Disenfranchised Citizen

Using his amazing powers of concentration to miss the whole point...entirely...again...

The NOAA performed comprehensive physicals on 32 dolphins from Barataria Bay last year and among the illnesses they found were low weight, low blood sugar, and cancer of the liver and lungs.

Also found in half the dolphins were abnormally low levels of stress hormones that regulate the immune system, suggesting the dolphins are suffering from adrenal insufficiency.

And surprise…the NOAA feels these ailments are probably related to toxic substances in all that petroleum from BP’s Deepwater Horizon Catastraphuk.

From the article:

“The findings we have are also consistent with other studies that have looked at the effects of oil exposure in other mammals,” Dr. Lori Schwacke added, citing experimental studies of mink that were dosed with oil. Some of those minks developed adrenal insufficiency.”

In addition, the strandings of dolphins continue…

Though the rate has returned to normal along the Florida coast which was furthest from the spill, the stranding rates continue to be abnormally high along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

“In Barataria Bay alone, with a population of about 1000 dolphins, 180 strandings have been reported since February 2010. In a normal year about 20 dolphin strandings would be reported in all of Louisiana.”

180 vs. 20…

Whereas I, a laymen, would of course find this story alarming…liver and lung cancer in dolphins? Screwed immune systems? Adrenal insufficiency and nine times as many strandings of dolphins along the state of Louisiana?…Well, I just have to wonder what someone much more involved in all this might think, someone like Bob Dudley. What would he think of all the illnesses being suffered by one of the most beautiful and intelligent animal species the world has to offer?

Right.

I forgot…

“Lori Schwacke, the lead scientist for the health assessment, said the findings were preliminary and could not be conclusively linked to the oil spill at this point…”

That’s about all Bob ever sees.

Read the article:

Gulf Dolphins Exposed to Oil Are Seriously Ill, Agency Says

Have a nice day.

So then it's agreed? The dolphins are all committing suicide in protest of fewer deep sea oil platforms to swim around. Wonderful...Bob, you good with that? Great. Okay, bring the Coast Guard in here...

It just keeps getting funnier, except it’s not…

In this past week, it has been reported how, in the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, British Petroleum had demanded via e-mail that it’s own expert be kept quiet when he gave his opinion stating 82,000 barrels of  crude a day were coming from the Macondo Well. In fact, two days after ordering his silence, BP publicly announced their estimate that the flow rate was only 1,000 barrels per day. And of course, this report comes on the heels of another showing how the White House had been trying to get the United States Geologic Survey to downgrade its flow rate estimates in public statements too, reducing the USGS estimate of at least 25,000 barrels of oil per day coming from the well to a number the NIC thought sounded better, 12,000 to 25,000 barrels or better still, the estimate a White House Communications officer suggested, 12,000 – 19,000 barrels per day. Oh, and who can forget the wrongful termination lawsuit being filed by August Walters where he claims to have been fired by BP a couple of months back because he wouldn’t modify clean-up data  to make the beaches appear cleaner on paper than they in fact truly were, thus allowing BP to say they’d turned the corner and in light if this data, come to an agreement with the Coast Guard to officially move from cleanup to restoration, all while eagerly anticipating the stock bump to come from such an announcement.

Yes, these are the assholes in charge making things right along the Gulf Coast, and yes, the oil company mentioned in the above paragraph is the same British Petroleum putting out all those feel good commercials telling you how everything is just swell now. Hey! The economy, the seafood and the jobs are back!

And now, today even, when it comes to that same oil company and that same government, I’m sure if you asked, they’d go on and on to tell you how it would be impossible for the low-balling of flow-rate numbers that lead to a potentially flawed cleanup response based on their bad data, and how the fact there is still more unaccounted for oil in the Gulf of Mexico than was spilled from the Exxon Valdez…yeah, they’ll tell you how none of this has anything to do with more dead dolphins…even if there still is oil along the Louisiana coast.

Of course not.

That would be fucking ridiculous, and potentially unprofitable…

However:

“Since the beginning of the month, 14 marine mammals, including a dozen dolphins, have been found along the northern Gulf of Mexico. Half of the dead dolphins washed up on the Louisiana coast. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) calls it an “Unusual Mortality Event” in the northern Gulf and next month will mark two years since it began. The tally so far: 630 dead.

The event started in February of 2010 – two months before the oil spill began. Still, the deaths raise a red flag with the Gulf Restoration Network. “The ongoing death of these dolphins speaks to the idea that we haven’t seen all of the impacts from the BP oil drilling disaster end yet,” said Dan Favre of the Gulf Restoration Network.

Ridiculous, indeed…

Read the article:

More dead dolphins wash up on Southeast Louisiana coast

Have a nice day.

A thirty-six hour marathon? Thank God...

A new study from the University of California-Davis shows a combination of sunlight and oil exposure can cause the “physical disintegration” of fish embryos. The process, called phototoxicity, was documented in the aftermath of the 2007 Cusco Busan spill which occurred when a tanker hit the Bay Bridge connecting San Francisco to Oakland.

