New Oil Spill Site Puts Thousands of Confidential
Documents Online
WASHINGTON - April 20 - Thousands of internal documents
relating
to last year’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have been uploaded to a
new website which aims to help local communities file compensation
claims and discover the true causes of the disaster.
The new ‘Polluter Watch Research’ website, which is operated by
Greenpeace, allows users to search approximately 30,000 pages of
previously unseen documents obtained under Freedom of Information laws.
These include internal government correspondence with BP, evidence of
conflict between scientists and officials and even flight records from
pilots operating in the region.
Commenting on the documents Kert Davies, research director at Greenpeace USA
said
“Both BP and the federal government tried to hide the true impacts of
the biggest oil disaster in American history. We’re hoping that the
PolluterWatch research site can help expose how they did it and allow
local people to get the compensation they deserve.
“The fact is this kind of event will happen again unless our leaders
realize what happened here and start to get tough with big oil and
serious about clean, renewable energy instead.”
The Gulf Restoration Network, a local group focused on working for
restoration and protection of the Gulf environment and communities, is
today calling on its members to log on to the website and begin the
process of sifting the evidence.
“Since the BP oil disaster began, the public has often been misled or
left in the dark. By bringing all these documents to light, there is a
great opportunity to tell the true story of BP’s impact on the Gulf and
the failure of government to effectively respond,” said Aaron Viles,
Deputy Director of the Gulf Restoration Network.
A fraction of the documents released today have already been analyzed by
Greenpeace researchers. Highlights include how:
· An infamous government claim about the spill’s impact was
hotly contested by the scientists involved who flatly state “it is not
accurate to say that 75% of the oil is gone”.
· Government officials, to the dismay of qualified experts,
seriously underplayed the oil’s impact on marine life including turtle
populations.
· BP appears to have been in sole charge of issuing permits to
trained scientists wishing to access affected areas as the disaster
unfolded.
The website allows people to sift though the documents by subject and
flag any that they believe could show evidence of misconduct. These can
be downloaded directly or sent for further examination by Greenpeace
researchers.
The site also includes instructions on how the public can enter
formal requests themselves, in an attempt to add further transparency to
the government’s handling of the disaster.
The website will be added to as more FOIA documents are received. It can be
viewed at http://www.polluterwatch.org/research
###
Independent campaigning organization that uses
non-violent,
creative confrontation to expose global environmental problems, and to
force solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future.
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/04/20-4
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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