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Gulf Watchers Diary Schedule
Monday - evening drive time
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Friday - morning
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Good afternoon, Gulf Watchers. This morning as I scanned the news, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry over the Spill related news.
Just when we thought we were so over Tony Hayward and his whining, he gains dubious notoriety by tying with Christine O'Donnell's "I am not a witch" for "Quote of the Year".
The quote by O'Donnell, a tea party favorite running in Delaware, tied for first place with "I'd like my life back," the lament made in May by BP's CEO Tony Hayward after the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
"People resented the fact that he was wanting to get back to his yacht races and other aspects of his normal life when those little problems were dwarfed by the magnitude of what people on the Gulf Coast were dealing with," Shapiro said.
Shapiro noted that the top quotes stemmed from two of the biggest news stories of the year, the oil spill and the emergence of the tea party.
The original Yale Book of Quotations was published in 2006.
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You would think those academics at Yale would be busy solving the country's problems, wouldn't ya. I for one, and many of us, have looked at the immense and complex task that Kenneth Feinberg has in distributing money to victims of the BP spill disaster. Money given to the individual states has been politically distributed, while those working for the fishing industry, often working for cash, have gotten zilch since they have no documentation. This latest piece of news from the BP fund may just be the last straw for me personally.
Kenneth Feinberg, who administers the $20 billion fund formed by BP to compensate people for losses from the gulf oil spill, is offering what amounts to a signing bonus to entice more victims to give up their right to sue BP or other companies involved in the disaster.
People who have already received emergency payments and do not intend to ask for more money from the fund can sign the final release can get paid for doing so — individuals will receive $5,000 within 14 days of signing, Mr. Feinberg said, and businesses will get $25,000.
"Every single claimant will have a choice," he said. "They ought to fit the choice to their own situation."
A bonus or a bribe? You have just waited months to get pennies on the dollar from your original claim, you are struggling financially and you are guaranteed $5000 to arrive in 2 weeks? Oh, but you must promise not to be part of a lawsuit against BP, one small detail. I find it hard to believe that in a situation as dire as that of the Gulf this would even be legal. Some choice, Mr. Feinberg.
The Department of Justice urged Mr. Feinberg last month to clear its backlog of claims by Wednesday. Mr. Feinberg said his team had met that goal, paying about 164,000 claims out of more than 450,000 filed.
That means that more than 200,000 others were denied, mostly because of poor documentation or no documentation for their claims at all. Some 2,000 of the claims are "very suspicious," Mr. Feinberg said, and many of those have been referred to law enforcement agencies, which last week began issuing indictments.
So over 198,000 people received no compensation and are not likely to unless they can more carefully document their losses, a daunting task for some.
Mr. Feinberg said people who had been denied emergency claims would have the opportunity to gather more thorough documentation and file for permanent claims.
"One size does not fit all," he (Feinberg) said. "Every claimant should carefully consider your options."
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An strong endorsement of the Obama administration's moratorium on drilling appeared on the editorial page of today's NYT.
The oil industry, its lobbyists and its Congressional allies are predictably furious at the Obama administration’s decision not to allow exploratory oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the Atlantic coast. The decision was unquestionably the right one.
Given the disastrous oil spill in the central gulf, and industry’s inability to clean it up, one might have expected a little self-knowledge. Not from this crowd, which continues to lobby for more risky drilling instead of focusing all its energy on improving its capacity to prevent and respond to future blowouts.
The editorial does not defend the government lack of oversight, but quotes Commission chair William O'Reilly who pointed out that companies who invested billions in sophisticated drilling techniques,"devoted essentially nothing" to dealing with a spill of this magnitude.
It goes on to debunk industry claims that we need the oil for national security.
The industry and its well-paid allies say that delaying drilling will increase America’s dependence on foreign oil. That ignores a simple truth: A nation using one-quarter of the world’s oil while controlling only 3 percent of the world’s known reserves cannot drill its way to independence. The estimated 7.5 billion barrels the eastern gulf and Atlantic coast are thought to contain are just about what this country consumes in a year.
That’s still a lot of oil, and the acoustic studies that Interior is planning may reveal even more. But the country can wait until it’s sure that oil can be safely extracted. What it can’t afford is another massive spill
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A widow of a Deepwater Horizon rig worker
was interviewed on the Nate Barkus Show recently. Very touching, watching it makes the Gulf Watching all that more important for me.
Michelle Jones's husband, Gordon Jones, tragically died alongside 10 others when BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico this past April. Not only did she already have a two-year-old toddler at the time, but she was also nine months pregnant.
...
