Activist, Mother, and Voice of the Gulf People, Kindra Arnesen sat down with the Project Gulf Impact team, Matt Smith, Heather Rally, and Gavin Garrison recently to reveal shocking new information about the BP oil disaster and why the whole world should be paying attention to the Gulf. A must watch for anyone wanting new information on the Gulf of Mexico, she reveals shocking new information sure to send waves through the country.
Showing posts with label oil spill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oil spill. Show all posts
January 01, 2011
November 24, 2010
Like Water? Track the BP Oil Spill Aftermath Online
Like Water? Track the BP Oil Spill Aftermath Online
Organizations, facts - all at your fingertips.
Excellent organization on this page !!
October 22, 2010
Ok, where IS our outrage ??? After BP did the dirty deed(s)
6 Months Since BP Oil Spill, Writer and Environmentalist Terry Tempest Williams Asks "Where Is Our Outrage?"
From Democracy Now:
Six months ago, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and triggering the worst oil spill disaster in US history. More than 200 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf, polluting coastlines in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. To mark the six-month anniversary, we speak to acclaimed writer and environmentalist Terry Tempest Williams, who spent two weeks traveling the Gulf Coast this summer
.
Here is the rush transcript, the link will take you to the video ...
Six months ago, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and triggering the worst oil spill disaster in US history. More than 200 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf, polluting coastlines in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. To mark the six-month anniversary, we speak to acclaimed writer and environmentalist Terry Tempest Williams, who spent two weeks traveling the Gulf Coast this summer
.Here is the rush transcript, the link will take you to the video ...
JUAN GONZALEZ: Six months ago, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven workers and triggering the worst oil spill disaster in US history. The explosion leaked over 200 million gallons of oil, which is nearly five million barrels of oil, into the Gulf of Mexico and fouled coastlines in Louisiana, Missis
sippi, Alabama and Florida.
With the Macondo oil well now sealed, the spill is no longer in the headlines, and last week Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced that the Gulf was once again, quote, "open for business." But much of the oil that gushed out of the blown-out well remains dispersed deep under the sea, and scientists are still unclear about the long-term effects of both the oil and the chemical dispersant on marine ecosystems.
AMY GOODMAN: Six months since the spill, lawmakers have been slow to take action and the House’s spill response bill remains stalled in the Senate. On Wednesday, three environmental groups sued BP, accusing the British oil giant of violating the Endangered Species Act. The suit, brought by Defenders of Wildlife, Gulf Restoration Network and the Save the Manatee Club, notes that at least twenty-seven endangered or threatened animal species live in the Gulf region, including five species of endangered sea turtles and fou
r species of endangered whales.
In a moment, we’ll be speaking with the acclaimed writer and environmentalist Terry Tempest Wiliams, who spent two weeks traveling the Gulf Coast this summer. She has written an extended piece about the stories she heard on her visit to what she calls the world’s largest offshore oil disaster. Her piece is called "The Gulf B
etween Us," and it was published in the November/December issue of Orion magazine. She is the author of several books, including most recently Finding Beauty in a Broken World and The Open Space of Democracy. She’ll be joining us from Salt Lake City, Utah, after this break.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Terry Tempest Williams, writer, environmentalist. Her books include Finding Beauty in a Broken World and The Open Space of Democracy. Her latest piece in Orion magazine, an extended reflection on the BP oil spill, called "The Gulf Between Us."
Terry Tempest Williams, welcome to Democracy N
ow! from Salt Lake City. You went to the Gulf on this six-month anniversary. What are your reflections about what happened April 20th? I’ll never forget it because it was Earth Day.
TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS: That’s right. I think it changed all of us, who were paying attention. And, Amy, I just want to thank you for your program, first of all, that we can even have this conversation.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, thank you.
TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS: Reflections. It’s—yeah, you know, we hear that five million barrels of oil were released from the Macondo well. We know that [ 362] miles were oiled in four states, 400 species of animals threatened from this, 400 controlled burns that killed hundreds of sea turtles and untold numbers of dolphins and sea mammals. We’re told that it’s over, that the story is gone, as is the oil. And what I can tell you in reflecting over six months is that the oil is not gone. The people are still there, and they’re getting sicker and sicker.
