“If you’re getting sick, it’s because you’re being poisoned,” he said. “Those chemicals can cause cancer 20 years down the line and that’s why Riki Ott is saying some areas have to be evacuated. That’s true. We don’t know how bad it is because the EPA is not doing adequate air testing. They’re taking some measurements so they can tell the public that everything is safe [when in fact the public has] an increased risk of getting cancer and dying early. They’re pawns in a money game.”

“It’s all about money,” says Kaufman. “Follow the money.”

We’ve previously told you about Dr. Riki Ott here on CTGN. She continues her work on the Gulf Coast, putting her own health at risk, to help educate the public and drive them to demand more and create change:

She says the culprit is almost two million gallons of Corexit, the dispersant BP is using to break up and hide the oil below the ocean’s surface. “It’s an industrial solvent. It’s a degreaser. It’s chewing up boat engines off-shore. It’s chewing up dive gear on-shore. Of course it’s chewing up people’s skin. The doctors are saying the solvents are making the oil worse.”

“People don’t have the information to know that the burning sore throat is actually chemical poisoning,” she said. “And this isn’t getting any attention, but it’s very important. There are no vaccinations for chemical poisoning. None.”

“If I were in charge of the media, I would be talking be about public safety and public health every day. They should also be exposing the truth about how our federal standards are outdated and no longer protective of public health or worker safety. We knew in 1989 that OSHA had a loophole in it that’s big enough to drive every single sick worker through. It exempts the reporting of colds and flues. That loophole has not been closed since Exxon Valdez.”

Oh how we wish Dr. Ott were in charge of the media. What it would be like to be told the truth, and to focus on issues that matter, rather than on what Lindsey Lohan is doing today! Speaking on her We The People platform Ott continues to advocate for grassroots, citizen-driven change:

Ott expressed her concerns during a May meeting with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson. “I was sitting across from her. She said, quote, ‘I am walking a fine line between truth and hysteria. We don’t want to create a panic.’ This shows you how much our government is beholden to oil and cannot imagine a future without oil. We the people have got to imagine this. We have to. This is way worse than people think.”

Former shrimper Dianne Watson issues a beautiful call to action:

“This is a crisis. If this oil gusher does not move people to force a change in Washington, then it will never happen. We are seeing the end of the United States as we know it. If people hold their planet dear, they better be out there. Folks are too well behaved. We need to be unreasonable.”

If YOU are ready to be unreasonable, step up and take personal responsibility, and do your part to restore our nation and heal our planet, join Dr. Riki Ott, keynote speaker for the Spill Into Washington DC Rally Labor Day Weekend (Sept 4 & 5 at The Ellipse in DC), for an even that will change the course of our nation. It’s time we unite in ONE VOICE and start taking care of ourselves, our friends, our neighbors… each other.

The careless and haphazard title which author Elizabeth Weise assigned to the story? “Dispersants don’t SEEM to disrupt marine life.” If you’ll excuse me for one moment here, I’m going to have to call BULLSH*T.

First, as outlined by Dr. Chris Pincetich, the EPA study cutoff values are 96 hours. This means if an organism has a heart rate of 1 beat/minute at hour 96, it is considered to have “no effect”, even if it dies at hour 97. In one test… the pesticides that killed no fish at 96 hours (the EPA deadline), had killed 90% of those fish two weeks later.

Next, as I have already submitted to the EPA many times, this review of 450 scientific articles spanning 11 years, studying dispersant use in oil spills disagrees with EPA’s pathetic attempt at 4 weeks worth of (time-buying) studies. The data has BEEN here all along.

Finally, EPA’s own internal whistleblower tells the public that EPA is in the midst of a massive cover up, lying and misleading about dispersant data from day one. I am most disappointed that any respected publication would give credence to this PR attempt from the EPA without doing more research on the matter, but not nearly as disappointed as I am to know how my tax dollars are being wasted on federal agencies that are NOT doing their jobs!