She admits that she hasn't received any type of closure, as her husband's body was never found. She laments, "There's no cemetery you can go to visit. He's on the rig, on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. How do I take the boys to go see their daddy?"
Her story is heartbreaking, but she is still managing to hold on. She remains optimistic when she says, "You can choose to be a victim or you can do something about it."
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News to lift your spirits this holiday season, Gulf residents helping each other through the Coastal Heritage Society of Louisiana. Started by two women in Plaquemines Parish, Vickie Manning Perrin and Joanne Hughes, joined by fisherman advocate Kindra Arnesen, they began raising money to provide food, gas cards and toys for needy residents.
Little did they realize how important their skeleton grassroots organization would become. Large charities have been decimated by years of recession, and local government budgets continue to be slashed. There there are few food and service support groups for desperate residents to turn to. Through CHSL, Vickie, Joannie and Kindra have become the lifeline for many out-of-work families in south Plaquemines and beyond.
Walk into Vickies comfortable wide trailer home in Jesuit Bend and you’ll see why. Boxes are piled high in the living room stuffed with canned goods, toys, footballs and anything else families may need for the holidays. Christmas bags with gifts are lined up on the floor. Donations have been trickling into CHSL from all over support their drive to buy toys and provide dinners for families this month. One woman sent a box of beautiful handmade dolls all the way from Australia.
It is well worth clicking on the link to see the pictures of these young women.
"I never thought I would be doing this," says Vickie, looking like a happy school girl wandering through a candy store. "The donations we have received have been incredible. The best thing about it is that everything we get goes straight to people who need it. And there are a lot of them."
Vickie, like her colleagues, works for free and has put plenty of her money and time into this effort. But the rewards are priceless. She shops at the Dollar Store and Wal-Mart, knowing every dollar saved means another toy or can of food for someone else. Yesterday, JJ Creppel came to pick up a box of food after Kindra dropped off a box of supplies for his daughter Jennifer and her six children. Jennifer worked last year part time helping fishermen, but so far she has received just $700 compensation from BP. After the oil spill, the fishing industry around here is on life support
Friday night there was a benefit held in New Orleans for the CHSL. Burlesque for the Bayou #2 was held for the second time since the spill to coastal residents.
Dancers including the Rev. Spooky LeStrange, Dorian Faust, Roulette Rose, Sparro D'Luxe and Lana Allure were joined by house band The Unnaturals; emcee Sharkey von Tiki and comedian Bobby Frilot. All donated their time and talents to help raise funds for the CHSL outreach
One of the most active groups in areas hit hard by the oil spill, CHSL is providing special holiday dinner care packages to the families in need, and toys and gifts for the the children in those families. The Coastal Heritage Society asked its friends in New Orleans dance, comedy and music to pitch in and raise funds for coastal residents, and this is the second time since the oil spill that Burlesque for the Bayou has come together.
Sounds like an organization that is certainly worth helping! CHSL website and how to help here
You could at least buy a T-shirt!
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Good news for those of us in the Northeast, well, at least New York State.
Governor Paterson vetos moratorium bill and demands a longer moratorium on drilling for natural gas using the technique of hydraulic fracturing.
On Saturday, Mr. Paterson vetoed legislation that would have placed a moratorium on drilling that uses a technique called hydraulic fracturing, which involves injecting millions of gallons of chemically treated water underground to crush shale and release the gas inside. Instead, he issued an executive order instituting a longer moratorium that extended until July 1, 2011, but that more narrowly defined the types of drilling to be restricted.
In apparent contradiction of the laws of physics, both the gas industry and the environmentalists seemed pleased
The importance of this is that it is the first time a state has ever set a moratorium on drilling.
Beneath the surface, things were not so balmy. The industry deems any moratorium unnecessary and misguided. Environmentalists were almost as hyperbolic about what they did not like — allowing vertical rather than the more obtrusive horizontal hydrofracking in emerging gas fields upstate — as they were about what they did.
Still, the basic dynamic showed two things: the future of gas drilling in New York remains up for grabs, and the issue has now been tossed into the lap of the incoming governor, Andrew M. Cuomo.
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Economic and environmental doubts are unlikely to derail drilling in the Marcellus Shale, the rich gas fields in New York, Pennsylvania and nearby states. But industry critics say they are an argument for going slow and ensuring best practices in drilling to avoid some of the environmental degradation experienced across the border in Pennsylvania.
PLEASE visit Pam LaPier's diary to find out how you can help the Gulf now and in the future. We don't have to be idle! And thanks to Crashing Vor and Pam LaPier for working on this!
Previous Gulf Watcher diaries:
The last Mothership has links to reference material.
Previous motherships and ROV's from this extensive live blog effort may be found here.
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