And I just think it’s really important that, at this anniversary of six months, that we begin to really hear from the people on the ground. And that’s what my purpose was. You know, I have a pen. I’m a writer. I was home in Utah thinking, you know, what can I do? And I had to go. I had to see it for myself. So it was about ground truthing. It was about bearing witness. And I don’t think bearing witness is a passive act.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Terry Tempest Williams, this is an extraordinary piece, as you talk about and you relate basically the words of a variety of people on the ground. And I was struck by one particular passage, when you were interviewing a Margaret Curole, and she says to you, "Here’s the truth. Where are the animals? There’s no too-da-loos, the little one-armed fiddler crabs. Ya don’t hear birds. From Amelia to Alabama, Kevin never saw a fish jump, never heard a bird sing. This is their nestin’ season. Those babies, they’re not goin’ nowhere. We had a very small pod of sperm whales in the Gulf, nobody’s seen ‘em. Guys on the water say they died in the spill and their bodies were hacked up and taken away." And she goes on to say, "Fish are swimming in circles. Dolphins are choking on the surface. It’s ugly, I’m tellin’ you. And nobody’s talkin’ about it. You’re not hearing nothin’ about it. As far as the media is reportin’, everythin’s being cleaned up and it’s not a problem." Tell us about some of these—
TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS: That’s the power of Margaret Curole.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Yes. What about some of the other stories?
TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS: You know, what I love about the voices in this piece, the voices in the Gulf that I heard, the people in place, standing up, standing for their home ground, was exactly that kind of passion, that kind of truth telling.
Margaret Curole and her husband Kevin are Cajun. They’re shrimpers. And they talked about how there’s two alternatives in the Gulf: you either shrimp or you work in the oil fields. And, you know, I learned something from them. I have been against, you know, deepwater drilling, and they were talking about the moratorium, how it needs to be lifted so that people can eat. So, it was through Margaret that I really began to see the complexity of this situation.
I love her feistiness. She, with an artist friend, created on the beach at Grand Isle human bodies that spelled out messages, which they took pictures of and texted to Congress, to the governor, to BP executives, to everyone in power they could think of. The three messages laid out in bodies were "Never again," "Paradise lost" and "WTF." What I can tell you about Margaret is that she received calls from the BP claims department saying to back off. She was taken to lunch by two agents from Homeland Security. And this is serious. And she said, "They want me to shut up, and I will not."
Another story, she told us if we wanted great Cajun food—and that we couldn’t understand this story unless we ate—to go to Becky Duet’s deli in Galliano, which is where they’re from in southern Louisiana. We went to Becky Duet’s deli, called Jordan’s, named after her son. It was 10:00 at night. The lights were still on. We walked in. She said, "The grill is closed." And then she proceeded to tell stories, that in Cajun country they’ve always viewed themselves as rich, that the bounty is from the waters, that as long as you had rice, beans and bread and had a chicken neck that you could throw into the bayou, you were wealthy. Just a few weeks ago, I received a note from Becky, who’s become a good friend. She said, "We’re starving, Terry. There are no fish in the waters. And any fish we would see, we would not eat."
These are the stories that are coming out of the Gulf. These are the stories that we’re not hearing from the media. I think about a group of women in gated communities in Alabama, just off of Mobile Bay, Orange Beach. These women took the situation into their own hands, because no one was responding. They had water samples taken, four, from very wealthy areas. The fourth one on Dauphin Island blew up and was deemed inconclusive. These women—Robin Young, a captain, Lori DeAngelis and her husband Mike—their blood tests came back high in cadmium and benzene. They’ve had chemically induced pneumonia. These are the stories, again, that we’re not hearing.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Terry Tempest Williams, writer and environmentalist. Her latest piece is in Orion magazine, called "The Gulf Between Us: Stories of Terror and Beauty from the World’s Largest Accidental Offshore Oil Disaster." Terry, tell us about Jerry Cope and Fish Camp Landing, the gated community in Orange Beach, Alabama.
TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS: Yeah, those were the women I was referring to. I met Jerry in March of 2009 at the climate action in Washington, DC. I call him a guerrilla journalist. While I was down there, he was there also with Charles Hambleton, one of the producers and members of the crew that you see in the film The Cove. They had heard about the bodies of dolphins being taken to dumps, refrigerated to Mexico. They wanted to do an investigative witnessing, if these stories were true. Jerry, in the three weeks that he was out on the Gulf, he also came down with chemical-induced pneumonia, ended up meeting these activists, these women in the gated community, and Robin Young among them, who started this organization called Guardians of the Gulf. It was there that he really saw on the ground, as did I, you know, what the situation is. These women were calling, as I said, for water samples, air samples, blood tests, to really show the seriousness of the public health issues. And again, these are the stories that we’re not hearing—upper respiratory disease, lots of skin infection, rashes.
When I was there, they were having to drain the swimming pools, because children were being sick. And, Amy, it just—it made you sick. You’d go down to Gulf Shores, and here were these seemingly pristine beaches, this Corexit green, this ungodly color, women, mothers, you know, overburdened, 110-degree heat. Their children were playing in the waves. It was like there was no connection between what was in the water and what was seeping into their children’s skin. I mean, the stories are heartbreaking.
We walked down the beach several miles to the Gulf Island National Seashore, again what seemed to be white pristine beaches. There had just been a thunderstorm. It was this eerie color of the water again. You half-expected the water to burst into flames with lightning strikes. Just then, a BP bus pulled up. Thirty workers, some of them in hazmat suits. We started talking to them, saying, "Well, it doesn’t look like there’s oil here." Two of the workers, African American men in their twenties, smiled and said, "Can we tell you that we just took out 2,000 pounds last night? We work from dusk to dawn under the cover of darkness."
JUAN GONZALEZ: You also talk about what’s—
TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS: That’s a ton of oil—I was just going to say that was a ton of oil taken out in a 100-yard swatch. Again, these are the stories we’re not hearing. I just talked to Robin yesterday, and she was saying that five minutes she had tar balls the size of baseballs. And, you know, you go down a foot, and that’s where the oil still remains.
JUAN GONZALEZ: You also talk about those workers and the boat captains that are still working for BP and some of the illnesses that they’re being exposed to, and also that their clothes are being confiscated while at same time BP is telling them that they probably just have dermatitis?
TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS: That’s right. The doctors don’t even know how to treat these diseases that are coming forward. Mike DeAngelis, married to Lori, both of them are captains. Lori runs a dolphin education cruise. She hasn’t been able to go out, because their boats have been registered for Vessels of Opportunity, because they needed the money, quite frankly. You know, these are people that are working-class people. Mike, as a captain, when they registered their boat, was getting paid $1,200 a day, $200 for extra crew members. And what were they doing? Nothing. There was a joke around the Gulf that you’re on BP time: being paid for doing nothing.
One of the most moving stories was really flying with a barefoot pilot named Tom Hutchings. In the American Southwest, we would call him a coyote. Again, an activist, he was taking people, as a volunteer for SouthWings, anyone who would go with him, to fly over the Macondo well site. We went with him on Day 100. Upper right-hand corner of the New York Times, you know, remember the article that said most of the oil is gone, 80 percent. You remember a week later, Carole Browner of the Obama administration said 75 percent gone, poof, Mother Nature is doing her job. What I can tell you is that as we flew out to the Gulf to what they call "the source" to see the Deepwater Horizon rigs, for as far as we could see, for as wide as we could see, for as long as we could bear it, oil. All we could see was oil. I mean, it’s just—I wonder, where is our outrage? And I was saying to Tom, this brilliant pilot, you know, that must have made twenty, thirty, forty flights at his own expense, "Why isn’t this story being told?" And he was saying that most of what we’ve heard has been shore-based knowledge. I mean, there were rivers of oil as wide as the Mississippi itself. Stunning. When I asked him what has stayed in his mind most in terms of his witnessing, he said that when they were burning the oil off the surface of the sea, he remembers on the edge of the flames seeing a pod of dolphins, side by side by side by side, watching, simply watching the ocean burn.
