SF GATE– If you search for news and information about the oil spill on the internet, your first result will be a link to BP’s website that the tagline describes as “how BP is helping.” That’s because the company has purchased “oil spill” ad words through Google and Yahoo. “Oil spill” has been among the top searches on Google, Twitter and Yahoo for several weeks.
© COPYRIGHT SF GATE, 2010
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AL JAZEERA– A landmark trial is unfolding in Ecuadorian Amazon, where a group of rainforest residents is suing Texaco for $6bn in oil clean-up costs. Texaco, now part of Chevron, admits to dumping 18 billion gallons of run-off while drilling for oil in the rainforest, but the company says it did so legally and according to industry standards.
Environmentalists call it the worst oil-related disaster in the world – Texaco allegedly dumped 30 times the amount of crude spilled by the Exxon Valdez.
Al Jazeera’s Mariana Sanchez reports that the plaintiffs say the company left hundreds of dump sites, many of them unlined, and open-air pits that ooze toxic sludge into what was once pristine rainforest.
The Cofan, an indigenous nation of less than 500 men and women, say their land is contaminated and are filing a lawsuit against the giant oil company. Toribio Aguinda, one member of the Cofan tribe, remembers when the waters of the Aguarico river turned dark.
“The water stunk and so did our fish. In the end, we were left there, with sadness, thinking where will we get fresh water?”
These tribesmen are demanding a clean-up. They are part of the 30,000 plaintiffs who filed a class action lawsuit in New York in 1993 and lost the case. The case is now being tried in Ecuador.
In 2001 Chevron bought Texaco, taking over its assets and this legal battle.
“Texaco created a system where they dumped literally billions of gallons of toxic waste water”, said Steven Donziger, legal counsel.
Donziger, who represents the plaintiffs, says the dumping saved the company billions of dollars in operating costs.
“When you do this every day with 300 well sites in 28 years you have an ecological disaster and that’s what we are looking out today,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ricardo Reis Vega, Chevron’s legal counsel and vice president, argues the company cleaned up the areas under Chevron’s obligation.
“The part that was in our responsibility inside the scope of work was done 100 percent,” Vega said.
In 1995 the Ecuadorian government agreed to release the company from further responsibilities after they cleaned up. The Amazon Defence Front, also representing the 30,000 plaintiffs, says most of the damage has been left untouched. And the pollution, they say, is not biodegradable.
“This is how Texaco designed their pits and they are still working today. The pollutants come from a pool through a tube into the swamp and the swamp feeds the river from which the Cofan take their water.”
The American company says it spent $40m on remediation but that is only one per cent of the amount the Cofan’s lawyers estimate is needed for a real clean up.
By Mariana Sanchez
© COPYRIGHT AL JAZEERA, 2007
Crude, Official Trailer
Learn more at http://www.crudethemovie.com/
VOA NEWS– The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirms that some of the oil escaping from that ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is staying beneath the surface, raising new environmental concerns about the disaster. BP says there is no significant oil staying underwater.
Scuba divers showed U.S. legislators video of the spill which they shot
while 20 meters under the sea and 64 kilometers off the U.S. Gulf coast.
The oil is so thick below this depth that it blocks out almost all light.
“Something I’ve never seen in diving, in my whole life out here,”
said diver Al Walker.
Fellow diver Scott Porter says the substance feels like a mixture of clay and
wax. He had to scrape it off his hands. Soap had no effect. “I
don’t know of anything that would be able to live through that,” Porter
said.
Yet on Wednesday, BP continued to deny any large amount of oil under the
surface.
“No one has yet found any concentrations that measured higher than the
parts per million,” said BP’s Doug Suttles.
Meantime, Congress conducted five oil spill hearings on Capitol Hill
Wednesday. Legislators want to know why risks weren’t studied when oil
rigs drill 5,000 feet below the water.
“I’m just terribly bothered about the lack of foresight, both by our government and of BP and, of course, BP will pay a price for that,” said Congressman Vernon Ehlers. “Perhaps even a failure of the corporation at the rate it’s going.”
Read full article about Oil Being Under the Surface.
© COPYRIGHT VOA NEWS, 2010
Photo by NASAGoddardPhotoandVideo
PALM BEACH POST– A Florida beach might get hit
with oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident for the first time Wednesday as
sheen likely caused by the accident was reported less than 10 miles off Pensacola
Beach.
A charter boat captain reported the oil Tuesday afternoon and state and local environmental officials confirmed that it was about 9.5 miles offshore. Winds are forecast to blow from the south and west, pushing the outer edges of massive slick from the spill closer to western Panhandle beaches.
Emergency crews began Tuesday scouring the beaches for oil and shoring up miles of boom. Escambia County will use it to block oil from reaching inland waterways, but plans to leave beaches unprotected because they are too difficult to protect and easier to clean up.
The spill’s arrival coincides with the beginning of the Panhandle’s summer tourism season, which normally brings millions of dollars to the region.
“It’s inevitable that we will see it on the beaches,” said Keith Wilkins, Escambia’s deputy chief of neighborhood and community services.
Read full article HERE.
© COPYRIGHT PALM BEACH POST, 2010
Photo by flickr user faceless b
YAHOO NEWS – Perhaps you saw news footage of President Obama in Grand Isle, La., on Friday and thought things didn’t look all that bad. Well, there may have been a reason for that: The town was evidently swarmed by an army of temp workers to spruce it up for the president and the national news crews following him.
Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts, whose district encompasses Grand Isle, told Yahoo! News that BP bused in “hundreds” of temporary workers to clean up local beaches. And as soon as the president was en route back to Washington, the workers were clearing out of Grand Isle too, Roberts said.
“The level of cleanup and cooperation we’ve gotten from BP in the past is in no way consistent to the effort shown on the island today,” Roberts said by telephone. “As soon as the president left, they were immediately put back on the buses and sent home.”
Roberts says the overnight contingent of workers was there mainly to furnish a Potemkin-style backdrop for the event — while also making it appear that BP was firmly in command of spill cleanup efforts.
New Orleans NBC affiliate WDSU reports that the workers were paid $12 an hour and came mostly from neighboring Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes.
News of 11th-hour spruce-up brigade spread rapidly Friday afternoon and
infuriated locals. One popular radio host, WWL’s Spud McConnell, suggested that
the Coast Guard and the White House may have been involved in setting up the
“perfect photo op.”
“Who else has the kind of authority to bring a bunch of strangers to Grand
Isle when the president is in town for a visit? You think they did background
checks on all those people?” wondered McConnell. “I’d be a lot less
upset about this if they would have at least stayed to clean the beach.”
Yahoo! News could not reach BP for comment.
Brett Michael Dykes is a national affairs writer for Yahoo! News.
© COPYRIGHT YAHOO NEWS, 2010