In fact, I move that Hugh Kaufman be immediately moved into the Administrative position, since he seems to be the ONLY person anywhere near the EPA that cares more about the people than money. Kaufman has a lot of moxie speaking out, but it’s nice to have confirmation of what we’ve suspected (known) all along. The EPA is essentially worthless when it comes to doing the job it was created to do, and should be disbanded and reassembled, under the guidance of Hugh Kaufman.

An Environmental Protection Agency staff member is accusing his employer of being coy when it comes to dispersant use in the Gulf. Career whistleblower Hugh Kaufman says EPA officials know that the chemicals present a threat to public health and the Gulf ecosystem and should be banned; they just don’t want to say so.

Kaufman, a senior policy analyst in the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, alleges that agency administrator Lisa Jackson sidestepped the issue last week in her answers to questions about whether the agency has the authority to call off use of dispersants in the Gulf. The agency, he says, is deliberately downplaying the threat—and its own role in regulating the chemicals—to protect itself from liability and keep the public from getting too alarmed.

This is far from the first time Kaufman has raised concerns about the EPA’s handling of a major national disaster. In fact, he has been blowing whistles on the EPA since he began working there in 1971, just a few months after it was founded. He criticized the Carter administration’s handling of hazardous waste issues, including the infamous Love Canal example in the late 1970s and is credited with spurring the formation of the Superfund program. In 1982 he went after the Reagan administration for not enforcing laws on hazardous waste and toxic chemicals as well, and helped send deputy EPA administrator Rita Lavelle to jail for perjury in 1983. The 2002 book Whistleblowing includes an entire section on Kaufman.

The article goes on to tell how Kaufman exposed the EPA’s cover up of actual air quality following the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11.

“What’s going on in the Gulf is the same cover up that was going with the 9/11 environmental issue,” said Kaufman. “The Bush White House ordered EPA to lie about the environmental and public health situation at the World Trade Center because of economic ramifications. So they did.”

“I’ve been through this before,” he continued. “It was the same kind of crap.”

Lest you think Kaufman must have a bone to pick with his employer:

But Kaufman is not alone in his concern. According to Ruch, at least 10 other EPA staffers, including several toxicologists, have come to PEER to raise concerns about dispersants and other health problems in the Gulf, claiming that their superiors at the agency are not doing due diligence when it comes to dispersants. “[EPA] appears to be making decisions at the behest of BP and not exercising much, if any, independent judgment,” says Ruch.

You should read the entire article. It goes on to talk about the hearings last week when Lisa Jackson was apparently “blindsided” by a question about EPA’s actual authority. If you are Administrator of the EPA and you do not know the bounds of your authority off the top of your head, you are either an idiot undeserving of your position or you are a liar. For either reason, Jackson does not belong in that role and should be removed immediately.

From the next paragraph from the story, I can tell you this EPA claim is a blatant lie. I know that it is, because MANY times I sent copies of my full scientific literature review of 450 articles spanning 11 years on dispersant use in oil spills to Lisa Jackson and the EPA. One after another state that dispersants make the oil more toxic and the effect on the marine life significantly worse. See for yourself. But then the data was out there, I shouldn’t have had to do the EPA’s job for them. So the fact that I did and they STILL ignored it is certainly indicative of the claims Kaufman is making here.

Jackson says that her agency is concerned about the dispersants, but it’s not going to force BP to stop using the chemicals because the agency believes they are still safer than the oil itself. “The number one enemy is the oil,” Jackson said a May 24 press conference. Yet she has said repeatedly that the EPA didn’t know enough about the long-term impacts of the chemicals to ban them. “With the use of dispersants, we are faced with environmental trade-offs,” Jackson told the panel last week. “The long term effects on aquatic life are largely unknown.”