I think the other untold story are the dispersants. We know, thanks to Congressman Markey from Massachusetts, that after the EPA said, "Please, please," to BP, "find another dispersant that is less toxic," what we know now is that our Coast Guard, the United States Coast Guard, gave BP seventy-four exceptions in forty-eight days. And that’s the untold story. And I think that’s where so much of this illness is rising from. And we hear from the scientists, two inches of oil on the bottom of the sea. The scientist Samantha Joye said it’s a "graveyard for the macrofauna" and that the Gulf is dying from the bottom up. And again, that’s what I wanted to see, is what are the stories from the ground up, from the people who live there? Again, witness is not a passive act.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And as you mention, this is not just a regional catastrophe, but this fall a billion birds will migrate from, of course, North America through the Gulf of Mexico and the area, and the impact could then obviously spread for the bird population throughout the hemisphere.
TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS: That’s correct. And as we speak, as you say, a billion birds migrating through the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi Delta sees 70 percent of our waterfowl. You know, I think that’s the other untold story that touched me so deeply, was the beauty. It’s still there, against all odds. The Gulf is still there. And you fly over and see these beautiful islands, these islands beaded with birds, pelicans, skimmers—the feathered skimmers, not the boats—piping plovers, who are endangered. You know, we’d fly over and see, you know, these extraordinary manta rays, twenty-five-foot wing span, 3,000 pounds, looking like black angels on the turquoise water. It’s such an extraordinary landscape. I had no idea. And I think what’s interesting—and I do have faith in Obama’s commission, that’s saying, let’s look not at the protection of putting more levees, more canals, that cut up the system, the ecosystem, but let’s think about, really, restoration, even a full restoration project of the Mississippi Delta, the Mississippi River itself. And that’s where I see the hope.
AMY GOODMAN: Terry Tempest Williams, we want to thank you very much for being with us, writer, environmentalist. Her books include Finding Beauty in a Broken World and The Open Space of Democracy. Her latest piece was just published in Orion magazine on the six-month anniversary of the Gulf oil spill. It’s called "The Gulf Between Us." She was speaking to us from Salt Lake City, Utah.
December 10, 2007
S. Korea has a Big OIL spill (surprise, surprise)
South Korea Clea ns Up Big Oil Spill
Han Myung-gu/World Picture Network
An oil slick has been washing up since Saturday along a 12-mile-long shore of South Korea’s west coast. Strong tides hampered the cleanup efforts of thousands of volunteers over the weekend. More Photos >
SEOUL, South Korea, Dec. 9 — Thousands of fishermen, soldiers and volunteers struggled on Sunday to clean up an oil spill that has caused an environmental disaster in South Korea. It has blackened once scenic beaches, coated birds and oysters in sludge and driven away tourists with its stomach-churning stench.
Multimedia 
Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
Some 7,000 people have been mobilized to cope with the worst oil spill in South Korea’s history, including these workers in Taean. More Photos >
But the 7,000 people mobilized were too few to clean up the oil slick, which has been washing up since Saturday along a 12-mile-long shoreline of the nation’s west coast. Strong tides, which dragged the sludge before pushing it ashore again, hampered the cleanup operations by villagers, who complained of headaches and nausea from the stench.
The oil spill occurred Friday when the steel wire linking a tugboat to a barge carrying a crane snapped in stormy seas. The barge lurched toward the Hebei Spirit, a Hong Kong-registered oil tanker, which was at anchor, and punched three holes into its hull.
The spill came a week after the South Korean port town of Yosu won the right to be the host in 2012 for an international event called Expo. Bidding for the event, South Korea championed the theme of “the living ocean and coast,” a slogan it hoped would bolster environmental awareness in Asia.
