank fraud investigation.)
“The immediate worry is what are called volatile organic compounds, which include chemicals like benzene that can be released in a vapor phase from the oil that’s floating in the water,” Solomon said. “These chemicals can cause acute health effects such as headache, nausea, vomiting, cough, dizziness. The chemicals can also cause longer-term effects, including the potential for miscarriage or low birth weight in pregnant women and risk of cancer over the longer term.”
“So far,” Solomon added, “the levels of these chemicals have been fairly low along the shore lines, so the main concern is for the emergency response workers. But we’re worried that as the oil gets closer to shore the levels of the chemicals in the air will rise.”
So what does all of this mean? Good question. We know that several of the ingredients in these products are harmful. To what extent, we simply don’t know because:
A. They have not been adequately tested for toxicity prior to use.
B. No one has ever taken a wholesale toxic chemical dump in a large body of water on this grand a scale before.
C. There is a concern that by breaking the oil up, the dispersants are making the oil itself, also toxic, harder to clean up.
D. As Solomon notes, the data that we are getting via BP is problematic, making quantifying the damage all the more difficult.
I don’t want to re-hash all the points I made in the Truthout article, but suffice to say, this additional information only confirms my concerns. We know that aquatic life is dying, that wetlands are being grievously harmed, and that people are suffering from a variety of health symptoms. What we don’t know and won’t for quite some time is what the reproductive consequences may be. In the meantime, it is urgent that data be properly collected and made available and that every precaution be made to protect the most vulnerable among us, particularly pregnant women and children.
Addenda: Two additional points that add to the urgency of addressing this issue, via the San Francisco Chronicle:
“In a report written by Anita George-Ares and James R. Clark for Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Inc. titled “Acute Aquatic Toxicity of Three Corexit Products: An Overview” Corexit 9500 was found to be one of the most toxic dispersal agents ever developed.
According to the Clark and George-Ares report, Corexit mixed with the higher gulf coast water temperatures becomes even more toxic.”
And even more worrisome:
“It seems like damage brought by the oil gusher has spread way beyond the ocean, coastal areas and beaches. Collateral damage now appears to include agricultural damage way inland Mississippi.
A mysterious “disease” has caused widespread damage to plants from weeds to farmed organic and conventionally grown crops. There is very strong suspicion that ocean winds have blown Corexit aerosol plumes or droplets and that dispersants have caused the unexplained widespread damage or “disease”.
There is no other explanation for the crop damage. Everything points to something that has a widespread effect on plants and crops. While no one precisely knows, all the signs point to BP’s use of aerosolized Corexit brought inland by the ocean winds or rain.
Remember acid rain? Now it seems we could have toxic dispersant rain.”
In the Truthout article, I mentioned acid rain as a reason to be concerned that the toxicity of the oil and the dispersants could move inland. At the time, quite honestly I wanted the ramifications of that happening to remain a hypothetical nightmare. It would appear that this may be exactly what is happening, and the implications for our food and water supplies, our health and our lives are very, very bad.
In the jaw hanging open department, this is just a hop, skip and a jump from a certain oil disaster–couldn’t we maybe put the oil here, or at the very least, the top brass of BP, Halliburton and Transocean? Afterall, the oil is actually threatening our shores, unlike most if not all of the prisoners for life at Guantanamo?
“The cost of the marquee (at Guantanamo), along with a smaller sign positioned near the airfield: $188,000. Among other odd legacies from war-on-terror spending since 2001 for the troops at Guantanamo Bay: an abandoned volleyball court for $249,000, an unused go-kart track for $296,000 and $3.5 million for 27 playgrounds that are often vacant.”
Playgrounds??? For whom?
“The Pentagon also spent $683,000 to renovate a cafe that sells ice cream and Starbucks coffee, and $773,000 to remodel a cinder-block building to house a KFC/Taco Bell restaurant.
The spending is part of at least $500 million that has transformed what was once a sun-beaten and forgotten Caribbean base into one of the most secure military and prison installations in the world. That does not include construction bonuses, which typically run into the millions.
Also not included are annual operating costs of $150 million — double the amount for a comparable U.S. prison, according to the White House. Add in clandestine black-budget items, such as the top-secret Camp 7 prison for high-value detainees, aptly nicknamed Camp Platinum, and the post-Sept. 11, 2001, bill for the 45-square-mile base easily soars toward $2 billion…
Millions went to build artificial-turf football and baseball fields that professional players would envy, surrounded by a cluster of facilities, including a running track, a skate park, an outdoor roller hockey rink and batting cages.”
And while we pour millions down the Guantanamo hell hole, people in this country do not have jobs, they are losing their homes, cannot afford healthcare or education. But not to worry, we have a roller hockey rink at Guantanamo.
Lucinda Marshall is the author of the full-length poetry collection, Inheritance Of Aging Self (Finishing Line Press,2021) and is available for purchase from Finishing Line Press, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon. She is also a quilt, mixed media, and graphic design artist. For more information, please email LucindaMarshall @ lucindamarshall.com.
