A new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Journal reports the killifish, a small but abundant species found in Louisiana’s marshes was hurt severely by the spill and now is turning up deformed and may be unable to reproduce properly.

The scientists say the damages to the small fish are effecting the gills, intestines and cardiovascular organs, “They are essentially listless, the ones from the oiled sites,” said Fernando Galvez, a fish biologist at LSU. “These animals are hurting pretty badly.”

The problem of course being that along with the damage to this species, who knows what else is happening in the marshes and in the Gulf as a whole? Nobody can say for sure, nobody really knows, but one thing we do know is nothing in nature is isolated.

Nothing, no matter what Ken Feinberg might suggest, no matter what this could mean to the GCCF timetable. The GCCF compensation amounts were all based on a study (questioned even by the scientist who wrote it) which suggests the Gulf Coast will be fine by 2013, but reports such as this indicate otherwise. British Petroleum would like you to ignore these reports. Ken Feinberg would also like claimants to ignore these reports…oh, and continue signing those required no-sue waiver forms to free British Petroleum from any such yet to be discovered liabilities, you know down the road…by further studies months and years away from completion.

Sign on the dotted line and pay no attention to:

“We have done all this chemical testing of wildlife, seafood and water and the message has gone out that seafood from Louisiana is safe to eat,” said Andrew Whitehead, an LSU genome researcher who worked on the study. “The message is that the animals are out of the woods because they are not carrying a chemical burden. But when you ask the fish directly, when you look at their biology, they show that they have been exposed and that may be a problem for populations.”

Please accept our final offer and pay no attention to:

Galvez said their findings are similar to what scientists found after the Exxon-Valdez spill, where subtle but serious problems took several years before they were noticed by scientists.

You certainly don’t need to file those pesky interim claims, the Gulf is on the road to a rapid recovery, so rapid Ken Feinberg has hinted he may soon begin to lower compensation amounts, even lower than the already too-low final offers, so really, dear claimant, it’s very important you and your family pay no attention to:

Bernard Rees, a fish physiologist at the University of New Orleans, said the researchers had found an important link between oil contamination and possible physiological effects. He said the most troubling possibility for the long-term health of killifish was the chance that oil contamination harmed reproduction. He said that killifish are an important food source for other fish, including speckled trout and redfish, favorite species for sport fishers.

Pay no attention to this at all.

British Petroleum and their GCCF employee, Ken Feinberg would like all claimants to sign away their rights for future compensation, gamble with their futures, gamble that the incoming science is wrong, gamble they won’t get sick themselves…and why?

Why should all the claimants and people of the Gulf Coast have to gamble with their financial futures like this?

Simple, so British Petroleum, the oil company that spilled all the oil, that made all those promises…

So they won’t have to.

Read the article:

Gulf of Mexico oil spill hurt common Louisiana marsh fish, study finds

Have a nice day.