Hugh Kaufman, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) whistleblower, who has been warning about the high toxicity of the dispersants BP has been using with both Coast Guard and EPA approval, stated on "MSNBC" on August 4:
"The dispersants, mixed with the oil and the water, is extremely toxic. The only real purpose of using so many dispersants on the oil is to cover up the volume of oil that was released from that well. That and lying about how much [oil] was coming out, was a mechanism to help BP save billions of dollars in fines."
Kaufman went on to say that dispersants should never have been used and added, "I was listening to some of the 'experts' at universities being paid by BP who are saying that the oil has disappeared. It hasn't disappeared. It's throughout thousands of square miles in the Gulf mixed with the dispersants. And because the temperatures down there are so cold, they're going to be around for decades."
Kaufman's concerns mirror those of the commercial fisherman, as he concluded, "We've now poisoned thousands of square miles of the Gulf and we have to recognize that and take precautions so that we can minimize the damages we have done."
Guidry is also calling for immediate testing for dispersants before any fisheries can be opened in the Gulf. "Without any clear cut scientific testing that would say it [fish/shrimp] is safe from dispersants, we can't do this," he explained, "The oil didn't just go away overnight and they have huge concerns about the cleanup."
Guidry told Truthout that all the commercial spokespeople at the meeting last week shared this concern: "It seems the feds are more concerned with limiting BP's liability than anything else."
Guidry feels that, so far, all of the interim National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reports "are covering up health problems. There is an effort by BP and the feds to relieve BP of the responsibility of paying respiratory illness claims. We're going to wind up with a bunch of sick people across the Gulf before this is over and they'll have no recourse. It's already happening. Some of the fishermen who went to West Jefferson hospital when this thing first started, they were out at the source and they were chemically exposed. That just got covered up like it was nothing and blamed on food, heat stress, but it was like it all went away and they buried it. We're going to see health problems in the next five to 20 years and BP is relieved of the responsibility and I just don't think that is right."
Birren also told Truthout she is concerned that the state of Florida might be playing a role in allowing BP to continue to use dispersants in order to hide the oil from tourists in an effort to protect the state's multi-billion dollar tourist industry. She said that supposedly BP had stopped using the dispersants, "But we have fishermen in the VOO program taking pictures of them using it and people still getting sick from exposure. They are hiring companies to come in and use dispersant at night. You see the oil in the day and then next morning it's gone. The government isn't pushing to have this stopped even though they know this is going on. They are doing it because of money and our economy."
Birren also told Truthout that fishermen she knows, who are speaking out against BP dispersant practices, "are getting death threats and notes on their cars saying you better watch out, because there are people above us who want to keep this quiet. But I know entire families who are sick because of the dispersants."
Birren does not believe the crisis is over and believes the Gulf and inland waters have been "prematurely re-opened to fishing."
She and the coalition of commercial fishermen she and Guidry are a part of are concerned about the credibility of Gulf Coast fishermen being damaged by contaminated seafood being delivered to the market. Birren also wrote, "As fisherman, we know that the use of dispersants has made this crisis vastly worse for everyone. It is time that government step up and protect us, our Gulf and the American public from further and possibly irreversible harm."
"It's now down to regular people like me trying to do what the government should be doing to take care of us," she told Truthout. "It's awful, it's really bad. If Obama is not going to be a strong enough president to protect us, we'll have to do it ourselves. We're on our own down here."
Guidry told Truthout that fishermen he is talking with are reporting the ongoing use of dispersants as well. "They [US Government] are trying to just let BP off and this is like nothing I've seen before," he explained. "People with that much money that can bury the American people with the blessing of the federal government. They [BP] can buy all the local, state and federal officials and the crisis is still happening. The feds and BP are wishing it away. I wish we could do that, but we can't. There's going to be a lot of hard work, suffering and misery before this is over and it's not over by a long shot."
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