From the La Times:

“This phenomenon had been observed in the laboratory, but had never been observed in the field, and there were even some skeptics out there wondering if this was just a phenomenon that people would see under lab conditions,” said Gary Cherr, director of the Bodega Marine lab. “One of the real take-home messages from our study was: yes, in fact, it definitely happens in the real world.”

As Stuart Smith points out, the study echoes countless observations from fishermen around the Gulf about depleted catches.

And obviously, if this did/is occurring in the Gulf, it will take that much longer for fisheries and the seafood industry to rebound.

Okay.

So, all that being said…here’s what really pisses me off about this.

In a perfect world, we would see a simple reaction to the news of such a study:

British Petroleum, alarmed for the welfare of the fishing industry in the Gulf Coast would hire scientists, free and clear from any restrictions of reporting and publication who would then work with government scientists operating free and clear of any political agendas to figure out if what’s described in this study is indeed occurring in the Gulf, and if so, immediately work together with input from the fishing industry to address this problem. In this refreshing climate, one that operates beyond political and litigious constraints and influence, the information would flow freely. The primary objective would be the protection and benefit of the environment, the people and seafood industries along the Gulf Coast, the same Gulf Coast which never asked for this fucking oil spill.

And because of this established, open climate, when the studies were released, they would be trusted.

Sigh…

Alas, this environment has never existed in the Gulf.

From day one, BP has operated on damage control while the government operated in the shadow of Bush’s disastrous response to Katrina, and the EPA, NOAA and FDA? Their functions have been utterly compromised by a decade of corporate and political influence and funding cuts.

The only truth to be had in the Gulf depends on which opinion you wish to adopt.

And none of this helps anybody but those who already have the resources, connections and influence to not need anymore help…and now this whole subjective line of shenanigans and bullshit is playing out in the MDL too…with double dipping attorneys, conflicts of interest and corporate bullying while the campaign contributions fly…

Fucking ridiculous…just read these:

Judge Barbier’s fee ruling in the Oil Spill MDL attracting more media attention. – Slabbed

Louisiana Attorney General wants ruling thrown out – Times-Picayune

Competing Conflicts of Interest cause Gulf Coast Claims Facility to suspend payments: A periodic report from the gutter where its all going down. – Slabbed

So…here’s what you got:

Running this show in the Gulf are the same people who’s agendas caused the problems in the Gulf: British Petroleum and their continuing poor safety record, the government and their continuing poor monitoring of oil platforms, insufficient testing of seafood, and willingness to let entire ecosystems disappear in the name of profit and/or deregulation.

Getting screwed in the Gulf: that would continue to be claimants involved with the GCCF, fishermen with little to catch being told by television commercials how well they’re doing, and frankly, the rest of the people in the Gulf Coast left to wonder if they’re going to get sick from contaminants, from seafood, and from Corexit…all because they are at the mercy of agendas they and their families don’t factor into.

And now, that legal system designed to be the fail safe, the protector, the last stop…it too shows signs of being influenced by the same bullshit agendas that have been played out across four states for over twenty months.

Swear to God, It’s almost enough to make one think that those fish embryos had it easy…

Their only agenda was death and dying.

Have a nice day.

Yes, this many agendas...

It’s got to be hard to be a shrimper.

I know I certainly don’t envy anyone who makes their living by what they catch from Gulf waters, be they shrimpers or fishers or whoever, because things don’t seem to be getting much better. The catch, especially the shrimp catch is way off, with some shrimpers estimating their catch to be off by 80%. In one article I read, a company used to taking in ten thousand pounds of shrimp per day has taken in about 41,000 pounds all season.

And it isn’t just the shrimp.

Many have read reports of the killifish, and the cellular damage done to its reproductive functions and gills as a result of hydrocarbon poisoning. Many also are aware this small minnow like fish is near the bottom of the food chain and is considered a good indicator of the Gulf’s general health.

Even Ken Feinberg seemed to backtrack the other day on his estimation of a  recovered Gulf by 2013 when he said of the shrimp catch, “We are monitoring this, and we are sensitive to these concerns. We reserve the right to change the formula if anecdotal and empirical evidence justifies it.” And that’s about as close to an admission of error as one’s likely to get from Ken, not that he’ll actually change anything but I suppose admitting to a problem is the first step.

Oh and let’s see, what else? Ah yes, though the FDA has maintained the Gulf seafood is safe to eat, a new study has challenged this assumption, reporting the FDA’s qualifications on what constitutes safe are incredibly flawed.

So…bad catches, sick fish, FDA screw-ups…yep, it’s got to be hard to be a shrimper, a fisher, anyone working the Gulf waters these days…and besides the fact the oil’s still out there, you know what else isn’t helping, what’s making this whole Gulf Coast mess even worse?