But Kaufman says you can’t have it both ways—either you know it’s safe enough to say it’s better than the oil, or you don’t know enough. “They’re admitting they have the evidence to make a balancing test,” says Kaufman. “If they have the evidence, then why testify they don’t? Which way is it?” He says there is more than enough evidence, between a 2005 National Academy of Sciences study and the warnings that come with the dispersant productsto show that they’re problematic.

Despite his long history of griping about the EPA, Kaufman says his criticism of the agency is nothing personal. “I’m not partisan,” he says. “I just want an honest EPA because I was there when we formed it 40 years ago.”

A quick overview of toxicity. This will help put the numbers in the video in perspective. By most scientists we found, the level considered toxic for oil is 11ppm. BP’s oil dispersant Corexit is known to be toxic at 2.61ppm, making it one of the most toxic dispersants on EPA’s list, and is known to make the oil much more toxic. Here is a fantastic explanation of toxicity levels related to oil and dispersants. An excerpt:

Of course, I realize, that comparing lethal concentrations is not straightforward. The results differ by species and by time as well as by amount of poison, The EPA numbers for Corexit 9500 (the formula used most heavily by BP) show that at 2.62 ppm, the dispersant kills half the silver fish in 96 hours/ four days. At a slightly higher concentration – 3.4 ppm – the compound kills half the little shrimp in two days.

This suggests that crude oil is less acutely poisonous than chemical dispersants. But here’s the really interesting finding in that terrific little study. Adding a dispersant – specifically Corexit 9500 – made the oil more poisonous. A lot more poisonous.

In this LSU thesis we see a more detailed look at the toxicity levels of South Louisiana Crude (SLC):

The mean 96-h HC LC50 of SLC and ANSC were 6.49 ppm and 6.59 ppm for white shrimp and 8.30 ppm and 7.67 ppm for Gulf killifish, respectively.

TRANSLATION: After 96 hours, South Louisiana Crude (SLC) killed half the shrimp in this LSU study, at a concentration of just 6.59ppm. That’s the level for SLC alone, BEFORE Corexit is added.

From a conservative standpoint we are safe to start with 11ppm for the toxic level of oil alone. However, we all know what’s in the Gulf of Mexico is NOT just oil, but rather oil plus a couple million gallons of Corexit. Again I maintain (even if no one else will say it) beaches should be closed in the interest of public health and safety, until the oil is cleaned up and thorough testing has been conducted and all chemicals in oil AND Corexit are found to be well below the toxic levels.

WKRG.com News

SUMMARY OF OIL TESTING RESULTS:

1. Katrina Key: water sample – 16ppm
2. Orange Beach: beach water, near shore – 29ppm
3. Gulf Shores: sand collected beneath a group of kids playing – 51ppm
4. Gulf Shores: beach water, near shore – 66ppm
5. Gulf Shores: beach sand – 211 ppm
6. Orange Beach: water from a sand hole where kids were playing – 221ppm
7. Dauphin Island Marina: water sample – Not Obtainable: Sample Exploded. Chemist hypothesized due to: ethanol, methane or Corexit
   

Many thanks to Michelle Nix for helping track down the information people have been looking for since this whole mess started.

Nyman’s study shows these two forms of Corexit cut the marine life survival rate in half over South Louisiana Crude alone. Combine this, with the review of 450 scientific articles spanning 11 years posted here and you have to wonder why the EPA is claiming its 4 weeks of studies are better than all the existing scientific data that disagree.

Remember we told you how the EPA study had cutoff values of 96 hours? If an organism had a heart rate of 1 beat per minute at hour 96 it was listed as having “no effect”, and if it died in hour 97, it still was STILL listed as “no effect” by the dispersant. Do you see where EPA protocol might be a real problem in terms of real world application??

A better question we should all be asking is: Why is the EPA backing BP’s unprecedented use of this deadly neurotoxin, which it KNOWS from existing data makes the oil more toxic and will do more long term damage than the oil alone?

