BP's Insidious Coverup and Propaganda Campaign: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Global Research, August 9, 2010
Dahr Jamail's Dispatch - 2010-07-08
Since
BP announced that CEO Tony Hayward would receive a multi-million dollar
golden parachute and be replaced by Bob Dudley, we have witnessed an
incredibly broad, and powerful, propaganda campaign. A campaign that
peaked this week with the US government, clearly acting in BP’s best
interests, itself announcing, via outlets willing to allow themselves to
be used to transfer the propaganda, like the New York Times,
this message: “The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that
three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already
evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that
much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much
additional risk of harm.”
The
Times was accommodating enough to lead the story with a nice photo of a
fishing boat motoring across clean water with several birds in the
foreground.
This
message was disseminated far and wide, via other mainstream media
outlets like the AP and Reuters, effectively announcing to the masses
that despite the Gulf of Mexico suffering the largest marine oil
disaster in US history, most of the oil was simply “gone.”
Thus, it’s only what is on the surface that counts. If you can’t see it, there
is not a problem.
This kind of government cover-up is nothing new, of course.
“It
is well known that after the Chernobyl accident, the Soviet government
immediately did everything possible to conceal the fact of the accident
and its consequences for the population and the environment: it issued
“top secret” instructions to classify all data on the accident,
especially as regards the health of the affected population,” journalist
Alla Yaroshinskaya has written.
In
1990 Yaroshinskaya came across documents about the Chernobyl nuclear
catastrophe that revealed a massive state cover-up operation, coupled
with a calculated policy of disinformation where the then Soviet Union’s
state and party leadership knowingly played down the extent of the
contamination and offered a sanitized version to the public, both in and
out of Russia. To date, studies continue to show ongoing human and
environmental damage from that disaster.
When
the disaster at Chernobyl occurred, it was only after radiation levels
triggered alarms at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden that the
Soviet Union admitted an accident had even occurred. Even then,
government authorities immediately began to attempt to conceal the scale
of the disaster.
Sound familiar?
In
late April, after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank into the
depths and the Macondo well began gushing oil, BP and the complicit
Coast Guard announced no oil was being released.The Gulf Restoration
Network flew
out to the scene and saw massive amounts of oil and sounded the alarm,
which forced BP and the US government to admit there was, indeed, oil.
Such has the trend of BP/US Government lying, countered by (sometimes)
forced accountability, then to more lying, been set.
These
most recent, and most blatant of the BP/US Government propaganda gems
are easily undermined by countless facts. Reality and truth always,
given time, find a way to surface…just like BP’s dispersed oil.
Two captains of so-called “vessels of opportunity” helping with the cleanup
recently told Times-Picayune reporter Bob Marshall that they saw more oil at
South Pass on Tuesday than they have during the entire crisis.
“I
don’t know where everyone else is looking, but if they think there’s no
more oil out there, they should take a ride with me,” charter captain
Mike Frenette said.
Another
captain, Don Sutton, saw floating tar balls for 15 miles from South
Pass to Southwest Pass. “And that wasn’t all we saw. There were patches
of oil in that chocolate mousse stuff, slicks and patches of grass with
oil on them,’” he said.
Yesterday
I spoke with Clint Guidry, a Louisiana fisherman who is on the Board of
Directors of the Louisiana Shrimp Association and the Shrimp Harvester
Representative on the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force created by Executive
Order of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.
“Right now, there is more oil in Barataria Bay than there has been since this
whole thing started on April 20,” Guidry told me.
BP
oil is now turning up under the shells of post-larval blue crabs all
across the northern Gulf of Mexico. Nearly all the crab larvae collected
to date by researchers, from Grand Isle, Louisiana all the way over to
Pensacola, Florida, have oil under their shells. Further analysis is
showing that the crabs likely also contain BP’s Corexit dispersant.
On August 5th it was reported that
a pair of fishermen in Mississippi “made an alarming discovery that has
many wondering what’s happening below the surface” of the Gulf of
Mexico. They found several full-sized crabs filled with oil.
In
Hancock County, Mississippi, Brian Adam, the EMA director, reported,
“We’re still seeing tar balls everyday, and I’m not talking just a few
tar balls. We’re seeing a good amount everyday on the beaches.”
According
to Adam, a rock jetty near Waveland became covered in one thousand
pounds of tar balls in only three days time. Keith Ladner, owner of Gulf
Shores Sea Products and a longtime supplier of seafood, said this of
some full-sized crabs he found near the mouth of Bay St. Louis: “You
could tell it was real slick and dark in color so I grabbed it, and
opened the back of the crab, and you could see in the ‘dead man’ or the
lungs of the crabs…you could see the black.”