Eighteen months later, the information is still inconsistent. We’ve been treated to eighteen months of profit margins, legal maneuverings and a whole range of answers and/or denials to every goddamned question…

Everyone has been forced to endure eighteen months of agendas.

The EPA, the FDA and the NOAA all appear to have an agenda designed to make it seem the Gulf is perfectly fine. British Petroleum’s agenda is all about savings and profit margin, all the time, and their stance too is that everything is okay in the Gulf. The Obama Administration has their own agendas, their own problems. For starters, they’re not seen as trustworthy, having initially ceded far too much control to British Petroleum in the capping of the well and the clean-up, and now, today, they are widely perceived as having forgotten the Gulf Coast even exists at all…

And all these agendas, they all bring us back to the seafood industry.

What exactly is a fisher supposed to make of all this? That person who is just trying to get their life back to normal, who wants to get back to work, but also doesn’t want to make anybody sick; what the fuck are they supposed to do? Who are they supposed to believe? Who are they supposed to trust? BP? The government? The FDA and NOAA? All these entities telling them everything is fine, or the increasingly negative academic studies, not to mention the fishers own years of experience in the Gulf waters, showing them that something appears to be wrong out there…

So hard to know for sure, and such an unenviable place to be.

And you know what really pisses me off?

It didn’t have to be this way, not at all.

If British Petroleum had stuck to their promises to make people whole. If Feinberg had stuck to his promises to take care of the people in the Gulf British Petroleum hadn’t gotten to, perhaps then the financial pressures could have been eased off on everybody. If the Obama Administration had done more than toss out a fucking speech and Barack had come down to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and done more than look concerned, pick up a tarball or eaten a damned shrimp…if Obama had worked, as a leader and kept the Gulf, and everything the Gulf means to this country in the foreground of American consciousness…maybe then these problems would seem more manageable today, to everybody.

If the only agenda in the Gulf had been to make sure people were taken care of and those responsible for this mess were held accountable…yes, if that had been the only agenda, then today in the Gulf we might at least have trust.

Instead, all we got are versions of what’s real: BP’s version, Obama’s version, the FDA’s version, the NRDC’s version, LSU’s, the shrimper’s, Halliburton’s and the GCCF’s version…just to name a few.

And that ain’t helping anybody.

Certainly not the public, and certainly not the people who continue to suffer as a result of BP’s catastraphuk.

So what now?

Wish I knew…all I hope for at this point is that Feinberg, for once, can be taken at his word, and he actually will take a long, hard look at the recovery estimates he based his methodology upon…because if you work harder to catch only 20% of the shrimp you normally get, the payment methodology needs to be changed.

Oh, and to the BP spokesman who said the 80% drop-off in the shrimp catch is within the normal range of good and bad seasons, you are just one more bullshit microphone with another ethically conflicted agenda, and you should be tossed into the next oil sheen spotted on the Gulf’s surface above the Macondo wellhead.

So, to sum up…a corporation screwed up and did billions in financial damage to an entire region of the country, not to mention the emotional toll on people and the physical toll on the environment. The people have recourse to the law, but that is a process that could take decades. The government issues false platitudes and seems to disappear just when they are needed most, almost as if they are backing the corporations that did the damage rather than the people who got screwed.

And nobody goes to jail.

Hey, now that I think about it, sure sounds familiar, kinda like what those people in New York are so pissed off about.

Maybe its time to occupy British Petroleum.

Have a nice day.

Move along...nothing to see here...

Oil sheen…

Lots of oil sheen and lots of testing of oil from those sheens…

And weeks later, the people of the Gulf Coast are no closer to determining just what the hell is happening down at the Macondo Well site, if anything…

And British Petroleum, the Coast Guard and the NOAA seem to be in no real hurry to find out either, and that’s a problem, a big problem. Just what in the past seventeen months do these three entities feel they have accomplished, feel they have done so well that the American public should extend them any sort of automatic credibility, especially if that credibility is to rely on their word alone?

I can’t think of anything.

The oil began to reappear in the middle of last August, and since then the public has been treated to denial after denial…from British Petroleum and the Coast Guard who originally said there was no oil to be found, until Bonny Schumaker, a pilot with Wings of Care, flew over and took film of the oil. Then the Coast Guard and BP said okay, there may be oil but it isn’t oil from the Macondo well, it’s from natural seeps, from a different reservoir. Then reporters from the Press Register took a boat out there, took some samples and had it tested…and found the oil is from the Macondo.

And the response now?

In a Sept. 15 email, NOAA’s Sherman suggested that samples collected by the newspaper might not actually be from BP’s well, which is designated MC252 and called the Macondo well, “Yes, the oil that you took was confirmed as MC252, but it does not necessarily mean it is in any way related to the (Deepwater Horizon) spill. Most of the oil throughout the region can be preliminarily identified as MC252 type,” the email read. Sherman went on to say that NOAA’s Scientific Support Coordinator had consulted with the LSU chemists and determined that the oil might not be from the BP well.