In fairness, the EPA did “suggest” BP reduce its use of the dispersant. But USCG picked up where EPA left off and has granted nearly every exception BP has filed to increase dispersant use since EPA’s initial suggestion.

Don’t miss this excellent article from Truthout on dispersant use in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We’re funding both sides of the war on terror.”

“The only way we are gonna save the environment is if we restore democracy in our country and not let this country turn into a corporate plutocracy run by corporate elites inside the beltway, and instead democratize our energy systems so EVERY American is making a profit, and EVERY American has an opportunity to turn their home into a power plant, and turn themselves into an energy entrepreneur and power this country on our intellectual and entrepreneurial energies rather than on mid-eastern carbon.”

Another section I felt was worth transcribing:

“People say the Kyoto agreement will make us less competitive. This is insane! How’s it going to make us less competitive if we’re more efficient and if we’re energy independent? It’s going to make us MORE competitive. And the Chinese know this. The Chinese are now spending more on wind and solar than they are their military. These ‘narcissistic hacks’ who are running our Congress are arguing today about a bill that would increase wind deployment by 37% by 2020. The Chinese already commited to increase their wind deployment by 20,000% by 2020. They are flooding our country with wind and solar equipment and they intend to dominate this market. If we’re not careful… if they continue to guide us down this road… we’re gonna spend the next 100 years dependent on Chinese wind and solar technology. Is that where we want to go??”

“How many oil spills can we endure?”  Indeed, how many… We must reach a higher level of consciousness as a people to save our planet. We force change with our wallets. We do so by coming together and punishing bad behavior (inefficiency and waste) from government and big business, and rewarding good behavior (efficiency).

When I was home a few weeks ago I drove that route several times and noticed the facility in this video. I noticed no matter what time of day it was (4 a.m. on Sunday morning or midnight on a Tuesday night) there were lines of trucks in and out of that facility. I don’t know if they are dumping there, or using that as a temporary holding facility, but no doubt what you see in this video is accurate.

Disclaimer: Any facts that are mis-stated should be attributed to me, the note-taker who was jotting down things as fast as I could, and certainly not to the speakers, Dr. Ott and Dr. Picou, both who are brilliant, wonderful invididuals who have only the Gulf of Mexico, and the Gulf Coast communities best interests at heart.

On July 6, 2010 — Day 77 of the Gulf Crisis — Dr. Steven Picou, Professor of Sociology at University of South Alabama and Dr. Riki Ott, marine toxicologist and foremost authority of the Exxon Valdez disaster spoke to a group of people from Mobile and Baldwin Counties at Alabama Delta Resource Center.

An interesting and almost unbelievable note is that Riki Ott and Steven Picou became close friends after the Exxon Valdez incident. Dr. Picou left Mobile and spent a lot of time in Alaska conducting research about the social impact the oil spill had on residents. Riki Ott said, “Steven was there to help my people, and now I’ve come to help his people.” Such is a bitter-sweet twist of fate.

Dr. Picou opened the meeting by speaking about what we can expect from the social impact, and how the cleanup efforts will be more destructive than the oil spill itself. He referred to PTSD — Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. He and Dr. Ott agreed that the BP disaster is the Exxon Valdez in fast forward mode, that everything is unfolding at a much faster rate. In Alaska, the first suicide took place 4 years after the spill. The Gulf Coast experienced its first suicide (the charter boat captain at Gulf Shores, AL) on Day 65.

Dr. Picou diagrammed how the loss of social capital emerges into a corrosive community. We have already witnessed the loss of trust in BP, and then the loss of trust in the federal government, then it dribbled down to the state government. (The newspapers and media are quoting leaders on the local government level as having lost trust in the state government.) When the only trust in government the community retains is for government at the local level, Dr. Picou warned that, too, will soon fade (and it already is). This downward spiral will continue until citizens turn against other citizens, then family members against each other. (Already, in the last 4 weeks, the hard-hit fishing community of Bayou La Batre, AL has witnessed a 50% crime rate increase.) Not only in Bayou La Batre, but everywhere that is directly affected, we’re seeing what some are calling the “spillionaires” and what one member in the audience called the “BP Whores.” In other words, BP picks and chooses who will work for them. One unemployed fishermen gets to participate in the Vessels of Opportunity program (skimming, laying boom, etc.) while his/her neighbor’s boat sits idle, and the owner faces bankruptcy in less than a handful of months.