The
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) report from
Wednesday claims that 33 percent of BP’s oil in the Gulf has been either
burned, skimmed, dispersed, or directly recovered by cleanup
operations. NOAA goes on to claim that another 25 percent has evaporated
into the atmosphere or dissolved in the water, and another 16 percent
has been naturally dispersed. Of the remaining 26 percent, NOAA claims
that amount is either washed ashore, been collected from beaches, is
buried along the coasts, or is still on or just below the surface.
University of South Florida chemical oceanographer David Hollander says these
estimates are “ludicrous.” Of the NOAA report, Hollander says, “It’s almost
comical.”
Other scientists also immediately expressed their doubts of the validity of the
NOAA report, whiletoxicologists expect to be busy tracking the effects of BP’s
toxic dispersants “for years.”
Giant
plumes of BP’s sub-surface dispersed oil are floating around the Gulf
of Mexico, as confirmed recently by researchers from the University of
South Florida.
It was also recently revealed that
the worst dead zone in 25 years has been recorded in Gulf of Mexico
waters. Of course it’s likely a given that this is due to BP’s liberal
use of dispersants.
“To
judge from most media coverage, the beaches are open, the fishing
restrictions being lifted and the Gulf resorts open for business in a
healthy, safe environment,” environmental activist Jerry Cope wrote recently,
“We, along with Pierre LeBlanc, spent the last few weeks along the Gulf
coast from Louisiana to Florida, and the reality is distinctly
different. The coastal communities of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama,
and Florida have been inundated by the oil and toxic dispersant Corexit
9500, and the entire region is contaminated. The once pristine white
beaches that have been subject to intense cleaning operations now
contain the oil/dispersant contamination to an unknown depth. The
economic impacts potentially exceed even the devastation of a major
hurricane like Katrina, the adverse impacts on health and welfare of
human populations are increasing every minute of every day and the
long-term effects are potentially life threatening.”
Cope continued:
“In
May, Mother Nature Network blogger Karl Burkart received a tip from an
anonymous fisherman-turned-BP contractor in the form of a distressed
text message, describing a near-apocalyptic sight near the location of
the sunken Deepwater Horizon — fish, dolphins, rays, squid, whales, and
thousands of birds – “as far as the eye can see,” dead and dying.
According to his statement, which was later confirmed by another report
from an individual working in the Gulf, whale carcasses were being
shipped to a highly guarded location where they were processed for
disposal.”
“Local
fisherman in Alabama report sighting tremendous numbers of dolphins,
sharks, and fish moving in towards shore as the initial waves of oil and
dispersant approached in June. Many third- and fourth-generation
fishermen declared emphatically that they had never seen or heard of any
similar event in the past. Scores of animals were fleeing the leading
edge of toxic dispersant mixed with oil. Those not either caught in the
toxic mixture and killed out at sea, or fortunate enough to be out in
safe water beyond the Source, died as the water closed in, and they were
left no safe harbor. The numbers of birds, fish, turtles, and mammals
killed by the use of Corexit will never be known as the evidence
strongly suggests that BP worked with the Coast Guard, the Department of
Homeland Security, the FAA, private security contractors, and local law
enforcement, all of which cooperated to conceal the operations
disposing of the animals from the media and the public.”
Cope added, “The Gulf of Mexico from the Source into the shore is a giant kill
zone.”
Earlier
this week, marine biologist, toxicologist and Exxon Valdez survivor Dr.
Riki Ott took a flight over southern Louisiana. Here’s some of what she
wrote about it:
“Bay
Jimmy on the northeast side of Barataria Bay was full of oil. So was
Bay Baptiste, Lake Grande Ecaille, and Billet Bay. Sitting next to me
was Mike Roberts, a shrimper with Louisiana Bayoukeepers, who has grown
up in this area. His voice crackled over the headset as I strained to
hold the window. “I’ve fished in all these waters - everywhere you can
see. It’s all oiled. This is the worst I’ve seen. This is a
heart-break…”
“We
followed thick streamers of black oil and ribbons of rainbow sheen from
Bay Baptiste and Bay Jimmy south across Barataria Bay through Four
Bayou Pass and into the Gulf of Mexico. The ocean’s smooth surface
glinted like molten lead in the late afternoon sun. Oil. As far as we
could see: Oil.”