Overton said federal officials were wrong. He said he rechecked the newspaper’s oil samples using the more refined analysis recommended by BP’s scientists and federal officials, “They were suggesting I had jumped the gun when I said it matched (BP’s well),” Overton said last week. “They are incorrect. I have double-checked, and I am even more convinced after using the suggestions that BP made that this was the Macondo oil. I think it is 99.9 percent confirmed that it came from that reservoir, “It is a dead-ringer match . I was amazed that the ratios matched as good as they did.”

Overton said BP also provided him with samples from nearby oil sources, none of which matched the oil collected by the newspaper.

Oops.

British Petroleum said at the end of last week they have done inspections with an ROV and failed to find any leaks around the main or relief well and they are now suggesting it is simply residual oil being released from equipment on the sea floor. They say they are continuing to work with the Coast Guard and the NOAA to identify the exact flow rate, I mean, to identify new sheens and where they might be coming from.

And that’s the point. That’s no longer good enough. It’s widely accepted BP was bullshitting everybody last year with their flow rate estimates back when the Macondo well was still spewing oil and the Coast Guard? Well, who knows what the hell the Coast Guard was doing at the time.

Again…their word? Don’t waste my time, especially when they have a little something called a hydrocarbon sniffer:

“There are instruments that can be deployed to detect the hydrocarbons,” said Robert Bea, a petroleum engineer at the University of California and a member of the Deepwater Horizon Study Group, which includes more than 50 top scientists. “The oil companies use subsea-towed ’sniffers’ for this purpose.”

BP officials declined to answer whether the company would use a hydrocarbon sniffer, which can trace oil in the water column from the surface to the seafloor.

“This is crazy. I don’t understand why they are not doing that,” said Overton, who with his colleagues recently earned NOAA’s “Superior Accomplishment Award” for oil analysis done for the government during the oil spill.

Yes, crazy…

It is crazy that it’s been well over a month since the sheens started to appear, that petroleum engineers, the experts, are telling BP, the Coast Guard and the NOAA what needs to be done here, yet nobody is doing it while at the same time, British Petroleum has begun the process to begin drilling again in the Gulf of Mexico…or maybe it isn’t crazy at all, maybe this is the reason the sniffers aren’t being deployed. Maybe British Petroleum doesn’t want to know what’s going on down there and would rather just assume everything is fine, you know, kind of like when they decided to not bother running tests and just assume the original cementing job at the Deepwater Horizon was good, or when they just assumed they didn’t need the extra centralizers down in the well either…

Hell, they thought it’d be just fine then too and gosh, it sure was cheaper.

Enough already.

Read the articles:

LSU confirms oil from BP well; feds collect samples

Time to take oil sheen seriously (editorial)

Have a nice day.

From Rocky Kirstner’s blog at the NRDC:

“David is not optimistic. He sees too many signs that things are not right with the shrimp catches so far. But what worries David even more is what he’s seeing—or not seeing—in the waters 20 miles offshore. He’s not seeing many small bait fish that snapper and mackerel–all predator fish–depend on. David says many fish bellies he sees are often empty, signaling they may be starving, and that some contain an unusual black substance he believes is linked to oil. Other fish David catches have lesions or strange markings that other scientists are finding too. He’s been unable to get authorities to pay attention to it. And some simply don’t want to, he says.”

And the quotes that make me angry:   

“We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” David says in a soft southern drawl that punctuates his decades of fishing in the Gulf. “Some people say we shouldn’t say anything about things that aren’t right so we can protect our markets. Others say we should complain so we make BP accountable. But from what I’ve seen around here, BP hasn’t been accountable for much of anything.”

Read the article:

To the End of the Bayou; a Gulf Memory for Our Kids

Have a nice day.

Right here! It says it right here! Human Pinata!

In some recent promotional items for the University of Pennsylvania – Wharton’s 2011 Leadership Conference, Ken Feinberg lets us all know about the risks of leadership, and he says:

“You have to define risk with each situation. When I pay a fisherman, I find a payment that ends their concern, but what is the likely risk that the Gulf is safe? Have I factored into that reward a good understanding of future risk to fishing in the Gulf? Inherent is the notion of a substantive definition of risk…When administering the 9/11 fund, it turned out that my evaluation of risk was poorly done — I underestimated the support of the victim’s families and the public in general. I evaluated correctly with the BP case — I’m a human pinata.”

He evaluated “correctly”…he “ends the concerns” of the fisherman…he has factored into the “reward” a good understanding of future risk to fishing in the Gulf.

Oh, and he’s a “human pinata.”

Okay, well, let me take a few more whacks at Mr. Feinberg…

In Ken’s claims payment methodology, he takes the rather controversial standpoint that everything in the Gulf will be back to normal by 2013, and in August of that year his plan is to close up the GCCF shop for good…

Yet, I read:

…officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said assessing the damage from the BP spill is processing but that it would be another several years before a full evaluation is complete…

And if everything is improving, fishing wise in the Gulf, why do I read:

“Hundreds of angry shrimpers rallied on the steps of the state Capitol today. The focus of their anger: Ken Feinberg and BP. “Our livelihoods are at stake,” Acy Cooper told the gathered crowd. Cooper is the vice president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, the organization that organized Wednesday’s rally. “None of us are going to make it through the winter time if we keep getting these prices. None of us.”