(Note from Jen: I spoke with an occupational safety expert who worked Exxon Valdez. He told me that Exxon placed “moles” in the community there to find the families who were feuding with each other, and then stoked the flames by hiring from one family and not the other. BP is doing the same. They are pitting us against each other because as long as they can keep us fighting amongst ourselves, we cannot see clearly enough to unite and fight with them. DO NOT ALLOW THIS TO CONTINUE. SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING AND CHANGE IT!)

“This is not a 100-meter dash we’re running. This is a marathon. And we haven’t even run the first lap, yet.”

Riki Ott describes the oil as an amoeba — it’s constantly moving, yawning, stretching, growing. It’s an evolving monster and we are under siege by it.

“The Exxon Valdez incident directly impacted the lives of 22,000 people. The BP Oil Spill will directly impact the lives of 30 million people.”

Dr. Ott — “When BP says that we will make you whole again, what they are really saying is that we’ll see you in court.” Nineteen years after the Exxon Valdez, Exxon ended up paying 10 cents on the dollar for every claim filed. The law that is written holding oil companies responsible does not include: devaluation of property, or symptoms that are related to cold, cough or flu. This is the loop-hole that will get BP out of this. The toxins will attack our respiratory tracts, leaving long-term damage, yet because “cough” is excluded, BP will end up having to pay very few medical claims.

Dr. Ott said that we are in a democracy crisis, that she thought it was bad during the Exxon Valdez, that Exxon was aggressive and the U.S. government was passive, but what she is seeing here is much worse. BP is much more aggressive than Exxon ever was in that it is calling all the shots in the clean-up effort and has seized control of the media and censorship, even down to seizing control of no-fly zones. She said that if the U.S. government was passive during the Exxon Valdez, they are, for all intents and purposes, non-existent during the Gulf crisis.

She said that one EPA whistle-blower had once stated that the South was the region of the country to which EPA formulated one extreme end of the spectrum for its “tolerance” test, i.e. how much people would take before they began to scream in protest. She said that Southerners are known to be more docile, accepting and respectful of authority, that it’s the way we’re raised — a part of the “southern hospitality” package. With a twinkle in her eye, Dr. Ott said, “But just what if the South were to rise again!”

She came to the Gulf Coast May 3. What she witnessed caused even her to relapse into post-traumatic stress syndrome. She had to get away, if only for a few days. Memorial Day weekend she decided to fly back home to Alaska for a few days. She got as far as Seattle airport, turned around and came back. She knows what it is like, and for the time being, she isn’t leaving us.

She stressed that the government doesn’t have, nor will they ever have a Plan B. We, The People, must come up with a Plan B if we are to get through this. The killing will not stop with the spill. The killing of marine life goes on and on. The 4th year after the Exxon Valdez was when Alaska suffered the most. By that time, they knew the red herring population was gone forever. That was when the suicides began, starting with their very own mayor, who up until that point had been a courageous leader. 21 years later, the red herring is still absent in their waters, and they have no hope it will ever come back, at least not in our lifetimes. The Gulf will have many species of marine life that won’t survive this, and which will never come back. We need to prepare ourselves for this inevitability.

