So I was watching AC360 and the part I caught had a report of about 9 miles of Tar Balls on Pensacola Beach that washed up today.
One of the many links
and so it continues.
Anderson always interviews Billy Nungesser and for the first time I heard him straight up pissed at the Obama Admin. He has been very respectful and patient but to paraphrase him he stated that people all along the Gulf Coast are feeling that they are just lied to, given the run around, that Obama and his Admin have a huge problem with the bureaucrats running the show and not allowing people on the ground to do anything.
He referenced the comments by McChrystal and stated that if such a high ranking officer had those thoughts that there are plenty below him that feel the same way, he sounded on the verge of tears since one of their dredging operations to protect the wetlands was halted today.
Apparently NOW the Dept of Interior cares about the Barrier Islands, the argument was the dredging COULD possibly harm the remaining Barrier Islands. Although the sand they were dredging and moving they were planning on replacing and the oil is expected to hit that area Friday they are having to stop the dredging, build a pipeline for two miles to bring in different sand and then resume. By then those islands and inland will be oiled anyway so what's the point?
Apparently one lady was concerned about a certain island that was a nesting ground for the Pelicans. Billy pointed out that that island will be covered in oil if it hits the island and would destroy the nesting ground anyway. He stated he would PERSONALLY send pics to that lady of the dead pelicans and oil covered island that she helped to destroy as the berms would have protected that island.
So now the oil has hit Florida, the oil moratorium has been overruled at least for now, Lousiana's coast is pretty much trashed and it seems any time the locals try to do anything on their own they get quashed by either BP or the Feds.
The people on the ground in these states are going to be looking for accountability, for answers and for long term solutions and no one is giving them or the people that are trying are getting turned down. There was something mentioned in the segment with Billy tonight that some locals had instruments that they offered BP to help measure the spill and were turned away, then BP told the Feds and Billy that no such instruments existed.
The disgusting thing to all this is that NO ONE in DC seems to give a shit, and I am not talking about Obama in particular. There is NO sense of urgency on this from the Feds, they are quite happy to let BP flounder around and fuck things up. I know there is a law that states that the oil co. are supposed to clean up their own messes but obviously BP sucks at it. There needs to be SOMEONE with a spine that can declare this a National Emergency. Why hasn't even that been done? There has been no State of Emergency declared and there damn well should be. Local governments have declared it but why not the Feds? This should be considered a National Emergency as it will affect our economy, our food supply and our health for years to come. If the Gulf Coast economy tanks due to this it will be felt nationwide.
I guess I just cannot understand why more people and more resources are not being put out there. Why can't we mobilize the National Guards to help the clean up process, why can't the Feds hire the locals to clean up, give them good haz mat gear and have them do to it? Why not offer soldiers in the military emergency leave to come home and help clean up, lay boom or whatever. There are so many ways we could be attacking this round the clock and all you see on TV are a few groups of workers facing a Herculean Task.
It is just so disgusting to see no energy being channeled to protect our wetlands.
We spend billions of dollars to kill people in other countries and don't give a shit when our country is dying. Dems, Republicans, none of them care.
Two weeks into this spill Obama should have been diverting money from the war to the Gulf Coast, call it and emergency appropriations bill. How many of those have past to keep funding our pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Yet they cannot find a way to dedicate the same manpower and money to clean up and protect the Gulf.
American lives, American coastland and American jobs are meaningless to DC. All they care about is corporate money and keeping their corporate masters happy.
Chaos