And if the businesses are all coming back, why am I receiving comments on this blog saying:

“I was one of the top yacht brokers in the panhandle. Annual growth of 35% to 65% annually. While yacht sales are up nationally ours are down 85% over 1st quarter of 2010. BP/Ken says that this is due to the poor economy. What they are doing to people and business here on the Gulf Coast is criminal. Why isn’t THIS on FOX or CNN? The news loves to talk about negatives like the spill but doesn’t seem to care about the actual people or the families they have impacted.”

You know what, Ken?

Sometimes people feel like pinatas not because they are making the hard choices, not because they are demonstrating great leadership, sometimes they feel like a pinata because they deserve to feel like a pinata. It certainly isn’t because you made “correct” evaluations with the oil spill. And judging by your quote at the beginning of this post, it makes me wonder if you consider your mistakes during the 9/11 fund to be less of what you did or didn’t do, but instead the fact you underestimated how many people were paying attention to the mistakes you feel you made:

“When administering the 9/11 fund, it turned out that my evaluation of risk was poorly done – I underestimated the support of the victim’s families and the public in general.”

Which begs the next question…if more people were paying attention to what you are or are not doing in the Gulf, would the expanding number of people who feel they are falling through the cracks then become mistakes? Do you consider yourself error-free down here simply because the people outside of the Gulf haven’t noticed? Or maybe a better way of putting it…Ken, if a tree falls in the woods and shatters your ego, and no one is around to hear it shatter, would it still make a sound?

Continuing on in the promotional materials, Feinberg also stresses the following characteristics of strong leadership when it comes to managing risk:

• Convey a sense of certainty
• Be transparent — “The more sunlight I let into the room, the easier it is,” he said.
• Consistency — no bias or favoritism
• Flexibility — keep an open mind
• Use sound judgement — “Give the people impacted by your decisions a say.”
• Delegate to good people — “Staff is the key.”

So, how did Ken do?

Convey a sense of certainty:

Yes, Ken has certainly conveyed a sense of certainty. When political leaders and claimants across the Gulf Coast region, and the Justice Department asked him to make certain changes in the way the GCCF operates, be it the speed of processing claims, openness with the claims process or not closing down the claims centers, Ken has certainly conveyed a resounding clear response, “No.”

Be transparent:

As I have previously written, see here, here, here, and here, Feinberg and the GCCF have never been about transparency. In fact, everybody from Congress to the Justice Department to the Attorney Generals of Alabama and Mississippi have been demanding more transparency, to which Feinberg says something along the lines of “Yes I could do better and I promise to do better,” but then he does nothing. As I’ve also previously commented, It would seem Feinberg is quite pleased with the job he has done, so pleased you would think he would take up Alabama Attorney General, Luther Strange on his offer of choosing a neutral party to look at the GCCF books, a confidential neutral party who then would report back to Strange an unbiased view of just how fair, impartial and accurate the GCCF process has been, but this would be another point where Feinberg has conveyed a certain sense of “No.” This is unfortunate. Until GCCF transparency dramatically improves, all we have is Feinberg’s word for it, which leads recent situations such as Feinberg making statements to the press claiming he has received no claims for health damages, only to have this statement undone a day or two later by himself. Complaints from claimants continue to come in via the press, editorials, and the comments sections of blogs, yet Feinberg’s transparency does not improve.

Consistency:

Mr. Feinberg could certainly be accused of a lack of consistency, and also of exhibiting bias and favoritism. One need only look so far as the whole working for British Petroleum thing, or remember when he wasn’t paying any final claims yet, except the $10 million claim he paid to a certain business partner of British Petroleum, at BP’s request, while everybody else had to wait? And even now, interim claims are not being paid while quick pays and final claims are, the two types of claims which most benefit his employer due to the signing away of the legal right to sue, so required to receive these payments.

Flexibility:

Keeping an open mind…like when he bases his payment methodology primarily on the work of one scientist who even disputes his own timeline conclusions that all will be back to pre-spill harvests by 2013. It takes a very open mind to ignore the scientific consensus predicting either: 1.) things will take many years to resolve in the Gulf, or 2.) it is impossible to know how long it will take. Ken kept an open mind through it all, until he found Dr. John W. Tunnel, Jr. who set the 2013 benchmark, though in his own report he writes “Realistically, the true loss to the ecosystem and fisheries may not be accurately known for years, or even decades…”

Use sound judgement:

Feinberg reports sound judgement to be “Give the people impacted by your decisions a say.” Okay, one might give this one to Ken. It was he who held all those town hall meetings where he gave dozens of people dozens of opportunities to give their opinions. Oh, and remember the public comment period for his methodology? Yes, that lasted two weeks and Feinberg swore that he read them all. Yes, Feinberg gave lots of people their say…course, I might argue that a better characteristic of leadership would be to not only give people opportunity to have their say, one might also want to listen too. Yes, it would seem listening would be very key…

Delegate to good people:

Like Guidepost Solutions? The ones who are doing the investigations on people who applied for quick payments despite quick payments supposedly being “no questions asked?” Also, I might suggest that you can delegate all you like, but if you close the offices so claimants don’t get any face time with the “good people,” you only set up another layer of frustration for those who are trying to be made right.