Four years after the Exxon Valdez, the media was gone, no attention given to their dying communities, their dead wildlife and their sick and dying residents. She told us a story of how in a call of desperation, the community took all the fishing boats and every recreational boat available and blockaded the oil tankers from coming in to gather the oil from the pipeline. The FBI was called in, but they only got as far as Valdez, because the residents had every single boat in the water forming the blockade. They held the blockade for 3 days. Finally, the president called and said, “Okay, let’s hear what these fishermen have to say, what they want.” She warned that this is what will happen along the Gulf Coast. The rest of the world will forget about the sensationalism of the oil spill, while we witness the slow death of everything, both animal and human. We will be left alone to survive the economic, ecologic and human damage.

The three methods used by Exxon in 1989 that didn’t work then, yet 21 years later BP is using these same tactics: Boom, Berms, and Dispersants.

Corexit is TOXIC. It is the equivalent of an industrial solvent. She said if you have to wonder how toxic it is, how toxic our waters are, look to how the propellers are being eaten off of the boats in the clean-up effort. Corexit has been proven to kill human babies in the womb, to destroy marine life, and is banned in almost every country in the world (including Great Britain) yet EPA has been powerless to stop BP from pumping millions of gallons of this toxin into the Gulf. Dr. Ott explained why EPA has been powerless. The laws were written 50 years ago. We must demand through pro-active measures that EPA amends its NCP product list to de-list this toxic agent.

During the Exxon Valdez spill, Corexit was used by Exxon. Exxon owned the production of Corexit at the time.

Guess who owns Corexit now? You got it — BP

Dr. Ott says it is rumored in high circles that BP has almost exhausted the world’s stockpile of Corexit. THAT is how much they’ve already pumped into the Gulf of Mexico. She thinks that after all of this is said and done, and the world witnesses the far-reaching damage from this toxic agent, Corexit will never be manufactured again. Unfortunately, our Gulf will have been offered up in sacrifice by that time.

Five components of oil (all of them toxic):

1. Tar balls — and don’t let anyone tell you they are harmless because they aren’t. They are congealed oil, and in the heat of the Gulf Coast, they are baking under the sun and becoming even more toxic all the time.
2. Oil mousse
3. Dissolved oil and dispersants — this is the “invisible” oil. We don’t see it, but it is there.
4. Sheen — and this includes the “orange water” that is produced from the dispersants and is so very toxic
5. Air — 92% of oil will go up and down from the surface in ultra-fine particles, rising in the air, forming in the clouds, coming back to us in the form of rain, then going back into the water again.

For humans on the Gulf Coast, air quality is our biggest enemy. If you can smell it, you know you’re sunk. Once you can smell the oil, you’ve just been exposed to 1000 times the toxic levels. The oil mixed with Corexit is a chemical nightmare when it comes to air quality. She said that our communities are in desperate need of OEM physicians. The only way to detect chemical poisoning is through blood tests.

It was mentioned by someone who had spoken to a Hazmat worker who had worked a moderate hurricane, the oil will be lifted and travel through the air, splashing against houses as far as 30 miles inland. Not only will this be nasty, but it poses a high risk of chemical combustion and uncontrollable fires.

Dr. Ott said that with a major hurricane, the ultra-fine particles of oil mixed with dispersant will be carried as far as 500 miles inland.

The “canaries” in our community will be these people (those who are most at risk from chemical poisoning)

1. Children
2. Pregnant women
3. African Americans
4. Asthmatics or those with upper respiratory tract problems
5. Cancer survivors

People from the Orange Beach area voiced their concerns about people in their community already getting sick. Families with sick children are moving out. Even pets are getting sick. Dr. Ott is appalled that these areas are not being recognized, but warns that the government will not order an evacuation until it is too late, so people need to protect themselves. She said that Orange Beach is indeed a problem area and that the oil is going right past all that fancy boom and getting into Perdido Pass.

Benzene air samples have been collected, and the Mobile/Baldwin county area is rising every day, and we are already way above the levels deemed to be safe. (Note from Jen: In 3 offshore, 6 near-shore, 1 beach sample, BENZENE levels exceed NIOSH safety level)

Dr. Ott sat in a meeting with Lisa Jackson, administrator for EPA. Dr. Ott quoted Jackson as saying, “I am walking a fine line between truth and hysteria, as we are trying not to create a panic.”