The size of the oil spill was about one-fourth that of the 260,000 barrels, or 11 million gallons, leaked into Prince William Sound off Alaska from the Exxon Valdez in 1989. It was twice as big as a spill off South Korea in 1995 that cost $101 million in damages to fishermen and required a cleanup operation that took months.
By Sunday, it became clear to local residents that they were battling an environmental disaster. The tidal flats near Taean County, about 95 miles southwest of Seoul, are home to rich wildlife, oysters and fish farms, and a national park. Each year, millions of tourists flock there to bathe in the summer or watch migrating birds stop to feed in the muddy flats teeming with clams. About 64,000 people live in Taean.
“Everyone is out there fighting — there is so much oil we have to use buckets to scoop it up,”Moon Hong-chol, a resident in the village of Wonbuk in Taean, said by telephone.
“The dark brown slime is all over our oyster and abalone and clam beds. Tourists are canceling resort reservations. I think we are finished.”
The provincial government appealed to people to donate used clothes for soldiers who were collecting the sludge in the freezing cold.
The central government declared a state of disaster, which makes it easier for regional governments to mobilize personnel and equipment.
Neither ship involved in the spill was in danger of sinking, and there were no casualties. But the tanker spilled an estimated 10,500 tons, or 2.8 million gallons, of crude oil before the last of the three holes was plugged Sunday.
“The worst is over in that there is no more spill,”said Ryu Young, a coast guard official in Taean.
“We are doing our best to contain as much of the slick as possible before it reaches the shore.”
The 147,000-ton Hebei Spirit was five miles off the coast at the time of the collision, waiting to unload its 1.8 million barrels of crude oil at a nearby port.
The barge belonged to Samsung Heavy Industries, a shipbuilder affiliated with the Samsung conglomerate. The police were questioning officials of the company, as well as the crews of the barge and the tanker, the Yonhap news agency reported.
Kang Moo-hyun, minister of maritime affairs and fisheries, said Sunday that it would take at least two months to complete the cleanup.
“The oil stuck to the shore or sank to the sea bottom, causing serious damage to the maritime biology and ecosystem in the region,”Mr. Kang said.
“Even if some maritime organisms survive, they won’t be marketable for quite a while.”
Coast guard vessels hurried to establish floating oil fences, but high waves left them useless. Offshore, 105 coast guard, navy and private fishing boats were throwing absorbing cloth and spraying chemicals, as oil continued to zigzag toward the shore, where people wearing rubber gloves and masks spread out with mats to absorb oil.
“All day, people have been scrubbing boulders coated with oil and scooping up sand soaked with oil,” said Lee Hyun-jin, a resident in the village of Sowon in Taean. “But now they are retreating because the sea is in high tide again. We feel hopelessly outnumbered.”
Kim Eun-young, in the nearby village of Yiwon, said:
“This morning, we found clumps of oil floating like ugly pan-fried cakes. They retreated with the tide and now are coming back again.”
“This is getting worse, and we have 260 villagers out there today with buckets, cans and whatnot, compared with 57 yesterday,”Ms. Kim added.
Environmental Recovery of Oil Spill Needs at Least 12 Years
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
Full recovery of the marine ecological system from the nation's worst oil spill at Taean, South Chungcheong Province, will need at least 12 years, a marine expert said Monday.
Prof. Lee Jae-hak, director of the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute, said because the West Sea is blocked on west, east and north side, the current circulation is not fast enough and it may take more than 12 years to make a full recovery. He also said that the coast of China could be affected.
Although visible oil may seem to be contained, the aftermath of the contamination will destroy the environment and ecological system, experts said.
The oil that soaked into the sand, pebbles and tidal land will remain without being dissolved and will seep out occasionally. Also, oil left inside the sea will kill plankton, fish eggs and microscopic creatures first. When these die off, the food chain will be disrupted.
Prof. Kim Sang-jin, another professor of the institute, said in the sea off Yeosu in Jeolla Province, where the Sea Prince spilled 5,000 tons of crude and fuel oil back in 1995, oil can still be found stuck on seashells and in the sand. He said due to the spill, the amount of seaweed decreased as did the fish and shellfish eating it.