Ken’s ideas on what makes a good leader are certainly sound. I can’t nor will I argue too much with his choice of characteristics, but I do question the implication that Ken himself has demonstrated this kind of leadership. That is understandably being questioned throughout the Gulf Coast, as it should…

If the need to question it did not exist, would any of us be reading articles such as:

Action Report: Ferry operators balk at oil spill claim offer

Or:

Second lawsuit against Kenneth Feinberg filed in Florida

Or the previously mentioned:

Shrimpers rally at state Capitol

Probably not.

It would appear what Feinberg knows best about risk is how exactly to personify it to those who come to him for help, help in being made whole by British Petroleum, the company that pays his salary, and that is simply not leadership, that is abandoning ideas such as fairness, justice and judgement.

Have a nice day.

British Petroleum? Nah...they've made things right already...free cars for everyone in the studio audience!

Most everybody’s aware by now there were an abnormal amount of dead dolphin calves washing ashore this year, as well as a much larger than usual number of turtles dying, and there is of course the red snapper, with the NOAA recommending if fishermen catch the fish, or any other kinds of fish with lesions, fin rot or other assorted maladies they not touch them with bare hands and throw them overboard, all while they continue to maintain the seafood is safe to eat. But, with all these strange events, it would seem to make sense that these occurrences, when placed side by side could be readily explained by a certain oil spill, and a certain dumping of dispersants into the Gulf of Mexico to combat said oil spill…but if you buy that explanation, you’d be wrong.

Dolphins? Probably an algae bloom.

Turtles? Damned shrimpers trawling.

Red Snapper? Well, bacteria obviously.

Okay, then how about the sand dollars and starfish washing ashore along Florida beaches?

From the Pensacola News Journal:

“At first glance, it looks like a coin machine exploded on the shoreline. Thousands of sand dollars cover the beach from the Fort Pickens gate area to at least a mile west. And they’re also directly across Santa Rosa Sound from that area, on the south shore of Gulf Breeze.

The nickel- and quarter-sized sand dollars are all dead. They’re not white; rather, they’re tinged green like a coin left in water. The mass die-off is raising concerns about what killed or is killing the sand dollars and hundreds of sea stars mixed in with them.”

And then we get to the quotes from the locals, a type of quote that those following the events of the Gulf are becoming far too familiar with, uncomfortably so:

“This is not a normal thing,” Mary Lynn White 53, said. “I’ve lived in Gulf Breeze all my life. I grew up on the water, and I always take notice of changes. Something is killing them. I’d definitely say it is related to the oil spill.”

Or this one:

“I had a bait net, and I was able to scoop up the net full of them over and over and over,” said Berta Hurston, 56, of Gulf Breeze. “I’ve never seen anything like this. And I grew up in the area and I live on the water. It’s really disturbing to me.”

I seem to remember many similar statements made about the amount of dead dolphins, (never seen it like this before) turtles (no, not like this) and the condition of some of the fish being caught in the Gulf (been here thirty years and no, never), not to mention the woeful beginning to the brown shrimp season where the shrimp were more  scarce than usual and undersized, leading some shrimpers to call for an early end to the season as it might do more harm than good, and the docks aren’t buying them anyway.

In each and every one of these situations, there is an alternative culprit besides the oil spill that can be named…

But this many deaths across this many species, not to mention the fish kills occurring earlier in the year…could reasonable lead a person to believe one of two things…

Either the oil spill is the culprit, BP’s gotta pay and Feinberg needs to revise his estimation that all will be well in the Gulf by 2012 (good luck proving that in court), or…the Gulf of Mexico is in a real lot of trouble.

Neither option is appealing…but my money’s on British Petroleum being at fault.

Call it a hunch, a hunch constructed of several coincidences, with unfortunately more expected to come.

Have a nice day.

Am I gonna live, Doc?

Over the course of a week, it would appear a very interesting development has occurred regarding Red Snapper caught off the shore of Alabama…and it’s all got me a bit confused.

Last week, in the Pensacola News Journal, the NOAA was warning anglers that some fish are sick and may pose health problems if handled or eaten raw. The agency further suggests anglers be on the look out for fish that have lesions, fin rot, or discolored skin and toss these fish away.