Real estate concerns were addressed. Homes are going to be devalued, both in Mobile and Baldwin counties. Many people at the meeting have already put their houses on the market in hopes of avoiding the real estate crash. Dr. Ott warned that “devaluation of property” is not written into the law that holds oil companies responsible for damages, because devaluation is too subjective. She cited the example of those who held red herring permits prior to the Exxon Valdez. These permits were a much-valued commodity, costing $400,000 each. When the herring died, the permits became worthless. Yet, the courts took Exxon’s side on this, citing that devaluation of property is a subjective matter, thus Exxon was not liable. She said to look and learn from Alaskans’ experience. If only the herring fishermen had sold their permits for $100, they could have proven devaluation. But when you can’t sell something, you cannot prove how much it has devalued. Her advice: Get creative. For instance, those who know that their home value will drop into the toilet, ask yourself, “How much do I like my neighbor’s house?” In other words, sell each other your houses for a couple of thousand dollars. That way, devaluation is proved.

Respirators — Dr. Ott is furious that with everything we have learned about the long-term illness and deaths of the Exxon Valdez clean-up workers, that not only is BP not supplying respirators, but in a Louisiana parish, the local government bought respirators for the workers. BP then threatened to fire these workers if they wore them. Why? Because having workers wear respirators in some parts on the Coast, and not in others, provides a baseline for case studies.

She strongly suggests that each household provide themselves with respirators. “You keep a fire extinguisher in your house, don’t you? Why wouldn’t you have respirators in the event that the wind shifts and you’re bombarded with poisonous air?” She stressed that especially during a hurricane, if the government doesn’t demand evacuation, or any who choose to stay and ride out the storm, a respirator is a necessity or else you’re just asking for chemical-induced poisoning.

Symptoms of chemical-induced poisoning: headaches, burning eyes, rash, cold, persistent/chronic cough, flu-like symptoms and cancer. She is appalled that the local governments have not closed the beaches. Granted, not many people are hanging around the beaches, but she reported one man who walked out into waist-deep water (I think she said it was at Pensacola) and came out with a red, blistery rash on his legs and had to seek medical treatment. Here again, she stressed that there is so much we don’t know about this giant science experiment, that this man would not have been one she would have suspected to react so quickly and violently to the chemicals in the water, yet he did. She said that short-term exposure symptoms will usually dissipate if the person leaves the area and travels to a “clean” area. The people with children on the Gulf Coast, those who are experiencing symptoms should do that this summer — get the heck out of Dodge. Long-term exposure is a different animal, however. The toxins can attack the respiratory tract, and cause liver and kidney damage.

She is concerned about the methods of disposal. They’re taking the oil to local land fills, where they will burn it off, thus filling the air with even more toxins. She urged us to take community action on this, as well as demand that our water sheds and public water supply be constantly monitored. The “Bucket Brigade” in Louisiana is a group that is actively taking air samples.

In essence her message to us was this: Democracy has been hi-jacked. Don’t look to BP or the federal government for help. Look out for yourself and your families. And come together as a community. GET PRO-ACTIVE and come up with a plan to keep the community as safe as possible.

In closing, she told us how much she identified with our little coastal communities, that we have been devalued for the sake of big corporations. She recommended we watch the movie, “Black Wave“.

NOTE FROM JEN: Our public officials are not being straight with us, and we know BP is not. They think that Southerners are ignorant, complacent and that we’ll just “take it”. It’s time we came together and taught them a thing or two about Southerners. Every person along the Gulf coast is being slowly poisoned and no one is going to come to our aid. It’s time We The People reminded the government of the words of Thomas Jefferson and once again create true liberty:

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

For some reason, at the end of this post, I can’t get old Charlie Daniels out of my head. Do you remember why we went to war with England? Taxation and no representation. Look around, folks…