``The sea off Alaska where the Exxon Valdez leaked oil in 1989 is still reported to be contaminated with oil, and Taean will be no exception,'' he added.
At the moment, alongside the 40 kilometer-seashore of Taean, there is an oil slick 10-30 meters in width. The government said a mere 5 percent of the 10,500 tons of leaked oil has been contained.
The beaches are covered by the oil slick and cormorants, grebes and other birds and creatures are being found dead after being suffocated by it. More than 440 oyster and abalone farms have reportedly lost all their products and migratory birds that visit the area will be affected by the contamination, too, experts said.
Natural Treasure No. 431, Shinduri Dune, was saturated and environmental activists fear that Taean Seashore National Park, one of the world's five largest tidal lands, may be destroyed.
Also, another concern is the use of emulsifier. The government has already used more than 34,000 liters of it out at sea, and though it dissolves the oil into smaller particles, it kills seaweed and causes whitening, Choi Ye-yong of the Korean Federation for Environmental Movements said.
bjs@koreatimes.co.kr
| MARITIME OIL SPILLS July 1979 - Greek tanker Atlantic Express spilled 287,000 tons off Trinidad and Tobago March 1978 - Amoco Cadiz spilled 223,000 tons off Brittany, France November 2002 - Greek-owned Prestige spilled 77,000 tons off Galicia, Spain March 1989 - Exxon Valdez spilled 37,000 tons in Prince William Sound, Alaska, US December 2007 Hebei Spirit spills 10,000 tons off S Korea's west coast |
 The Age | Smell, tides hamper oil cleanup in S. Korea San Jose Mercury News, USA - The tidal flats near Taean County, about 95 miles southwest of Seoul, are home to rich wildlife, oysters and fish farms, and a national park. ... Korean oil spill threatens marine farms S. Korea Expected to Declare Oil Spill Coastline a Disaster Area South Korea fights huge oil spill |
 Boston Globe | S. Korean wildlife, livelihoods being choked by spill Toronto Star, Canada - For Chung and others in Taean County, 160 kilometres southwest of Seoul, the pollution shattered lives and livelihoods. South Korea declared a "state of ... Oil spill hits small businesses in region South Korean Spill Hits Seafood Industry Workers no match for vast oil slick |
 Korea Times | Oil Spill Devastates Korean Coast Chosun Ilbo, South Korea - The slick from an oil spill in the waters off Taean, South Chungcheong Province rapidly reached the nearby coastline with devastating effects. ... Environmental Recovery of Oil Spill Needs at Least 12 Years Oil Blankets West Coastal Line Koreaë© Worst Oil Spill Ever |
South Korean Oil Spill Ruins Seafood Farms Donga.com, South Korea - According to authorities, the oil leak now stretches 2100ha as of yesterday, devastating aquatic farms and six beach resorts in Taean County and beyond. ... |
South Korea fights worst-ever oil spill Christian Science Monitor, MA - But now they are retreating because the sea is in high tide again," said Lee Hyun Jin, a resident in Sowon village in Taean. "We feel hopelessly outnumbered ... |
 PRESS TV | S Korea trying to clean up oil spill PRESS TV, Iran - The Hebei Spirit tanker was about eight kilometers north west of the Taean peninsula, which is 110 kilometres south-west of Seoul, waiting to enter the port ... |
 AFP | Volunteers struggle to save the beach that turned black AFP - Marine farmers around Taean county, 90 kilometres southwest of Seoul, were also in shock. At Uihangri village, where 150 farms are located, ... |
Cleaning up of leaked oil Yonhap News, South Korea - 9, TAEAN, South Korea -- Volunteer workers pour oil into a plastic jar to clean up the oil flown to the seaside of Taean on the west coast of South Korea on ... |
Reuters Canada, Canada -
... South Korea's maritime ministry said on Friday. The Hong Kong-registered Hebei Spirit was struck while at anchor off Daesan port in the Taean region on ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