“When
we landed after our 2-hour flight, our pilot told us that she sometimes
has to wipe an oily reddish film off the leading edges of her plane’s
wings after flying over the Gulf. Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathem
documented similar oily films on planes he chartered for Gulf
over-flights. Bonnie doesn’t wear gloves when she wipes her plane. She
showed me her hands — red rash, blisters, and peeling palms.
If
peeling palms are an indication of the oil-solvent stew, the reddish
film on Bonnie’s plane and others means that the stew is not only in the
Gulf, it is in the rain clouds above the Gulf. And in the middle of
hurricane season, this means the oil-solvent mix could rain down
anywhere across the Gulf.”
Dean
Blanchard, one of the most important seafood purchasers in Louisiana,
recently attended a Town Hall Meeting with a BP representative in Grand
Isle, Louisiana.
In the meeting, Blanchard stands up and addresses the BP representative at
length.
“Ya’ll
didn’t give me enough money to pay my bills. I can show you. For the
electric bill and everything. What I’ve collected from BP, so far since
this started, is less than what I paid out in bills. And I’ve cut my
things down to rock bottom. But how do you expect a man to live on less
than 10 percent of what I was projected to make? I don’t believe there’s
anybody in this country who could pay their bills with just 10 percent
of their check. We borrowed money preparing for shrimping season and
this happened at the worst possible time.”
Blanchard
added, “I ain’t got no job, and no money, and Mr. Hayward gets $18
million and a new job. That’s hard to take. Let me tell you. Very, very
hard to take.”
I
should point out that from my first days Louisiana, I’ve been hearing
from fishermen working on BP’s clean-up operations that BP is using
night flights to drop dispersant on oiled bays. I’ve seen video taken by
fishermen of a white-foamy substance in the marsh the morning after
these flights took place.
Blanchard
went on to say that he felt that BP did not want to clean up the oil,
that it was more cost effective for them to leave it in the water than
to clean it up, and then mocked the preposterous government claim that
most of the oil is gone because you cannot see it from the air.
The
BP rep, Jason, clearly nervous, later responds by saying, “We are doing
over-flights, our task forces are looking for oil each day. We have a
communications room where they are able to call in sightings of oil,
from the boats, from the task forces. There is…I understand the anger
and I understand the frustration. A couple of things that Dean said I
have to take exception to. We do want to clean up this oil. I can
understand frustration. I can understand seeing certain people getting
certain amounts of money and some of the things that people see. But
someone is going to have to explain to me why BP would not want to clean
up this oil.”
Blanchard
had clearly heard enough of BP’s propaganda. To the representatives’
request to have someone explain to him why BP would not want to clean up
the oil, Blanchard angrily obliged:
“Because
it’s more cost effective for ya’ll to come at night and sink the
son-of-a-bitch! When the oil’s coming around, they call ya’ll, they tell
ya’ll where the oil’s at, and the first thing ya’ll do is tell them to
go the other way, ya’ll send the planes, and ya’ll fucking sink it!
[Spray dispersants from the air] That’s what ya’ll are doing, come on
man!” He sits back down angrily. “Let’s quit playing over here and tell
the truth. Ya’ll are sinking the oil, Jason! You know ya’ll are sinking
it. You know what ya’ll are doing. Ya’ll are sending all the boats,
you’re putting them all in a group at night, we all hear the planes, and
the next morning there’s nothing but white bubbles! What do you think,
we’re stupid? We’re not stupid! Ya’ll are putting the oil on the bottom
of my fishing grounds! Ya’ll not only messing me up now, ya’ll are
messing me up for the rest of my life! I ain’t gonna live long enough to
buy anymore shrimp!”
The
lives of Gulf coast fishermen and residents are being destroyed.
Scientists, environmentalists, and toxicologists are describing the Gulf
of Mexico as a growing dead zone, a kill zone, and an energy sacrifice
zone. As you read this, oil is everywhere around southeastern Louisiana,
and continually washing ashore in Alabama and Mississippi.
Meanwhile,
Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer, announced Friday that the
company may not give up on its claims on the Macondo well. “There’s lots
of oil and gas here,” he said, “We’re going to have to think about what to do
with that at some point.”
Of
this, Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro said it’s
no secret that BP wants to drill again. In fact, he said, it has been
part of his conversations with BP since the oil crisis began.
Let us be clear about who, and what, we are dealing with here.
Dahr Jamail is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research
Articles by Dahr Jamail
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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