Jim Cowan Jr., a Louisiana State University Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences scientist reports that the locations where the sick fish have been found correlate with areas most impacted by the BP oil spill. The NOAA, however, states that the LSU findings are preliminary, but Cowan said he believes the problems are more widespread, “I’m very worried because I’ve talked to both commercial and recreational fishermen who have been in the business 30 to 40 years and no one has seen anything like this,”

But, that was last week…

This week, I read in the Alabama Press-Register, the following headline:

“Snapper Season 2011, one year after BP oil spill: ‘Bigger, badder and better’”

Skipper Thierry, a charter boat captain, said he was initially fearful of what the season might bring, but after witnessing scientists continue to search the seafloor for oil and come up empty time and time again, Thierry has had a change of heart, “I think the fish are fine. I think the fishing’s fine. We still have a little bit of a perception problem — or maybe a lot of a perception problem — with the public. Nothing is going to heal that but time.”

As for a prediction about this year’s snapper season, Thierry said it’s going to be outstanding, “We left a lot of fish out there last year, and the spill didn’t kill them. That moves right on up the food chain. The fish are everywhere…I’ll say this: The Gulf, the red snapper, everything out there, is bigger, badder, and better than it’s ever been. And it really is. Nobody can deny that.”

Maybe, maybe not…I guess it all just depends on who you ask, and which day of the week it is.

And that’s unfortunate, very unfortunate because when it comes to all these perception problems, articles so diametrically opposed are a huge part of the problem…

Have a nice day.

Here's looking at you, baby...

Hey, I thought this whole oil spill deal was all kinda, you know…over.

At least that’s the impression I got watching all them there sparkly British Petroleum commercials, but man, over the past two days, the news has been flying pretty serious again in the Gulf, and between you, me, the courts and the water…I think this has just begun…Maybe I just got distracted by the hockey playoffs…

What? What do you want? I never said I wasn’t from the north…

So, shall we begin year two with a prayer?

Archbishop Gregory Aymond got on bended knees and put his arms around two women, listened to the damage BP and the GCCF have wrought and did his best to console them. The women had come to Catholic Charities in Violet for counseling and help with their spill damage claims.

Turns out one of the women, Lois Neville of Violet is yet another one of those people who Ken Feinberg, BP paid administrator of the GCCF and $20 billion escrow fund is saying…well, golly gosh gee, must have slipped through the cracks…hey, mistakes get made, do you know how many claims we’ve received, we’re working as fast as we can…etc…ad nauseum.

Funny thing though, BP was helping her financially, but all payments stopped when Feinberg took over…and she filed for her final settlement, and well past the 90 day time limit Feinberg gave himself to present final offers, she is still waiting…

In her words from David Hammer’s article in the Times-Picayune:

“I’m barely making ends meet with my savings and rental income, and I’m depressed, I’m stressed out,” Neville said. “I get very angry. I hate to even watch the news because there are other people in a worse predicament than me.”

Depressed and stressed out…like thousands of others, yet BP has closed the coffers on funding for mental health in the Gulf Coast…maybe when they said, making things right…they meant everything but the mind.

And hey, why might Ms. Neville still be waiting for her final claim?

It’s been a year since the oil spilled.

Well, on the GCCF front…Feinberg will tell any reporter who listens how he has paid out $3.9 billion dollars of that escrow fund…and apparently, he is quite proud of this fact…lord knows why…after all that means…he hasn’t paid out $16 billion dollars…and of that 3.9, it’s mostly quick payments…very few final offers, and even fewer interim payments…so what gives? Oh…right, right: mistakes get made, do you know how many claims we’ve received and we’re working as fast as we can…got it. Um, bullshit? Not to mention, how convenient was it for Feinberg, the day before the anniversary, the day before the press was to descend all over the Gulf Coast, to suddenly issue the largest final offer to date to Omega Protein Corp, $44.8 million dollars total. I’m sure the timing of this was coincidental, of course…Feinberg couldn’t possibly be such a cynical asshole to present this offer as some sort of distraction to the press, you know, so the coverage might be a bit more balanced as the press goes out to find the countless Lois Neville’s across the Gulf Coast, the ones seeking counseling because they are struggling not to lose everything, again, a year later…

And speaking of unhappy people in the Gulf…well, let the lawsuits begin, and rightfully so…

70,000 people have filed suit in the Gulf in a maritime law proceeding brought by rig owner Transocean, using a form that also expanded the suit to include British Petroleum. This would be on top of the 350 other suits, representing multiple parties already filed. No word on how many of these people are of the 400,000 that Feinberg and the GCCF have not paid yet, or plan not to pay, but Stephen Herman, co-lead attorney for the plaintiffs said, “I think it certainly validates the litigation effort. I also think that it confirms the sentiment out there that Feinberg and the GCCF haven’t really done a great job of giving people what they thought they were entitled to.”

Not to be outdone, British Petroleum filed a suit of their own, going after Cameron International, the company that made the blowout preventer that wouldn’t close. BP would like a court to rule against the company, declaring the device caused or contributed to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon. Such a ruling would help BP fight against a designation of being “grossly negligent” which if so designated would dramatically raise the amount of fines British Petroleum will have to pay under the Oil Pollution Act.

