SHARIF ADBEL KOUDDOUS: Let's go to a clip that's been
circulating on the internet. It's from an investigation from WKRG News 5
into the toxicity levels of water and sand on public beaches around
Mobile, Alabamba. One of the water samples collected near a boom at
Dauphin Island Marina just exploded when mixed with an organic solvent
separating the oil from the water. This is Bob Naman, the chemist who
analyzed the sample, explaining why it might have exploded.
BOB NAMAN: We think that it most likely happened due to the presence of either methanol or methane gas or the presence of the dispersant Corexit.
SHARIF ADBEL KOUDDOUS: Hugh Kaufman, can you talk about this video clip?HUGH KAUFMAN: Well, yes. I saw that when it first came
out, I think on Sunday. And what they documented was that the water--you
know, when you're on the sand with your children and they dig, and
there's a little water?--they documented there was over 200 parts per
million of oil waste in the water, and it's not noticeable to the human
eye, that the children were playing with on the beach. On top of it, the
contamination in one of the samples was so high that when they put the
solvent in, as a first step in identifying how much oil may be in the
water, the thing blew up, just as he said, probably because there was
too much Corexit in that particular sample.
But what's funny about that is, on Thursday, the
administrator of
EPA, in answering Senator Mikulski's question at the hearing that you
played the clip on, said that EPA has tested the water up to three miles
out and onshore and found that it's safe. And then, a few days later,
the television station in Pensacola and in Mobile document with their
own limited testing that that statement was false, misleading and/or
inaccurate by the administrator, under oath, to Senator Mikulski in that
hearing.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: We want to also bring in Dahr
Jamail. He's an independent journalist who's been reporting from the
Gulf Coast for the past three weeks.
Dahr, you're joining us from Tampa, Florida, right now. You
just
drove along the Gulf Coast. But talk about this dispersant, as well. You
wrote in article about the effect it had on you personally.
DAHR JAMAIL: Right. About a week and a half ago, my
partner and I were down in Barataria talking with shrimpers and
fishermen and people affected by the oil disaster. And literally within
minutes of driving down there, the air was so chemically laden, you
could smell and taste chemicals in the air. And immediately, our eyes
began to burn. And everyone that we were talking with there, Tracy Kuhns
with the shrimpers' union, Clint Guidry on the board of the Louisiana
Shrimp Association, and their spouses and everyone else that we spoke
with down there, everyone was complaining of different kinds of health
problems--headaches, which, actually, again, within minutes, I
personally
was starting to experience that; shortness of breath; nausea--all kinds
of different symptoms, which I then went home and started to educate
myself on the immediate and then longer-term effects of the two Corexit
dispersants being used and realized that myself and everyone that we
spoke with down there were basically having onset of these symptoms, and
people were suffering from it very much.
And another very disturbing thing that I saw down there was I
met
a charter fisherman named Gene Hickman, who showed me a video he had
taken two days prior to my arrival there. He was outside of his house at
night, and he had a video of, literally, crabs crawling out of the
water at night onto his bulkhead to escape the water. And Tracy Kuhns,
who I was also speaking with, said, "Look, we've been watching regularly
these huge plumes of dispersant under the surface of the water coming
into our canals, sometimes bubbling up to the surface. We've seen marine
life fleeing from these." And there have been some reports of this
happening throughout the Gulf. But then, I went down to Gene Hickman's
house and then saw, just minutes after watching this video of crabs
literally crawling out of the water trying to escape from the water, to
see basically crabs floating belly up in the water, dead, all in his
canal. There was sheen over the top of it, dead fish. And again, the
stench of the chemicals was so intense that our eyes were watering.
AMY GOODMAN: Dahr Jamail, your piece in Truthout is
called
"BP's Scheme to Swindle the 'Small People.'" What is that scheme?
DAHR JAMAIL: Right. Well, the scheme is--let's be
really
clear, Amy. We all know that context for news reporting is key. And
Kenneth Feinberg, who is the Obama-appointed individual in charge of
this $20 billion compensation fund for victims of the BP oil disaster,
who is he being paid by? He is being paid by BP to do this job. When he
was asked recently, just in the last forty-eight hours, how much he's
being paid, he said, "That's between me and British Petroleum." So let's
be--let's start right there.
And then, to move forward, this story came up because I was
talking with Clint Guidry, who I just mentioned, and he was, like all
the other fishermen, outraged by how this fund is being handled. And how
it's being handled is that these people who join this so-called Vessels
of Opportunity program, which are basically fishermen who are now
completely put out of work, the shrimping and the fishing industry in
Louisiana--and this is spreading across the coast along with the oil, as
it travels across the coast--is completely shut down, so these people
are
forced in to do this work, going out skimming, putting out oil boom,
other types of recovery efforts for BP, because it's literally the only
way they can make a living now. And so, Feinberg then recently
announces, last Friday, as you reported, that, "No, actually now all the
money that you're earning, you folks in the Vessels for Opportunity
program, any future compensation claims that you make, this money will
be deducted from that claim."
And so, upon further investigation, it turns out there's a
lawyer
in Louisiana named Stephen Herman, and his firm, back on May 2nd, had
an email correspondence with a law firm representing BP. And he
questioned this very thing, because it had first come up way back at the
beginning of this disaster when people were going and looking into
joining the Vessels for Opportunity program, but before they could join,
they were going to be asked to sign a waiver. Well, this was of course
then brought--Stephen Herman brought this to the attention of the BP
lawyer, questioned it, challenged it. And then the BP lawyer wrote back
and said, "That is not going to happen. We're going to tear up those
claims. We're not going to do that."
Stephen Herman also questioned BP's lawyer as to this very
thing
that we just saw Feinberg do, which was, "I want to make very clear,"
said Herman, "that any of this work, any of the payment for the work
these folks do, will not later be taken out of claims that they may make
for future compensation for loss of livelihood, etc." And he was told
at that time in a response on May 3rd by BP's lawyer, "Absolutely, that
will not happen. That is BP's stated position." And so, then we have
Feinberg come out Monday, and every day since then, acting as basically a
BP salesman trying to push this new agenda that you have to file your
claim within a year, and then, once you do that, you'll get paid, and
you will not file any further claims. And then, of course, any work that
you've done in this Vessels for Opportunity program, any of that money
will be deducted from any future claims. So this directly contradicts
what BP said to Stephen Herman's law firm in New Orleans back on May
3rd. And again, we have Kenneth Feinberg running around, clearly
accountable to BP, clearly working in the interests of BP, and as he's
being accused by Clint Guidry and basically fishermen up and down the
Gulf Coast at this point in the Vessels for Opportunity program, is that
this a guy who's doing nothing but working to try to limit BP's
long-term liability for this disaster.
AMY GOODMAN: Dahr Jamail, we want to thank you very much for being with us, independent journalist. His latest piece in Truthout is called "BP's Scheme to Swindle the 'Small People.'" Special thanks to WEDU, PBS in Tampa. Florida, where he is speaking to us from. And Hugh Kaufman, senior policy analyst at the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, for joining us from Washington, DC. Of course, we will continue to cover the fallout of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
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