Perhaps Feinberg knows a judge, to help out his boss, maybe call in some favors perhaps? It’s been a while since he got a raise, and remember the reason the GCCF keeps screwing people? Right, it’s because they’re overworked…not because the GCCF is trying to coerce people into claims attached to a clause where they sign away their rights to sue BP, and not because Feinberg is trying to save BP money, and certainly not because Feinberg is just trying to keep people out of court…cause, that worked out real well…(see above).

Okay…well, at least…all the oil is gone. And that’s important because according to Feinberg’s methodology, all that oil has to be outta there by 2013. If not, if the Gulf isn’t back to normal by then, the entire pay-scale he is using to determine damages for claimants will be off, and not in the claimants favor…so, hey…at least BP and the Coast Guard, they got that one right…oh, what?

Oil still oozing along coastline amid dying marsh grasses

BP oil spill still affecting Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal says

Well, damn…okay, so maybe that’s not working out so well either, but BP’s got another ace in the hole, and it certainly beats the hell out of cleanup workers…

BP Marks Gulf Oil Spill Anniversary With Campaign Contributions

Brilliant!

Besides…something else about political donations…political donations don’t get sick, infected by hydrocarbons and other assorted toxins the way those cleanup workers do…

Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup Workers Report Mysterious Illnesses Year After Disaster

From the article:

“Mike Robichaux is a local doctor who has seen up to 60 patients in recent weeks with a mysterious sickness that some attribute to BP’s oil spill. Dr. Robichaux has been making house calls because many of the “stoic” workers don’t want others to know that they are sick. Yet, Dr. Robichaux tells the AFP, “Ninety percent of them are getting worse… Nobody has a clue as to what it is.”

Reuters reports that the U.S. National Institutes of Health has launched a ten-year study on the health of 55,000 oil spill clean-up workers and volunteers. Perhaps it will take ten years to get an answer for Dr. Robichaux.

Not everyone blames the oil spill for the health problems plaguing Gulf cleanup workers. Namely, BP does not blame the BP oil spill for the health problems plaguing Gulf cleanup workers. In a BP comment to the AFP, the company wrote, “Illness and injury reports were tracked and documented during the response, and the medical data indicate they did not differ appreciably from what would be expected among a workforce of this size under normal circumstances.”

As for compensating sick workers, this would fall under state law and “must be supported by acceptable medical evidence.” Are the 415 Louisianans suffering from respiratory tract infections, nausea, and headaches evidence enough?”

Oh, and as mentioned before…it ain’t just the physical body having problems…a study funded by the National Science Foundation has found that mental health difficulties are likely to linger on the Gulf Coast for the following decade. According to the study, two factors that could cause stresses to persist are delays in compensation for spill damages by the claims process, and possible slow recovery of fishing resources and the fishing industry.

Feinberg, Dudley…your ears burning?

Okay…my bad on all this everybody…I promise to stop watching so much hockey. It really would appear this thing is far from over…that few are doing well in the Gulf at all

In fact…it would appear the only people really doing well these days are British Petroleum…once again paying stock dividends and issuing bonuses to the elite within its company, and Ken Feinberg,who’s sitting on a helluva nice raise from his British Petroleum puppet masters. Yeah, Ken may be taking a lot of criticism these days, but from everything I read, it doesn’t appear to be affecting his psyche at all, in fact he refers to himself as “Bloodied, but unbowed.” And that’s a good thing too, because whereas some of you lightweights out there might want your guy in charge of helping hundreds of thousands of people recover from this catastraphuk to brag about such things as fairness, compassion, generosity and empathy….I like my arbitrator of a compensation fund to talk like he’s trying out for the WWE, you know, to be a bad-ass who don’t take no crap from some fishing type guys and business people who’ve never been to New York.

Nope…not going well at all:

Cleanup workers are getting sick, depression is running rampant and suicides are up across the Gulf Coast. There’s still oil out there while BP continues to scale back cleanup. BP is reneging on financial promises to help with the oyster beds while helping their stockbrokers and executives to more money. The health of the Gulf continues to be debated. Dolphins are dying. Fish have sores. There are dead zones on the Gulf seafloor. Allegations exist that BP is trying to taint the science by influencing the research. A year after the Deepwater Horizon blew up, no laws have been passed by Congress to help ensure it doesn’t happen again while experts maintain it very well could happen again. The NOAA, EPA and FDA all claim the seafood from the Gulf is safe to eat, and they finally opened the last fishing area but the country isn’t buying it: what the government says, or the seafood – which leaves the industry far from recovered. Too many people are waiting for Feinberg to do his fucking job…homes are being lost, jobs haven’t come back and businesses continue to go bankrupt.

And the President?

Well, he said some words and stuff, but ah…who cares, or believes that guy anymore…

Anyways…and so on…here we go folks…

Year two…

Have a nice day.